Living on the Edge

Dave Druey: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: We've been discovering together how to live without hypocrisy. And today I'm going to wrap it up with what I believe is one of the core essentials of a relationship with God: private worship. I'm going to let you in on what exactly I do in my personal time with God, and I'm going to pray that God will use it to jumpstart your personal time with God. I hope you'll stick around. I'm excited about our time together today.

Dave Druey: Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram wraps up our series called The New You: Claiming Your Birthright as a Child of God. And he's going to do something he's never done in any other message this series. He'll sit down with his Bible and a cup of coffee and walk you through his personal quiet time, step-by-step, in real time.

He has a very specific method he's letting us in on, and by the end of today's program, you'll know exactly how to build your own. Now let's open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter five. Here's Chip Ingram with today's message: How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Private Life.

Chip Ingram: The purpose of personal worship, put very simply, is to know God and to enjoy him. The purpose of personal devotion is to know and enjoy God, to cultivate an intimate friendship and trust that results in obedience and affection to such a degree that his life is manifested in and through you to the glory of God. That's the purpose.

In practice, you need to figure out how to pull this off. So what I'd like you to do, I'm going to ask you to pull out a pen. In practice, you need to have a specific time, a specific place, and a specific plan. I'm going to give a whirl at something that I hope works, maybe not, but I would like to walk over here and I would like to have a quiet time.

Some people call it the devotional life. And I want to sit down and just show you how I have done it for years. This isn't the only way to do it. And so with that then, I'll just give you a little preview that "2PROAPT"—each letter stands for something.

The first P in 2PROAPT is pray. Ask God to speak to you. So I'm going to do this as authentically as I can, but it's kind of hard to do in a crowd. Father, I want to thank you for the privilege to hear from you. Help me to hear from you today. In Christ's name, amen.

The second thing is then to preview. Often we try and get way too much out of something early, and just preview, read through real quickly. So open to Ephesians chapter five. I'll take the first six or seven verses, and we'll start verse 21. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of the water with the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without sin or wrinkle or stain or any blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it just as Christ does the church.

So I just read through it real quickly just to figure out what the basic gist is going on. Then the next R is for read. And you read the passage a second time slowly and contemplatively. And so I would kind of start off with, "Okay, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also the wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

Husbands, okay, shifting it around, idea of submitting here, talking to wives first. Another group here, new paragraph. Husbands, love your wives. Well how? Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Then I go back through it and I think, just kind of think on that for a while. What would God want to say to me? I mean, I'm not trying to be a Bible scholar, I'm not trying to diagram anything, I just want to meet with God. And there's something about in the body of Christ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And example one is how wives are to do it, and example two is how husbands.

Well, I'm going to make some observations then and go back and underline keywords and circle words and phrases that are repeated and highlight the most meaningful verse to me. And so, "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." I'm going to circle "submit" just because it seems like from reading it a couple times it pops up a lot. "Submit to your husbands." I'm going to circle "submit" again, found it again, "as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."

Okay, so wives submit, Christ submitted. Now as the church submits, circle that again, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Wow, submit, submit, submit, submit. I think this is for Theresa. This is really going to be good. Have you found yourself ever doing that? It's a danger, occupational hazard. You start reading the Bible and you start thinking, now I've got a friend or a wife or a child that really needs to hear this. And so I'm going to refrain.

Now I'm just being honest, as I was reading this, if I was really being open with the Lord, there's part of me would be saying, I could think of a couple applications for her on this one. Well, let's move on. Husbands, found there's something about how we're to work in the body about loving and submitting and wives have this supportive submissive something as Christ in the church. I'm going to let her handle that one. Okay, what about me? Husbands, love your wives.

Okay, that's my action word. Underline husbands, circle "love your wives." Just as Christ loved the church. I'm going to circle "loved" again. Gave himself up for her. I guess that's what love looks like. Well why? To make her holy, cleansing her by the—I still don't know what "washing with water with the word" means. Oh well, I'm going to put a little mark of that. I'm going to look that up, I got to do a little research on that. "Present himself without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives." Man, this is getting repetitive. "As their own bodies. He who loves," circle it again, "his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church."

And I step back and then I ask myself, Apply. A. Choose one specific way to put it into practice. As I would just sit through here, by now I've read a pretty short amount and I want to think it through. And as much as I would like to jump up there and write a letter to Theresa about some areas where submission would really be great, I realize that whatever it meant for the way Jesus loved his church, God wants me to love Theresa.

