Living on the Edge

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

Chip Ingram: From the moment that we're born to the moment that we die, we find ourselves on the prowl, searching to satisfy some inner unexplained yearning. Our hunger causes us to search for people who will love us. Our desire for acceptance pressures us to perform for the praise of others. We are all searching for significance. Where do you find it? That's today. Stay with me.

Dave Druey: You know, most of us spend our entire lives trying to prove we matter to our parents, our peers, our coworkers, even ourselves. But what if that exhausting search for significance was never meant to be a search at all? Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram continues our series called The New You: Claiming Your Birthright as a Child of God.

It's an inspired study about worth, belonging, and true identity. And you can revisit these lessons or share them with a friend by going online to livingontheedge.org. Now here's Chip with today's message titled, "You are Valuable."

Chip Ingram: I think we all understand intuitively that we have this God-given need to know that we matter, to know that we're valuable, to know that we're important. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist or a psychology major to understand that our parents are the very first people in our life, for better or for worse, that imprint into your soul, into your mind, that answers the question: what makes me valuable? What makes me important? Do I really matter?

For some, you had great parents, and for others, not-so-great parents. For some, out of their control, they weren't around. But I want to share a story before we begin to talk about finding the real you. And I want to dig down deep a little bit. You can lean back and relax as we get started. It's a true story. There are no bad people in it. If by chance you recognize yourself or your family in it, it's just because it's so common.

Until we begin to understand that the fundamental issue in our life is not our behaviors that we need to change, not our emotions that we need to fix, or not even problem relationships that somehow lead to addictions and struggles—all those things are symptoms. But underneath all those things, until you grasp and understand there's something far deeper, that when you address it, one by one those symptoms begin to dissipate.

So here's the story. He's a friend from many, many years ago, and his parents came from another country. They were immigrants. They, like many immigrants, didn't speak the language. They came from a harsh situation from around the world. They took menial jobs early on, learning English. They started a small family business, worked extraordinary hours, and as they developed this small family business, they came to this one conviction: in this new land called America, we want our kids to have a better life.

Out of the most sincere and deepest desire, they learned that the pathway to a better life was education, especially the mother. They worked night and day, and yet after school for an hour or two or more every single night, as my friend said, we did extra homework. We couldn't just get A's; we had to get better than A's. In fact, by the time he was in mid-elementary school, third grade, all day Saturday for five or six hours, they began studying and doing practice for the SAT and the ACT so they could get into the very best university.

He said the only break we got the entire time was on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours. My mom thought we needed to be socialized and get to know the American culture, and there was a church on the corner. It was an evangelical Bible-teaching church, and they had a youth group, and they would drop us off there. These parents are just absolutely sacrificing everything they have to help their kids have a better life.

From the kids' perspective, it felt a little bit different. They felt they were torn between two worlds. They wanted to be socially acceptable and culturally acceptable, and they were studying when everyone else was having fun. The world and the culture of the America they were living in was far different than their parents. Unintentionally, the message they heard was: we are only loved when we excel in school and when we excel professionally.

The expectation is you not only do well in school, but you get into a prestigious university, and then you have a prestigious job like a doctor or a lawyer. He said my sister worked really hard, and maybe she was a little brighter than me. She got a perfect score on both the SAT and the ACT. Perfect. Missed nothing. She went to a very prestigious university and later did graduate work at another very prestigious university that you would all know.

And then the story gets very painful. She has no relationship whatsoever with the family. She's changed her address three different times so her mother and family can't contact her. She lived under this pressure of a lie that your value, your approval, your basis for being is when you excel. No matter how much she did, she never felt like it was enough. The last thing she ever wanted to be was around her mother.

So a mom filled with heartache produced a very successful daughter and lost her. On the front of your notes, I've written some very important information from a classic book called The Search for Significance, and I'm going to talk about some things, and I put it in print because some of you I'm going to begin poking around—literally not me, but God will—in ways that you're going to want to read this over again.

