Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: As parents, we all have a dream for our kids. And yet there's times when they make decisions and they get on the wrong path and it breaks our heart. I want you to know that that happens to us as Christians as well, and you have a heavenly Father that wants to stop you, help you turn around, and help you experience the life that's really life. Don't miss this message.

Dave Druey: Authentic community: Can it really exist? Where someone knows the real you, the struggles, the doubts, the failures, and doesn't condemn but supports? Well, I'm Dave Druey, and today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram discusses God's dream for your life.

Using Romans chapter 12, Chip shows us what normal Christianity looks like when lived out in relationship with other believers and with those hostile to the gospel. If you've ever wondered how to experience genuine community or overcome the raw deals life throws at you, stay tuned. Well, here's Chip with today's message, "God's Dream for Your Life."

Chip Ingram: Our heavenly Father has a dream for every one of His children. And God's dream is to make you like His—write the word—Son. God gives us a very clear picture of what His dream is for your life in Romans chapter 12. God's desire, God's will for every single follower is that they would become a Romans 12 Christian.

Follow along, if you will. Notice what it says in verse 1. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship." And that answers one of the biggest questions that you ever face in your life. And that question is this: How do you give God what He wants the most? And you know what you're going to learn? He wants you. He wants you.

My observation is in most Christians' life, there's a missing ingredient. And the missing ingredient in most Christians' lives is power. We're anemic. If your life isn't surrendered, you don't experience His power. Becoming a Romans 12 Christian begins in your relationship with God by being surrendered to Him.

But notice beginning in verse 2, it says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is—that which is good and pleasing and perfect." You know the question, the big question in life this verse answers? How do you get the very best from God?

Verse 1 answers, "How do you give God what He really wants?" Verse 2 says, "If God really loves me and He died for me and He rose from the dead and He has a plan for my life, how do you tap into that?" We'll explain from this verse exactly how it works. And the missing ingredient I find in the great majority of Christians that I talk to is not just lack of power because of an unsurrendered life, but a lack of peace.

Beginning in verse 3 and through 8, we learn that in our relationship to ourselves, God desires a sober self-assessment. Notice the little phrase: "For by the grace of God I say to every man among you, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but think as to have sound or sober judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith."

In the sovereignty of God, He wants you to have an accurate, sober view of yourself. God wants you to see yourself the way He sees you—dearly loved, forgiven. And you know the big question this answers? "How do you come to grips with the real you?" This section will teach you how to come to grips with the real you, and then it supplies the missing ingredient.

Verse 1 supplies the power when you understand it. Verse 2 supplies the peace. And verse 3 supplies your purpose. Because see, God made you specifically. You are His workmanship; you're created in Christ Jesus unto a good work, which before the foundations of the earth. So guess what? He's gifted you to do something specific.

Do you know how freeing it is to understand, "This is why I'm here. My purpose is this. And this is what I'm good at, and this is what I'm not good at. This is where I need help, and this is where I need to step out and let God use me." It's revolutionary. It's absolutely revolutionary.

I have a good friend over in Santa Cruz and he was a fellow entrepreneur. He ran half of the United States of one of those really giant companies and saw that he was kind of losing touch with his family and the travel, and so he decided that he would start a business of his own. So he developed about 26 of these stores around that were kind of like Jo-Ann's or Michaels, but he called it by his wife's name, which I thought was very nice.

And he became a mentor of mine. I spent a lot of time, and he would help me. I was teaching through—sort of in the infant stages of my journey—about a sober self-assessment, and part of that understanding what your primary spiritual gift is. And he went through that.

And you know what? People are people and in his world—okay, he was a good business guy, he became very successful. When you're very successful in business, he made a lot of money. So there he was a good leader and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because his whole like 25 years of church experience was sitting on committees in meetings where everyone wanted to talk about money and then counting money afterwards. And if there was ever a capital campaign, Dick, you do it.

And he said, "I hated it all." And we went through a journey and he discovered his spiritual gift. And he discovered what he likes to do is launch things. And what he likes to do is equip people. And what he likes to do is bring together networks.