And so I'm just going to ask, "God, what in a way that makes sense to her, what would loving her look like today?" And I don't really know off the top of my head, so I'd probably pour myself a little coffee and lean back and say, "Lord, I'm just going to sit here quietly and I know that you want me to love my wife the way you love the church. Would you speak to me?"

And that still small voice might say something like, "Well why don't you tell her? What's the most meaningful way to tell her? Well, you say it all the time. Why don't you drop her a note?" And then as you're writing that down and starting to feel pretty good about myself, "And why don't you get the fence fixed that you've been talking about?" I'm going to do that out of obedience to God speaking to me today. Because I guess it'd be pretty hypocritical to get in front of people and talk about not being a hypocrite and loving God and loving your wife and know for sure what it means to love your wife and not do it.

And so that's what I'm going to do. I can't do this on my own. I can write it in my journal and then I can fake it and blow it off later. So the P here is pray. Ask God for power and wisdom to follow through with your application. Lord, you know I've got a zillion things going and the last thing I want to do is get that fence fixed. And I've got meetings to go to and I just want to tell you right now I want to stop first and foremost and in submitting to you out of reverence for Christ, I want to love my wife.

And when I get done praying, I'm going to jot her a note and I'm going to tell her how much I love her and why. And before I go to any meeting, I'm going to make a phone call about getting the fence fixed. And by the way, would you forgive me? I realize that I've really been insensitive to Theresa. I'm sorry. I want to build into her life. I want to love her the way you love the church. And I ask for your grace and I ask for your forgiveness. Christ's name.

And then the last thing is I'm going to tell somebody. And I'm going to tell someone how God spoke to me. And I'm going to tell them probably a close friend and I'm going to try and do it so I don't act like I was holy this morning. But I'm going to tell them so they can grow.

And what I want to communicate to you is if you don't do this, if it's not the most important appointment, if it's not the most important relationship, you are destined to a life of hypocrisy. Destined. You're signing your name on the bottom of the list. You are saying Jesus is the most important person in your life. You're saying I love God. You're saying he's the Lord of your life.

When one of your kids is in the hospital in ICU, you're crying out to a God, I'm your child, hear me. What he's saying is what he wants is your heart. And the most precious commodity you have is your time. And he wants to meet with you. He doesn't want you to go through a little ritual, he doesn't want you to play a little game. He wants to meet with you and he wants to love you.

And I will tell you, if you will make a 30-day commitment to meet with him, and if your alarm doesn't go off and it doesn't work, fine, you missed going to Disneyland. He's not down on you. Get up and do it the next day. But if you would take 20 minutes, and I'll be honest, you can do it any time during the day, but if you'll take 20 minutes and you'll do it first, it'll shape your whole day. You can spend 20 minutes with God and do what I just showed you there, and it'll change 23 hours and 40 minutes.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll hear more from Chip in just a moment. If you'd like to go deeper in today's study, visit us online at livingontheedge.org. There you'll find Chip's full teaching library, small group resources, and the free Daily Discipleship tool to help you grow all week long. You can also download the Chip Ingram app free on iOS or Android. Now back to today's teaching.

Chip Ingram: And you know what? A guy came up afterwards. It was so good. I'm so glad he did. He said, "You know something? My life, I was everywhere, and I knew God and I'd been a Christian for about five or six years and I felt all this pressure and my life really wasn't reflecting Christ. And I realized I didn't meet, and so I decided. And for 30 days, he said the first 28 days I didn't really hear God's voice. He said, I just kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it. About 28 days, 29 days, I began to hear God's voice. I would pray specific things and I sat quietly and God gave me direction."

Can I tell you? God wants you to hear his voice. God wants you to behold him. He wants to love you. He wants to give you direction. He wants to give you the will and the courage to reconcile deep areas of your marriage. He wants to give you contentment in your singleness. He wants to give you power over addictions and sin issues that you spend half your energy trying to cover up. You are destined to be a hypocrite all the days of your life unless you make personal worship the most important appointment and the most important relationship every day. Every day.

And I realize that was a basic way to go about it. I did something with the elders because many of you, you're thinking, I came to church and I watched Chip have a quiet time or sort of try and do one. I've been doing that for 15 years. I mean, but how do you keep it fresh?

