Living on the Edge

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

Chip Ingram: Change is inevitable. And you know, change can be a great thing. But there are times when making a change in your life, your work, or your relationships can bring devastating consequences. Today on Living on the Edge, we're going to talk about how to know when it's time to move on and how to know when you need to stay right where you're at. Stay with me.

Dave Drouilly: I'm Dave Drouilly and this is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. When life gets hard, it's easy to believe that a new job, a new church, or even a new spouse would finally make everything better. Chip calls it the if only game. And today he exposes the false premise hiding underneath it. It is part of our series Building Authentic Community, how to lift up those you love. Now let's join Chip for the start of a message titled Why a change in scenery rarely improves the view.

Chip Ingram: Under pressure. I mean, when life gets difficult, when it gets painful, and we all tend to play what I call the if only game. And the if only game goes like this, and it's the fifth lie. The lie is that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence mentality. When things get hard and when they get difficult, somehow we think if I were in a different situation, if only this happened or that happened, then everything would be just absolutely good. It's just it's my circumstance. Here's the false premise. God wants me to be happy.

Now, there's a lot of truth in that, so don't get too shaken up. God does want to bless us. He does want us to give us a full life. But when I say God wants me to be happy, I mean he wants me to feel happy. He wants me to be emotionally satisfied. He wants everything to be going right all the time so that I'm a happy camper. So I'm fulfilled. So life is going my way. So I'm successful. So life is good. I believe that's a false premise. Cuz I've got passages that say in the world you will have tribulation.

But be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. I've got passages to say why are you surprised at the fiery trial that you're undergoing? Because it's predictable and certain. I have passages to say that every single person that longs and wants to live a godly life will experience persecution. So I think we've kind of eliminated some of those passages in our American view of the New Testament and the Old Testament. And we we have come to believe that God wants personal fulfillment and happiness and good emotions like about 99% of the time. So I put this in a little axiom here.

Major premise, God wants me to be happy, and that's his highest goal for my life. That's what he really wants. Minor premise, my situation, my job, my marriage, my school, my relationships are so painful and stressful that conclusion, this situation or relationship can't be God's will for my life. That that is I mean that is day after day after day after day being believed and acted on, at least in America. I was doing a radio call-in program, and you they talk a little bit, and then people call from around the country. So this was a Chicago listener, and this lady calls in.

She goes, Well, you know, I just really want you to know that um I know God really wants me to be happy, and I am just miserable in my marriage, and so I'm going to be divorcing my husband, and that's okay, isn't it? And I said, Well, ma'am, that's a very complex situation, and I don't know all the issues, but do you have biblical grounds for divorce? She goes, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, has he been sexually unfaithful? Uh he is is he an unbeliever that maybe you married before you were a Christian and that he is uh has abandoned you?

I mean, do you have biblical grounds for divorce? And she goes, Well, no, he's just not very considerate. He's just not very nice. I I I don't feel fulfilled. I mean, I'm missing out on life. I'm miserable. I just don't like him anymore. Then she said this, But I know God wants me to be happy. Therefore, I know this can't be his will. Now, that's a graphic one. But I would challenge you, and I would challenge me to ask yourself where do you play that if only game. The truth is, if you look in your notes, is that running from adversity and conflict in relationships does not solve problems, but it compounds them.

And all of us at certain times in our life have run from adversity, have run from conflict and difficulty. And we could probably tell a lot of stories of how You know what? Running away from it did not solve it. It just compounded it. Patience and perseverance are the keys to relational transformation. If you're looking in your notes, I put exactly what God would say to people in a very difficult situation of conflict and adversity. And here's what he says to them, beginning in verse 7 of chapter 5 of the book of James, Be patient then, brothers.

Well, how long? Until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and the spring rains. You too. Be patient and stand firm. Well well why? Because the Lord's coming is near. Well, what kind of attitude should we have while we're waiting? Verse 9, Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you'll be judged. The judge is standing at the door. Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

As you know, we consider blessed those who persevere. You have heard of Job's perseverance, and you've seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. Above all, my brothers, do not swear, not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your yes be yes and your no no or you'll be condemned. In other words, keep your word. There are four commands in this passage. As I give them to you, I want you to underline the commands. Command number one, be patient. That's in verse 7. Command number two is in verse eight.

Be patient and stand firm. So he repeats the same command. Command number three, Don't grumble. Underline that. Command number four is do not swear. Do not swear. So he's made it very very clear. He understands their situation. It's as bad or literally worse than anyone's difficult conflict or adversity, and he says to them very clearly, Be patient. Be patient and stand firm. Do not grumble and do not swear. There's four commands. It's obvious it's about patience, perseverance, hanging in there, not giving up, hanging tough, enduring. But he's going to give us three snapshots, there's three pictures.