And so he said, "You know what? I just decided I'm not going to be on any more boards." This was a spiritual decision. He said, "This is what I'm going to do." And he actually was the one that launched Living on the Edge. It was his idea. He's the guy that got it going.

And I could now tell you four or five, six, seven, eight different ministries he's launched and he just says there's such joy when you figure out how God made you and you fulfill your purpose. Do you know yours? Do you realize how so much of Christendom is like people got like another job? And often a job you don't like and you're actually not doing very well at? That's not true spirituality.

True spirituality is relational. It's practical. It's measurable. It's normal people like us that are surrendered to God on a day where we actually cross that line and then progressively we're separate from the world's values. And then we develop a sober self-assessment and we start to discover our purpose and why we're here, and it actually gets downright exciting.

The fourth thing you see is that its relationship with believers is serving in love. True spiritual maturity is, "Love must be sincere"—and the word literally is without a mask or without hypocrisy. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And then the rest of that passage, we'll unpack and it'll talk about honoring one another and giving preference to one another.

And it's really about people that actually know each other and like each other and sacrifice for one another and pray for one another and do whatever it takes to help one another. And it's like doing life in community. But you serve in love, but it's real love. It's not a meeting I go to. It's not, "Okay, we made it three out of four times this month, I'm feeling really good about that checkbox. I read the Bible four times this week."

It's so different when it's a relationship with this God who loves you so much and you open His word with a sense of holy trembling that He would so love and want to speak to you today. And He would love to hear what's on your mind and on your heart.

And actually His Spirit lives inside of these other people called other fellow Christians, and He's deposited gifts in them. And He wants to hug you through them, and He wants to love you through them, and He wants to hold you accountable through them. He wants to encourage you through them. And are you ready? He wants you to do that right back.

And there's this amazing thing. In the early church, remember what Jesus said? "A new commandment I give unto you"—to the early disciples, John 13—"that you love one another." How? "Just as I've loved you. By this"—not by buildings, not by external morality—"by this the world will know that the Father has sent me: by how you love one another."

And this section of true spirituality from Romans 12 answers the question that we all struggle with: How do I experience authentic community? Boy, there's so many lonely people. I don't mean just being in a group. I don't mean just being a member of something.

I mean, how do I experience where there's someone or two or three in my life that I can unzip my heart and I can risk putting it out there and I can tell them things and I won't be condemned and they'll support me and love me? And when I'm going through a horrendous time, they'll be there for me and they know I'd be there for them.

Are you ready? Having some friends who would literally—not figuratively, not metaphorically—friends who would die for you. That's authentic community. And I'll tell you what, when you get around people that love each other like that, it's powerful. You know what's missing in most Christians' lives? It's not just power. It's not just purpose. You know what's missing in most Christians' lives? Experiencing God's presence.

Somehow it's like we do these things and we hope God will do this and like He's out there somewhere, somehow, someway. Do you know God's primary plan apart from when you read His word or you're talking to Him or meditating? Do you know His primary way to manifest His presence? It's through other Christians.

I mean, if an angel comes at the middle of the night at the foot of your bed tonight, go for it, tell me about it later. And if he hugs you and fixes you a meal and says, "Tell me what's really going on inside, because I really want to hear, because I really care," God bless you.

But for 99.9% of all the rest of us, you know how Jesus is going to show up in your life? He's going to show up in the body of another person—a man or a woman or a fellow student—where there's kind of this chemistry and this safety and this love and you're devoted to one another in brotherly love. And you give preference to one another in honor, and you do life together.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We're halfway through today's message, so don't go anywhere just yet. Today's insightful lesson comes from our series called "God's Dream for Your Life."

Want to dig deeper into these truths? Well, the full series is ready for you online at livingontheedge.org. You'll discover extra teaching content, downloadable materials, and discussion guides to take you further. Find it all at livingontheedge.org. Well, now let's rejoin Chip with today's message.

Chip Ingram: The final portion of becoming a Romans 12 Christian isn't just your relationship with God or your relationship with the world or yourself or believers, but the evil in the world. Relationships with nonbelievers that are hostile to the gospel and unfortunately sometimes relationships with believers that are evil and hostile toward you. But it's supernaturally responding to evil with good.

Here the Apostle Paul, you can hear him just reaching into the Sermon on the Mount by the Spirit of God. "Bless those who persecute you; bless and curse not. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God; vengeance is mine, I will repay. If your enemy's hungry, what do you do? Feed him. If your enemy's thirsty, what do you do? Give him a drink. Do not be overcome with evil."

See, we're humans. Evil is going to come into all of our lives on your little journey on this earth. Some of you have had more than others. You're going to get ripped off, you're going to get betrayed, you're going to have mates walk out on you. You're going to have kids say terrible things to you. You're going to tell people who you've loaned them money and they promised to pay it back and guess what? They're not going to.

And there's evil that's sort of systemic. You can love God with all your heart, guess what? Christians that love God with all their heart get cancer. They get hit by drunk drivers. They get swooped into down economies and lose their homes and they've been faithful with their finances. Evil is coming your way.

So what's true spirituality? What I love about what God says, true spirituality is how the Spirit of God lives the life of Christ out in relationship with my heavenly Father, with the world, with myself, with believers, and then with unbelievers when the raw deals are coming my way. The question it answers is, "How do you overcome the evil aimed at you?" And the thing that most Christians—listen carefully—most Christians have missing in their life is perspective.

We all could probably take out a three-by-five card or get out your mobile device and press the little app where it says notes and we could probably all list four or five people that used to walk with God that don't walk with God now. After their mate walked out on them. After the car wreck. After they got ripped off at work, right?

See, there's a reason that almost 25% of the book of Genesis is dedicated to the life of Joseph. Because Joseph is a picture of true spirituality of how do you respond at the evil aimed at you. And it wasn't easy and he was betrayed, falsely accused, forgotten, sold. But that little phrase "the Lord was with Joseph."

And do you know what Joseph had? Perspective. Joseph kind of took—even though they didn't have them in those days—follow it, Joseph took the helicopter of spiritual perspective. And in those days in prison or falsely accused, he just kept taking that helicopter up really, really, really high and looking at all of that and saying, "You know something? There's a sovereign God that either decreed or allowed this and He loves me and I don't know how it's going to work out."

"But if I don't bail out and trust Him, He'll work it for my good and He'll do in me and through me what could never happen. And so I refuse to be bitter, I refuse to not forgive, I refuse to become a victim, I refuse to let the world shape me. I will trust my God because I have perspective." And he would say to his brothers at the very end of the book, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."

If all those difficult things wouldn't have happened, he would have not been the second most powerful person in all the world and he would have not saved the Jewish nation. And God has a game plan and you have a Joseph story to live out. It'll be a big one for some, a smaller one for others.

Are you starting to catch what true spirituality is all about? It's about relationships. It's measurable. I mean, you can measure: Am I surrendered? Am I separate from the world's values? Do I have a sober self-assessment? Am I serving in love? Am I supernaturally responding to evil with good? And then it helps you ask and answer those questions.

And little by little, as we walk through this together, you will begin to experience as you trust and obey by faith: God's power, God's peace, God's purpose, God's presence, and God's perspective. And that's why I'm so excited.

And you know what I love about this? Guess whose book we got this out of? This text? It's just the Bible, it's true. What Jesus said to them, He said to us. If you abide in my word—and that word just means if you take it in for the purpose of apply it by faith—then you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free.

As you turn over the notes, I want to close with this one very important perspective. There is a danger on our journey. Like every journey, there's dangers. But there's a danger on our journey to begin to very subtly begin to think that sort of the R12 journey or the Romans 12 journey is like a moral code and a set of bars to live up to. "Okay, I'm going to be surrendered, I'm going to be separate, sober self-assessment—I think I got that down. I'm going to serve in love and let's see, I can't even remember the last one, supernaturally respond to something with something."

And you can turn it into the very thing we're trying to avoid. And so I want to remind you that true spirituality has nothing to do with living a good life so that God will love you. True spirituality has everything to do with beginning to grasp the height and depth and length and breadth of how much God has already loved you, has demonstrated that love, and you living out of the freedom of that love.

And so I just put the little chart of the entire book of Romans. What did He do? Chapters 1 through 3: All of us fall short of the glory of God. We sugarcoat this. This isn't just being not a nice person. We have sinned. We betrayed God. We're people that have committed treason and He's holy. And His just wrath is upon us for what we have done.

And that's the problem. In chapters 4 and 5, there's a solution. The solution to sin is salvation. Jesus—fully man, fully God—lived a perfect life, died upon the cross to pay for your sin and rose from the dead and offers a free gift to whosoever would believe and receive it.

Chapters 6 through 8 goes on to talk about how this new life is lived and He didn't leave us alone. It wasn't a moral code, try hard. He said the Spirit of the living God in the New Covenant will take up residence inside your mortal body. After He takes you out of the kingdom of darkness, He places you in the kingdom of light, and His Spirit takes up residence.

And the living presence of Christ and the power of Christ by the word of God and the community of God's people births—literally Paul talks about in—until Christ is formed in you. And that's called sanctification. And it's a journey and often it's two steps forward and three back, then four steps forward, but you grow.

And then finally, he reminded them that God always keeps His promises. So chapters 9 through 11, His promises to the Jews will be fulfilled but they fumbled the ball in terms of their responsibility as a blesser and an instrument of God. And so he says, "I'm going to take them out of the game and I will fulfill everything I made promises to Abraham and to David. But the church is going to be my agent of blessing until I call timeout and bring the very final days of history to a close."

And after 11 chapters of regardless of where you've been, God loves you, died for you, puts His Spirit inside of you, and will keep every promise, therefore I urge you, brothers to what? Offer your bodies a living sacrifice. Have you ever placed your faith in Christ personally to forgive your sin?

Because what I've seen over and over is people just unconsciously think I'm trying hard to be this good person and it's interesting and they begin to experience some change. But what sometimes they never realize is you need on a certain day at a certain time to be born from above, or to be born again.

And that's back in chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4 and where you come to God on a day like today and you just honestly admit, "God, I need your help. I've violated a holy God today. I believe your blood paid for my sin and your resurrection proved it's true. And on this day, I want to ask you to come into my life forever, to forgive me and to be my Father." And if you've never done that, that's the smartest, wisest, best thing you'll ever do.

Dave Druey: This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, in a message from our series called "God's Dream for Your Life." Today Chip showed us what Romans 12 Christianity looks like—experiencing God's presence through authentic community and responding supernaturally to evil. Chip will be back with one final word in just a moment.

Friend, for over 30 years Living on the Edge has been committed to one mission: helping believers understand what it truly means to follow Jesus. Not religious activity, not trying harder, but relational, practical, measurable Christianity that transforms every area of life.

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Chip Ingram: What we've described, this dream, is really normal Christianity. I mean, if you had a video camera and you could in the first 30 years of the church sort of just walk around, like Peter and then later the Apostle Paul and James and John and the boys, what you would have seen as thousands of people came to Christ in the midst of a very difficult culture and opposition and persecution, what you would have seen is them by the power of God living surrendered lives, combating the idols of their world and being separate from the world and accurately discovering who God made them to be, radically serving one another.

It's just amazing what happened in the early church. And if we could take that camera through the centuries of church history, what we've described in the last two days is simply what it means to be a genuine follower of Jesus. And so could I ask you, where are you at? Which of these five relationships do you need to say, "Lord, I need your help here. I want to be a follower of Jesus. I want your dream to be a reality in my heart, my life, my relationships." Let me ask you, will you ask God to give you clear direction and then join me in our next broadcast as we continue this journey together?

Dave Druey: I'm Dave Druey and we'll see you next time as we continue our series called "God's Dream for Your Life" Monday on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.