And so in the last elders meeting, I just went around the room and I said, "Guys, I'm going to teach on this later, and I won't mention anybody's names. Would you tell me how do you keep it fresh? How do you keep exciting and vibrant your relationship with Christ?" And I just went around the room.

One guy said, "I memorize a few key Psalms and I start and I recite them and I start with worship." Another guy said, "I spend more time in worship rather than simply praying and reading." Another one said, "I've just learned be still. Just get quiet and shut up before God." Another one said is, "I often go out into either the forest or near the ocean and see creation, and that jumpstarts my time with God and I realize the one who made that is who I'm talking to." Another one said, "It's accountability. I got three guys that I meet with on a regular basis, we keep track on how we're really doing in this area." Another guy just said "variety. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I read Old Testament, sometimes New Testament, sometimes I read a lot, sometimes just a little, sometimes I sing."

Another one said, "Oswald Chambers, he just does it for me. I read that and that gets me started." Another guy said, "Just changing locations. I always do it over here, but keeping variety." One said, "Just remembering I don't have to do it, I want to do it. I don't have to do it, I just want to do it." And then finally was a group of guys where you open up and share what you're learning.

So if those are some ways that might help you keep it fresh, I really encourage you. I really encourage you. On the back page, I'm going to get there in just a second, but I want you to be thinking about this, alright? Here's what I want you to think about. I want you to think about making a specific 30-day commitment to give God the best 20 minutes of your day. For 30 days.

You do that for 30 days, people will see a difference in you. In three months, you do it, you will start seeing a major difference in you. You do that for three years and you'll have people say, "I remember when you were boy, really short and had a bad temper and really insensitive, but now?" You start hanging out with Jesus and you start allowing him to frame every day, and you will begin living your days filled with the Holy Spirit and the fruit of Christ will be manifested in your mind, in your heart, and in your relationships.

And it won't happen overnight. It's abiding. Now, the final thing I just want to touch on is this. Please don't get the idea that we're saying meet with God for 20 minutes, I have done my God thing. Or you know what you'll find is you'll start enjoying it. I did 30, I'm really enjoying it, I did 45. Now I've got 23 hours and 15 minutes where I totally forget God and I do my own thing.

That is not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is how do you jumpstart your day in relationship so that it bleeds into every area of your life. And that's the final portion. We're going to talk about practicing his presence worship. Notice in the very last verse here, it says giving thanks, right? Verse 20, giving thanks for everything. Well, how can you do that for everything if you're not aware of what God is doing throughout the day?

The priority of practicing his presence worship, let me give you two passages. 2 Corinthians 10:5: We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. How could you take every thought captive if you weren't aware of what God was doing moment by moment in your life?

Or take this verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. How do you pray without ceasing? You see, God doesn't want you to spend an hour with him or a half hour with him. He wants you—here's the definition. It's the regular and learned practice of living moment-by-moment with an ongoing awareness and an ongoing dialogue with God throughout your entire day.

That's what practicing the presence worship is. It's a learned practice of living moment-by-moment with an awareness that God is working and developing an ongoing dialogue. The purpose of this is to live in communion with the Holy Spirit with an attitude of gratitude in every relationship and every circumstance in light of his sovereignty and goodness. It's to live in communion with God.

In practice, it's really simple. At the heart of this is that there's no such thing as sacred and secular. It is as holy to take a shower as it is to worship, as it is to go to work, as it is to play with one of your kids, as it is to go out for the softball team. You live before the face of God in the presence of God 24/7. And you are an authentic living sacrifice worshiper.

Now, you spend in-depth time with your Savior hearing his voice, learning, sharing your heart, you come corporately with God's people and you worship and exalt so that you see him like never before, and then moment by moment you get up. And when you get up you say, "Good morning, Lord. This isn't a formal prayer time. What do you have in store for me?" And then you walk in and if you're one of us men and you have to, you shave and you look in the mirror and you think, "You've told me that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, and doesn't look like it this morning, but I thank you that you love me."

And you get in the shower and you're doing your hair and you say, "You know, not a sparrow falls but you know every hair of my head. You know what's going to happen today." And then your mind starts going, right? Anxieties, you've got this meeting, you're going to do this, how are we going to pay the bill, what about one of the kids? And you turn that. You say, "Lord, I do feel those thoughts coming on." And as you get dressed you say, "Lord, would you help this kid who's going through a rough time? And you know the meeting and I don't know how I'm going to pay the bill."

And then you go spend time with God and quiet yourself, instead of zipping out the door and a cup of coffee and toast on your lap and driving in between traffic as fast as possible to get your heart rate up, your stress level high, and so that you bring nothing to your job except a fired-up, stressed-out person.

You set your clock 20 to 30 minutes back. After you've done that, you meet with him, you get perspective, and then you get in your car and you enjoy the ride. And you look at the mountains and you talk to the Lord while watching headlights in front of you. And then you walk in and you sit down and you look at your desk, and even while you're in a meeting you can have a little conversation and you can feel tension in the meeting and you don't say anything but you say, "Lord, give me wisdom here. Help me know what to say or what not to say. Lord, I see real anger, would you work this out?"

And then you go to the drinking fountain and you're talking and just awareness and someone asks you a question and God opens a door and you get to share just a little bit of what's going on in your life. And then you go to lunch and then you're in intensive meetings for three hours, you totally forget God. And then he reminds you of that.

I remember as an early Christian, I started meeting with God. It was so hard to build this discipline. And then I remember I'd do that and then like I'd get ready to go into bed and I'd think, "Shazam, I have not thought of God once the entire day." I mean, not once. And I'd say, "Oh Lord, I'm sorry." And then I started to grow a little bit and I'd think about him maybe twice. Maybe three times. And then about 10 or 15 years later, it would be just an ongoing conversation, little by little every day.

And you live in his presence. And you know what happens then? Then do you still blow it? Does junk come out of your mouth? Do you still get angry? Of course. But guess what the Spirit does? "Ingram, we don't go there." That's right. And you confess it. And you own it. And you repent. And see what happens then? Then you're not a hypocrite. Doesn't mean you don't sin, but you're not a hypocrite. You're living in the light and you're walking in the light.

Dave Druey: This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message simply titled How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Private Life. We're concluding our series The New You, which you can always revisit at livingontheedge.org.

Chip laid out a challenge today that's worth taking seriously: make a 30-day commitment to give God your best 20 minutes. Not a vague intention to pray more—a specific time, a specific place, a specific plan. Simple enough to start, powerful enough to change you.

If you want a resource to help you build that kind of daily rhythm, Chip's brand new devotional, Growing Deeper in Christ: A 365-Day Journey to True Discipleship, gives you the structure to do exactly that. A year of focused time in God's Word, drawn from a decade of Chip's most impactful teaching, one step of obedience each day.

If this ministry has been part of your walk with God, join us as a monthly partner or give your first gift today and we'll send you Chip's brand new devotional, Growing Deeper in Christ, as our thank you. Sign up or give your first gift online at livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also mail your gift to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia 303024.

Chip's teaching is available Monday through Friday as well as the weekend. And if you ever miss an episode, the Living on the Edge podcast has every message ready when you are. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts. Now here's Chip.

Chip Ingram: Well today we wrap up the entire series and this has been a great ride together. This had such a positive impact in the life of our church, and in fact today's message was one of the ones that shocked me. I have to tell you, I felt—I don't know how to use any other word—I felt a little hokey. I literally got in front of the church and I sat down at a table and I had a real quiet time in front of our church and I went through the 2PROAPT method.

And I thought to myself, either this is going to be really hokey and people are going to roll their eyes and say Ingram has lost it, or it's really going to help them. And I'm really grateful to say the response was amazing. Because this has been how I've been studying the Bible for years and years and years.

And so what I want you to know is I'm going to go over real quickly what that 2PROAPT stands for in case you missed it. And so with that said, here's what the 2PROAPT stands for. It's an acronym. The first P is you pray. The second P is preview—you just read it rapidly. The R is you read it slowly. The O is you make observations now as you're reading it the third time. The A is you apply it—you're going to take one specific truth and put it into practice. The last P is pray and ask God's help to apply this in a way that will transform your life. And the T is for tell—tell someone what God taught you that day.

It is very simple, but the response has been amazing as people have said, "I now have a system, I have a way to really meet God." Here's the deal. The day is now for the church to be the church. May you live without hypocrisy for the glory of God. Go for it.

Dave Druey: I'm Dave Druey, and that's all our time for today. We'll see you again next time for more clear, insightful Bible teaching here on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.