So please open it up, follow along. From the life's onset, we find ourselves—McGee writes—searching to satisfy some inner unexplained yearning. Our hunger causes us to search for people who will love us. Our desire for acceptance pressures us to perform for the praise of others. Listen carefully. Our desire to be loved and accepted is a symptom of our deeper need.

The need that governs our behavior and is the primary source of our emotional pain often is unrecognized. This is our need for self-worth. And then insightfully, he finishes by saying: since the Fall, or since sin entered the world, mankind has often failed to turn to God for the truth about himself. Instead, he has looked to others to meet this inescapable need for self-worth.

With phrases like "I am what others say I am," and he reasons, "I will find my value in their opinion of me." And I want you to know there's no person in this room, there's no person that will listen or watch this, that from birth you haven't been imprinted with the formula that is on the bottom of the page in your notes: that your self-worth comes from your performance plus others' opinion.

It is so deeply ingrained. The issue of behaviors, of addictions—you have learned from early on, are you really good at this or not? Are you pleasing to people? Do they think you're pretty? Does this group accept you? And so all of us in different ways and different groups, are you smart? Are you cute? Are you funny? Are you acceptable?

Different cultures and different histories and different families—they can come up with different ways, but all of us have been brainwashed that you're valuable, you matter, and your importance as a human being isn't just for who you are. It's by what you do and what other people think of you. Now, I put a question at the bottom of your notes, and I'd like you to lean in instead of lean back.

The question is: in what or whom do you tend to find your identity apart from Christ? For the great majority of you, you know the right answer: this is who I am in Christ. But the fact for all of us until we meet Jesus is we put our identity in other things and other people. The more honest you're willing to be in the next 30 seconds, the more you're going to get out of this message because we all look for identity in other things than Jesus.

As I read my little list, I've probably left out some, but it's a pretty good list. I can identify with a number of them. When you hear the one you think might apply to you, why don't you just put an asterisk in your mind? Do you find your identity in success, education, or is it money? I mean honestly. Not what you say, but is it fame? Is it looks?

Is your identity: you're funny, you're the life of the party, you have those quick funny remarks? Is it your children's success? Is that what really makes you a someone? Is it popularity? Are you one of those people that is in social media a lot, and you really look at how many likes and how many comments? And you realize you feel good when you get them, and you don't feel so good when you don't?

Is it your reputation? I mean even a good one: you're a great dad, you're a good businessman, you're a great mom. Is it ministry? Is your identity really built around look at all you do for God and how well you do it? Could it even be your integrity or your morality, that everyone thinks you are, wow, straight shooter, tell the truth? In and of themselves, none of those things are bad, are they? But none of them are the basis for your identity.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Stay with me. We're halfway through today's message and there's still more ahead. Today's teaching comes from Chip's powerful series, The New You: Claiming Your Birthright as a Child of God.

Want to go deeper? Each of these lessons is available online at livingontheedge.org, along with additional resources and discussion guides to take you further. Find it all at livingontheedge.org. Now let's get back to Chip's message.

Chip Ingram: Now turn the page with me if you will, because I want to talk about, rather than the search for identity, I want to talk about your search for significance. The truth of the matter is, I don't care how mature you are. I don't think you graduate until heaven that you aren't in some way looking for your identity in certain people or certain things other than Christ.

So why is that, and how do we do that? Notice in your notes: our attempts to meet our needs for success and approval fall into two broad categories: compulsion and withdrawal. Those of us who seek our identity in compulsion—we tend to be perfectionistic. Workaholism. Driven to succeed. Obsessed with outward appearance. Manipulate and use people for personal achievement.

When I read that, it's like Chip Ingram's name is right next to that. I was a workaholic by the time I was 12. To this day, I still worry about what people think, wanting people's approval, driven for success. Now, it's not as warped as it was, but that's my default. We tend to marry someone with the other default, so it's always nice to have your wife here.