Put a box around the word farmer. Cuz he is going to use this as an example. He's going to say there's a lesson to be learned from the farmer. Skip down and put a box around the word profit. He says there's a lesson that we can learn from the prophets. And then finally put a box around the word Job or Jobs. There's a lesson to be learned from him. And if you had some time to look at those four commands, and as you see those words that are circled, what you're going to learn is that God has a message to people who play the if only game.

And out of this, I think are three very very clear commands for us in terms of how do we make it through difficult times? The first point I see out of this passage in verses 7 to 9 is that we are commanded to be patient even when circumstances are beyond our control. He says, don't give up, don't give in because God is in control, but they're out of your control. Look at it. It says, be patient, brothers, until the Lord's coming. And then this is the lesson of the farmer. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for autumn and spring rains.

How much control does a farmer have about how much sunlight and how much rain? Zero. So he says, take a lesson from the farmer. What does the farmer do? He waits for the land. He waits for the process. He lets the land do its work, its valuable crop. He's patient. He realizes, You know what? Okay. You know what? It's autumn now and things are brown. But guess what? Spring is coming. Spring is coming. You need to persevere. You need to hang in there. And then by the way, you need to hang in there with the right attitude.

Notice what it says. Second command, be patient and stand firm again because the Lord's coming is near. Seasons have a beginning and seasons have an end, don't they? Whatever you're experiencing that you think I can't take it, I can't take it, I can't take it one more day. Yes, you can. You say, Well, I can't imagine myself 3 weeks from now in this situation. You don't have to. There is no grace in hypothetical situations. There is If you start thinking next year or 3 weeks from now or 2 years from now or in 5 years, you know what?

There's zero grace. You know what you get grace for today? I I'm not sure, and unless you know more than me, I don't know that you'll be here 3 weeks from now, do you? I don't know if the earth will be here 5 weeks from now. The Lord is near. I don't know when he's coming back.

Dave Drouilly: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll get back to today's message in just a moment. Did you know Chip isn't just on the radio? He's on YouTube, too. Just search Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and hit subscribe. You'll find full-length video teaching from Chip on marriage, parenting, leadership, and a whole lot more. Ready to watch whenever it fits your schedule. It's also a great way to share a message with a friend who needs it. All right now, back to our message.

Chip Ingram: So he says, stand firm and be patient, and then here's the attitude. Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you'll be judged. The judge is standing at the door. He says, when things get difficult and when we should be waiting and realize there is a season in marriage, there is a season with our kids, there's a season in a ministry. What we tend to do is start blaming, grumbling. Uh it's interesting. The word grumble here means to sigh, to groan silently with within or to whine without. I hate that definition. It so describes me at times.

Isn't that good? To groan within or sigh. Oh brother. Or to whine without. It's to build resentment or a negative attitude toward another person. That's what it means to grumble. And in difficult circumstances, we are all prone to do it. Could I suggest that the lesson of the farmer would teach us that if we're not careful, we'll bail out before God's season is complete in a relationship, a job, a ministry, a church, or a situation, and we will miss the blessing. We'll get in on the planting. We'll get on the cultivating. We'll get in on the dry season and the difficulty and adversity, and God was just about ready to rain and was just about to bring about and bear some fruit, and you're ready to leave.

And I learned this early and the hard way. Uh I was in seminary and uh because I was kind of I don't I guess what would you call it? Um I'm hyper. Could you could you could you can you kind of recognize that? I'm I'm a hyper guy, all right? And uh I was running a little janitorial company and going to seminary and I had three kids and trying to balance all that. And the little janitorial company was having some financial difficulties, and I was also involved in a ministry about 20 hours a week. I mean, insane.

And I realized after 3 years of sleeping about 4 and 1/2 or 5 hours a night, I can't do this any longer, and I still have a full year of seminary left. And so I asked God to to somehow take the ministry and and a paycheck and put them together, and a little tiny church outside of Dallas in Kaufman, Texas called me to be their pastor. There's about 35 people out in the boonies of the boonies of the boonies. And they asked me. I didn't know it. They had had a lot of difficult time with pastors, and I'm glad I didn't know it all, but they had been through about eight in the last 3 years.

And if I would have been older and smarter, I would have asked a good question, but I didn't know that, and it's good I didn't know. But they asked me for a 5 year commitment. And I thought, Well, you know, I God had showed me I'm supposed to be a pastor, and I thought, Well, I've got 1 year of seminary. I could break that and slow down, do it in 2 years, and I'm going to have to learn how to be a pastor somewhere. This is a good place. So yeah, you're 5 years. Well, uh I signed up for 5 years in that little group of 35, and I found out everyone was related, and I found out in about the first year why all the other pastors left.

And um and and they were wonderful people, but you know, it was an interesting journey, and I had so much to learn. And at about year two or year two and 1/2, you know, now seminary is done. I've got about 6 months after it, and if someone would have said you are out of your commitment, I would have run through the door. I mean, I grew up in the suburbs, so this is a tiny little town. No stop lights that we actually grew and got a stop light later. But I mean at one end of the town was the feed store, and the other end of the town uh was the wagon wheel.

And I think there was a Sonic. I mean, that's it. And I mean you you know the in in this Texas towns, you know, they have little squares where you have the the courthouse, and you could even see where the rings were, where people would put their horses. And everyone wore John Deere hats and had guns in the back of their pickups, and that is not how I grew up. This was a different environment for me. And it was hard hard hard hard in the 2 and 1/2 years. I mean, I think we went to 35 to maybe 90 or 100 people.

And I'm just thinking, I'm knocking my head against the wall. I didn't go to seminary. Lord, I want to be a missionary. You know, there's like only 100 people here and I am killing myself, and I might be killing them. And I mean everything in me wanted to leave, except I made a commitment. And what I didn't understand is their seasons. I didn't understand that the person who needed to grow up the most was a 28 year old young pastor who went there that didn't know what he didn't know. And that really those people instead of being kind of backward in this and that, they really knew a lot more about God and about how to teach me to be a pastor than I ever imagined or dreamed.

And I stayed there for one simple reason. As I think, you know, you you let your yes be yes and your no be no. But I emotionally I mean it was like I mean I think I would have taken a job, a good janitorial job, not running a company but being the janitor. I mean I was I was discouraged. And it's interesting is the seasons. And God began to work. And by about year number four and five, we saw the thing begin to grow and God move in the area. And then actually I ended up staying 8 years.

And the years six, seven, and eight, we just watched things double and multiply, and in a town of about 4,500 we saw about 500 people involved there. We saw churches get connected. We had outreach for all the youth non-denominationally, for all the high school kids. We built a child welfare center. Uh we shut down the pornography and all those little shops that they had, and God did a wonderful thing, and I would have missed it all because I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to be patient, and I didn't understand what the farmer knows.

The farmer knows their seasons. What season are you in? What season are you in in your marriage? What season are you in in your business? What season are you in in your church? What season are you in? And could it be that instead of if only this was different? And you know those those secret thoughts like if only I had a different marriage partner, you know, if only my health was better then what if God has you in his sovereign will and purposes in his season to develop something inside that's going to be better and deeper and greater than you ever dreamed.

That's what James is saying. Notice there's a second lesson, not just from the farmer, but there's a lesson to be learned from the prophet. And note notice what he says here about the the prophets. He says uh brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets, plural, who spoke in the name of the Lord. And and you think to yourself, Well, what's amazing about that? He says, Well, we're commanded to be patient even when our circumstances are unfair and unjust. Verse 10. See, that's what I get from the prophets. When I study the prophets' lives, I'm just thinking, if you really love God, if you're really for God, if you're really willing to take a stand, if you're going to live a righteous life, then life's going to be good.

He's it's going you're going to be happy, right? Yeah, Daniel, happy happy happy with all those lions. You know, I'm the lion tamer. This year is fun. Jeremiah, happy happy happy. I'm in a cistern down in a well. Now I'm in prison. Happy happy happy. Study the life of the prophets. My lands, they do exactly the right thing and they're treated with injustice and lack of fairness. Or Joseph. Here's a guy that I mean, all I want to do you gave me a dream. I want to do your will, Lord. So what's he get? Falsely accused accused, uh sent to prison unjustly.

Uh you know, his whole life, the first 30 years is like a bad dream. God wants us to learn the lesson of the prophets. They spoke God's word. They were in the center of God's will. We have skewed expectations about what it means to walk in the will of God. See, it's it's the it's the happiness cult that we've produced in America. You know, I'm a Christian. I should be happy. If I'm not happy, something's wrong. God, change it quickly quickly quickly. I mean, I want to put it in the spiritual microwave. Oh goody. Happy happy happy.

Now everything's great. You know. And he says, learn a lesson from the prophets, