Living on the Edge

Dave Druey: Do you find yourself repeating the same old sin? You know, the one that seems impossible to kick? You try harder and harder and yet you just feel guiltier and guiltier, but there doesn't seem to be an answer. And you're just about ready to give up. Stop. Don't give up. There's hope. You can break out of that. And today, I want to show you from God's word how you can have victory beginning today. Stay with me.

Have you ever tried to change something about yourself through sheer willpower, only to end up right back where you started? Well, Chip Ingram says that's because most of us are missing a step. And today, he lays out exactly what it is. I'm Dave Druey, and today on Living on the Edge, we're continuing our series called Free at Last: How to Break Out of a Destructive Lifestyle. Open your Bible to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 17, and let's join Chip Ingram with his message titled, "How to Break Out of a Destructive Cycle."

Chip Ingram: Let's read the whole passage to get an overview. He says, "So I tell you this, and I insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They're darkened in their understanding and they're separated from the life of God. Well, why? Because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. As a result, having lost all sensitivity, they've given themselves over to sensuality as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more."

But you, however, did not come to know Christ that way, speaking of their conversion. "Surely, you have heard of him and you were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus." And then he reminds them of what he taught them. "You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

And three very specific truths flow out of this passage. Truth number one is this: as believers, our lives must be progressively—underline the word progressively—it doesn't mean you're perfect. Progressively characterized by moral purity. Notice verse 17. He says, "So I tell you and I insist upon that you must no longer live," and circle the word live and write above it walk. That's our word. In other words, it's a process, it's a journey. You must not walk as the Gentiles do. In other words, as unbelievers.

And then he gives the reason why. Why is that so important? The second truth is an immoral lifestyle is inconceivable for us as believers. In other words, look in verse 20. He says, "You, however, didn't come to know"—that's in a punctiliar time. He's talking about your conversion. He goes, "That was before. That's for people that aren't in Christ. But you, you didn't come to know Christ in that way."

See, the issue of sin—it's like just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're not going to sin anymore. It just means that your sins have been forgiven and it means the power has been broken. You don't have to sin anymore. But when you sin, what it does is it separates you in your fellowship with your heavenly Father. And so the issue isn't about just these external behaviors. There's lots of people saying, "I'm going to start doing that, I'm going to stop doing that." I try hard, fail. Try hard, fail.

It's not until your mind gets renewed and you realize, "I'm breaking God's heart. I'm a son, I'm a daughter." The issue is your identity. And an immoral lifestyle contradicts who you are. But it also contradicts who Jesus is. Jesus was not someone who sinned. Jesus was someone who loved. Jesus is someone who's pure, in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.

So if externally trying to keep these rules isn't at the heart of the new life, how do you become transformed? How does it really work? He's going to give us the general outline in verses 22 to 24. And he's going to say there's a three-fold principle of renewal. Three specific principles that progressively, yes, at a point in time you're justified. God fills you with the Spirit. He forgives your sin. He declares you, he sits you in the heavenly places.

He says now there's a journey of walking. We achieve personal purity by following God's threefold principle of transformation. Number one, we put off the old. For some of us, you've come to Christ and you struggle with an addiction to alcohol, or codependency, or drugs. For some of us, you have an addiction to pleasing people or you find your worth in work.

And it says at a certain point you need to make a decision and you say, "I drink every night after dinner because there's this stuff going on inside of me, and it used to be just an occasional glass of wine, but I can't not do it. And it went from an occasional glass of wine to a few margaritas, and then it went from that to a shot of Jack Daniels really kind of helps you sleep better." And you've had friends and people talk to you and say, "Hey honey, I think that's an issue." And you say, "I'm just social. I've got this freedom in Christ." And you do.

But if a number of people are saying that you have a drinking problem, here's all I would say: just don't drink anything for the next seven days. "Oh, I could do that." Okay, do it. Bet you can't. But here's the issue. The focus isn't try hard, stop drinking. Try hard, get off the internet. Try hard, quit pleasing people. It's a decision to realize, "I'm going to take that off. That can't fill me."

And then notice the second one: have your mind renewed. You've got to think differently. You need to see yourself as a son. You need to realize, "Okay, for me, I had to say I'm going to stop working crazy hours and put a box around it." And in people-pleasing, I had to set some boundaries and say, "I'm going to eat dinner at home on a regular basis. I'm not going to get with people until I get with God. I'm only going to work x number of hours a week."

For some of you, it's, "You know what? I'm going to stop smoking weed, even though I know it's illegal, it kind of really helps me connect with God." Believe me, I've heard it all. But it's a decision. What you need to understand is behind that, it's not just about the external behavior. It's what that is doing to your relationship and it's your identity that you don't understand. And so then you get your mind renewed and you begin to think differently.

And you realize my work and performance isn't who I am. See, when that changes, then you have the power in Christ to not have to work all the time. This buzz that I get when I feel low and discouraged and worn out—for some of us, we're addicted to TV. I mean, you go home and you literally, your pattern is you blow about two to three hours every night watching TV in the name of just sort of chilling out. And you're bombarding your mind with all kind of information that pulls you away from all the things of the person you long to be and who God wants you to be.

The third step is this: it says then put on a point in time the new. As someone has said, a liar doesn't cease to be a liar when he stops lying. A liar ceases to be a liar when he stops lying and starts telling the truth. A workaholic doesn't cease to be one—see, if it's just the behavior, "I'm going to stop working, I'm not going to do so much, I'm going to cut back, I'm going to get margin in my life." How many of us have said that about a million times? How's that working for you?

At the core, if your mind isn't renewed and you don't realize my work is not me. What people think of me is not me. This buzz that I get that kind of gives me energy, that's not me. I'm a son or a daughter. I'm already loved, I'm already precious. And so in my workaholism I say, "I'm going to stop. I have my mind renewed. My work isn't me. I'm accepted by Him." And then I put on Sabbath. And so for me, all day Friday it's no voicemail, it's no email. I'm not going to work.

Some of you are addicted to materialism, right? I mean, you buy stuff you don't need, your credit is off the wall because when you buy stuff and do stuff it makes you feel better. This isn't like, are you dealing with this? It's just how much, right? You decide no longer will what I have or what I wear or what I buy define me. I renew my mind, but I need to move from that to being generous with my time, generous with my resources.

That's the process of sanctification. And so many people are stuck on trying hard. "I gotta stop cussing, I gotta stop logging onto the internet, I gotta stop buying this stuff, I gotta stop eating this stuff, I gotta stop, stop, stop, stop, stop." And you try hard and you fail. Then you try hard and you just start faking it.

And we got Christians all over America and around the world faking it. And so the next best thing is you learn a few verses, and you come to church some, and you're always living sort of with this conflict between guilt and "God loves me." And God says, "You're my son. You're my daughter. I've paid for you. You're deeply loved. I've put my Spirit in you. I want you to renew your mind. I want you to understand who you really are."

And would you in your notes right in the middle write Romans 12:2. I mean, what Paul is doing here in these verses 22, 23, and 24, he's giving you the shortest overview of Romans chapter 5, 6, 7, and 8. I mean, if you read that, he would lay out, "This is what God has done. You've died with him, you've been resurrected." He'll say take off. Don't present your members anymore to sin. Have your mind renewed. Present yourself to God as someone who's been raised from the dead. That's Romans 6. Romans 7 he'll talk about the conflict that happens even as a believer. We're all going to struggle in our walk, we'll fall down. And then chapter 8 he'll talk about the power of the Spirit to live his life through you.

Dave Druey: We'll continue in a moment here on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. While you're with us, if you've never checked out the Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram YouTube channel, you're missing a whole other side of this ministry. It's full of teaching series you won't see anywhere else. Things like B.I.O.: Three Essential Practices to Becoming Like Jesus, and the I Choose Joy series, just to name a few. It's a great way to go deeper with Chip's teaching or to send a friend something to watch. Just search Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram on YouTube and take a look around. Well, now here's Chip.

Chip Ingram: When I meet people and this is I've so struggled and why I so want to share this with you, I meet people all the time that so long down inside to break out of a destructive lifestyle, but you keep putting stuff in your mind that destines you to do the same stupid stuff over and over and over again. In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognized the hazards of living with an overabundance of food. Obesity and diabetes have begun to shift our diets. Most of us, however, have not yet understood that the news is to the mind what sugar is to the body.

The news is easy to digest. The media feeds small bites of trivial material tidbits that don't really concern our lives and don't require thinking. That's why we experience almost no saturation. Unlike reading a book or a long deep magazine article, which requires thinking, we can swallow limitless quantities of news flashes like bright-colored candies for the mind. It's a long article, it's called "Avoid the News: Towards a Healthy News Diet" by Rolf Dobelli.

And then he does a number of research and he has like 13, 14, 15 things about what watching the news does. The news inhibits good thinking and decision-making because you're flooded with information. The news is costly because it costs you a lot of time. The news kills creativity. And the news creates passive people by research. Now, am I telling you that it's sinful or wrong to ever watch the news? Of course not. What I'm telling you is that you live in a world where you're going to be the product of your thinking. As a man or woman thinks in your mind, so you become.

The mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. This central part of renewing your mind, we know. What did Jesus say? Man can't live, you can't walk, you can't be transformed by physical bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And so there's this process, it's a decision. It's like on your computer and there's a program, you delete. So it's a point in time, you delete. Then you install a new program, right?

And it's installed. It says just a minute, it's booting, loading. Right? And then after it loads, then you click run. Isn't it interesting that we create computers exactly the way God's created our minds to work? And for some of you, he brought you today and he says, "Here's what I want you to do. Click delete on sexual immorality. Click delete today on workaholism, or pleasing people, or alcohol." I don't know what it is, but you do.

But now what he's going to say is if all you do is click delete, what would you know on your computer? You gotta install a new program. You gotta put new things in your mind. So instead of all that news, you need to get into God's word. You need to take a walk outside and see beauty. You need to read a good book that causes you to think. You need to read some things that are refreshing and inspiring and some biographies. You need to hang out with some people and talk about, "What are you reading and what are you thinking?" When you start, you're reloading. And then you put on.

And so instead of being a people pleaser, I become a servant and I set some boundaries. Instead of being a workaholic, I have some Sabbath and I renew myself. Instead of being an alcoholic and wanting to cover it, I get filled with the Spirit instead of filled with stuff because what they both do is they influence me—how I think, what I do, how I behave.

Here's the hope, and I really want you to get this. He gives us sort of this delete, install new program, and run in verses 22, 23, and 24, because he's then going to say, "Let me show you how this actually works in the most practical areas of life." And he's going to give us five specific of areas that instead of trying hard, how to go into training and how you really change. In fact, let me give you hope as we wrap this up. This is a letter I have from a friend. What I want you to listen for is stop, decision. He put off the old self like a bad, ugly pair of clothes. Install, renewing of his mind. And then click, he runs the new program.

"Greetings from San Quentin." It's one of my prison friends from death row. It's a very bad guy who lost all sensibility. You don't get on death row for doing small things. "I'm embarking now," he's a new Christian, "on a journey to change in my walk with Christ. When I first received Christ," and he gives me the date, "I felt compelled to isolate myself for a season here. Note to the point, really, from temptations that I wasn't yet able to resist. So I haven't been out to the yard since then." And that from a man that used to hit the yard every day for my first four or five years here. "And oh yes, I was part and parcel of all that happened with the convict mentality and all that goes with it." And so he pushed delete.

He said, "So I've decided I'm not going to go out in the yard for a season." Now, runs a new program. "Meanwhile, I've saturated myself with God's word in various ways. Now I feel ready to face my old nemesis head-on. This is at a time when I also feel I need to get around some other Christians and have real fellowship with other believers. I tried to find some other genuine believers in this yard, but I kept coming up short. And then I heard about a group of believers in another cell block. Of real genuine believers that meet, that share God's word, that are living it out in the prison."

"And so I requested of the warden to move me from my cell block to that cell block, and I was told this absolutely never happens ever." And then he writes to me, says, "But what I know is that the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord, and God can do anything and turns it whatever way he wishes." He said, "I told the Lord in my walk of faith, 'If you move me great, if you don't great, I will receive it. I want to do whatever you want me to do.'" Do you hear the surrender? He's in God's word. "Stop, I can't keep going there and be the man God wants me to be. I'm going to reprogram my mind with truth in the word and now I need people."

And then he gets an answer. The warden says, "We've reviewed your files. We've seen an amazing change from the Rick that we all knew to the Richard that you've become. Simply put," he says, "We've reviewed your file and you used to be quite a guy, shamefully so." And so he says, "As I now will be moved to the new yard, I'm only going to attend the chapel service once or maybe twice a month and ease my way in to make it as painless as possible on the others who probably can't believe that I'm a genuine Christian." This is like Saul to Paul. I mean, "I don't want to go to chapel too often, they'll think I might try and kill them."

"I'm excited to tell you this. I'm reaping the fellowship with other believers now that I so desperately needed. God is changing my life. Please pray for me." There's some of us sitting in this room, your prison's as real as his. Your prison is as real as his. He's free now. He's not a slave. He's not on death row in San Quentin. In the eyes of God, he's born again, he has a future, he's heaven-bound, he's forgiven. There's no condemnation. He's a son, he's not a slave. He's not a person that has to live forever and ever with what he's done in the past. It's been put behind him. He's becoming a new person.

But trying to become this new person in that environment, just like your environment, is very hard. And what he understands is that who he now is has to be demonstrated by how he now lives. And in order to do that, he needs to put off the old self. A decision, a point in time that some of you need to make today. Today I make a decision. And then I'm going to run a new program. And I would encourage you, turn off the TV for three or four days or just stop watching the news or cut back and start getting into God's word and take a walk and look at nature and listen to some good music and do things that renew you. And then put on.

Take some baby steps in positive areas, and if you'll track with me and let God work, 90 days you'll be a different person. Last night a guy walked up and he's with the Salvation Army drug rehab program. And I just, he walked up and I remember him a few months ago, he walked up and, "Man there's no hope man," and he's drugged out and I prayed with him and this and that. And he skipped up here last night and he put his arms like that about six feet from me. And he lit up. I said, "What's happening?" He goes, "I'm 90 days clean!" And he said everything—he went like this. "Everything you talked about, that's how it works!" I said, "I know, it's God's word." He wants it for you. A new life demands a new lifestyle.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and the end of a message titled, "How to Break Out of a Destructive Cycle." It's from our series called Free at Last: How to Break Out of a Destructive Lifestyle. And there's more from Chip coming up in just a moment. Delete, install, run. It's the simplest picture Chip gave us today for how transformation actually works. And it's exactly what Chip's book, Yes, You Really Can Change, walks you through step by step. How to put off what's dragging you down, renew your thinking, and put on something that actually lasts. Every purchase right now includes a second copy, so you can hand one to someone who's stuck in the same cycle, so you can read it together. It's just one way we want to help you invest in those around you. Go to livingontheedge.org/offers and look for the book, Yes, You Really Can Change.

You know, none of this happens without people who quietly decide it matters enough to fund. There's no other source behind this ministry, just listeners who've chosen to make it possible. If today's message meant something to you, we invite you to help us keep it going forward. Head to livingontheedge.org, dial us directly at 888-333-6003, or mail your gift to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. And if you ever have trouble joining us here on the program, listen when it's convenient for you by subscribing to the Living on the Edge podcast. Every episode is there, ready when you are. And for Chip's complete unedited messages, the Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast has every sermon in full wherever you listen. Well, now here's Chip.

Chip Ingram: As you listen to today's message, what went through your mind? I mean, what is it in your life that when you're very honest, you say to yourself, "I really want to change that, but I've tried and tried and tried and the fact is that it's still there." Well, what you know is trying hard doesn't work. Okay, I know it, you know it. It begins first with a choice. The passage is very clear: you have to put off certain things, renew your mind, and then put on this truth and allow the Spirit of God to develop the life of Christ in you. Only he can do that. But your part is you start with a choice and you say, "I'm going to stop looking at pornography. I'm going to stop pleasing people all the time. I'm going to stop being a workaholic. I'm going to stop that level of alcohol consumption or that drug," or whatever it is. So that's the beginning.

But the key is what do you put in your mind? There's a reason why you're behaving the way you're behaving, and it makes sense to you right now because what you put in your mind is telling you that this will relieve the pain, this will sedate it, this will answer it for a while. But your experience screams, "No, it doesn't." Example: I just got an email from a gal in our church, and she's a real prayer warrior and just you can just see the life of Christ in her. And she mentors a woman in prison and she's met with her multiple times and she sent me an email from this lady. And this lady's been there quite a while and been through very horrendous things.

And she said, "I've always tried hard to stop certain things." And then she was teaching her about the miracle of life change, Ephesians chapter 4. And she goes, "When I started renewing my mind, it's like there's a whole new world." For some of you, what you need to realize is turn off the TV, stop searching the web. You don't need to watch that much YouTube. There's certain people you need to for two weeks just stop being around them and take some small section of scripture. Maybe it's Psalm 23 or maybe it's this little passage in Ephesians. But read four or five verses and don't just keep reading, meditate and ponder and think. Write it out on a card, pray it back to God. Memorize all of Romans chapter 12—it's just one short chapter. But just saturate your mind for two weeks in the truth of God in an area that you're struggling with. I will guarantee that you will see the Spirit of God take the word of God and begin to change you from the inside out.

Dave Druey: Next time, Chip Ingram introduces an idea that changed his own ministry: the concept of spiritual training. He explains why trying harder never breaks a besetting sin, but training always can. That's next time here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.