Theresa's tends to be withdrawal, along with a lot of others. Avoid failure. Avoid risk. Gravitate towards people who are comforting and kind or very needy because they're safe. Avoid relationships that demand vulnerability. Appear easygoing but often run from potential situations or relationships that might not succeed.

Both of those things accomplish the same thing. It's a goal to somehow prove to people or protect yourself from two things: the fear of rejection and the fear of failure. Until the day you die, you fear and I fear rejection and failure. But here's the result when we put our identity this way. Number one: we become slaves. You become slaves to people's opinions.

Second: you become actors. All of us—we have like this radar, these antennae, and with different groups and different seasons—watch little kids do it. We do it. And what we find out is: this is acceptable. When I say this, I get approval. When I dress like that, I get approval. When I say this, I get approval. When I achieve this, I get approval.

And so over time, instead of becoming the real you and understanding the real you, we can actually, even as believers, spend our whole life being slaves of what we think other people will approve of and filling different roles in different seasons. See, the results actually are not just slavery and actors, but the real you is never seen. Sometimes you've never seen the real you.

This is so unconscious and so inbred in your psyche that you've tried to please and become the "this person" that will be acceptable that you don't even know who you are. You've believed all kinds of lies. And even more tragically, the real you is never loved. See, what you desperately need, I desperately need, every single person is craving for, is someone that sees all that you are—the good, the bad, the ugly, the challenging—and are you ready? Love you just for you.

And God says, I created you. And there's like seven billion people almost on the whole earth, and He thinks you're so important that there's no mold. Your DNA is different than any single person. He uniquely made you and loves you just the way you are. And the greatest thing, the most attractive thing that happens to people, is when you would discover this is who God made me to be.

And you have the freedom to say no to the lies, and you are you. It's an amazing thing. The unique you is a very attractive person. But you've got to cut through the lies. And God says that's what I want to do. That's why Jesus came. I told the story about my friend, and I only shared the part about his sister. Something happened to him. He really liked that youth group. He felt loved. They accepted him.

He had never in his life ever opened the Bible, and he began to read the Bible. He began to get God's picture of him. He came to a personal relationship with Christ, and little by little by little, the lies that happened in his mind and his life began to change. As he matured and grew, he realized that grades are important, school's important, and with all that training, he certainly did well.

But he realized it's not what makes me valuable. He had the grace to look behind his mom's motives versus the resentment and the approval. And he has a relationship with his family. Now he actually went into business and then out of business is helping people discover who they are and sending them to all kinds of places where people are in need around the world where his parents came from and helping them.

It's an amazing story. But the difference between him and his sister and the relationship with his parents and the relationship with himself—there's not self-loathing with a bar that you can never achieve. He just understood: my mom is human, and she did the best she could with all that she had. But I'm not going to believe the lie that I have to live up to some invisible standard to be valuable and important.

In fact, Jesus came and said this to a group of Jews who believed on him: if you continue in my word—literally the word is if you abide in my word—not just hear it, not just quote come to church, but if you take in my word, digest it, and apply it to your life, then you're truly my follower or my disciple. And here's the result: then you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

The truth about God, the truth about yourself, the truth about the future, the truth about eternity, and you'll be free. You'll be free to be all God made you to be. Well, that raises the question: how does that happen? How do you really get to know the truth? What is true about you and me? And then how do you experience it?

In your notes, you'll notice page three. It says: in Christ, you are. So I just want to pause here. Everything I'm going to say from this moment on only applies to a certain group of people. It's not that God doesn't love everyone, but this applies to those who are in Christ. As we look at Ephesians chapter one, the first three chapters, this idea of "in Christ," "in Him," "in Christ."

Everything I'm going to say is for anyone who at a certain point in time has recognized: I've been a rebel and a sinner against a holy God, and I recognize that and confess that. I turn from my sin and in the empty hands of faith, Lord Jesus, I believe and trust in you and you alone, that when you hung upon the cross, you paid for my sin. You rose from the grave, you forgave me, and then you came into my life. I've been taken from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and I'm on this journey as you live your life through me.

Everything I'm going to say only applies to those genuine followers or believers. Number one: I want to tell you that you are chosen. You're not only chosen, but you're adopted. God is your Father, and he's committed to protect you and provide for you and cherish you as his child forever. What if that got from your head 18 inches down to your heart? God is my Father, regardless of what your parents were like.

Regardless if you've been through a marriage that didn't work. Regardless if you've been fired from a job. God is my Father. He promised to provide for me and protect me. And no one can rob—he cherishes me. He sings over me with his love. I'm valuable because he made me. And third: you're redeemed. Means you've been purchased out of the slave market of sin by Jesus.

And underline this: you are infinitely precious and treasured possession. I mean, is that the opposite of "you only matter if you can look good" or "you only matter if you can do this or do that"? It's the opposite of your performance. There's one person's opinion: your Heavenly Father. You are infinitely valuable and you are precious.

Do you really believe that? Do you believe it to the point where you can say, I'd love people's approval, and I know this was my folks' dream for my life? And I know everyone at work feels like unless they do this and do that and until they live in this neighborhood and get this zip code and unless their kids go to this school and that school and unless this and that and unless my two-year-old is a star on the soccer team—I understand everyone thinks that way. I don't need their approval. It would be nice. But I'm the precious treasure of my Heavenly Father. So my priorities and my family and my future isn't dependent on what my parents think or thought or what anyone else does or what anyone ever says is cool or in or right or wonderful.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message titled, "You are Valuable," part of our series called The New You: Claiming Your Birthright as a Child of God. Here's what this series keeps coming back to: the idea that most of us are living out of a false identity. We've accepted a formula the world handed us: that our value comes from what we do and what others think of us.

This series called The New You is about trading that lie for the truth of what God says about you in Christ: chosen, adopted, redeemed. And if you want to walk in that truth every single day, Chip's brand new devotional, Growing Deeper in Christ, a 365-day journey to true discipleship, was designed for exactly that.

When you join us as a monthly partner at livingontheedge.org, we'll send you a copy of Growing Deeper in Christ as our gift. Your ongoing support compounds over time, reaching more people in more places with the life-changing truth that they are valued and loved by God. Sign up as a monthly partner today 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, 30024. You can also stay connected with us beyond this broadcast. Subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Find us on Facebook and Instagram at Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And subscribe to Chip Ingram's YouTube channel. Now here's Chip with some final thoughts.

Chip Ingram: As we wrap up today's program, I think half the battle is understanding that you and I are all engaged on a search for significance. It's part of our nature. And by the way, it's not a bad thing. I think the big issue is: where are we looking to find that significance? And if you're like me or every other human being I think, we look for it in some pretty common things: a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a mate, work, children, our physical appearance, social status, what people think of us.

All of us are looking for significance in lots of different places. And the problem with all of those things is: they can't deliver. They just don't have the power. And we may intellectually know that, but the current is so strong. It just pulls us into believing and performing and behaving and working to look a certain way or to have other people approve of us.

There's only one person that will never let you down, and there's a way to be significant that has nothing to do with your performance or your appearance or who you know or how many likes or how many people are watching or viewing your Instagram, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. But when you look for significance in the wrong places, it's a dead-end street.

And what he says to us is you don't have to be a slave or an actor. The real you is the most beautiful and attractive thing in the whole world. And God wants you to know he'll never let you down, he'll never let go, and that you are valuable and no matter what, he loves you, he cares for you, he's paid a price for you because you matter. Let me encourage you to be on this journey with me to get that from your head and into your heart. And in our next program, we're going to talk specifically about how to actually experience being loved and valued by him.

Dave Druey: Next time, Chip Ingram continues with part two of our lesson titled, "You are Valuable." That's coming up here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.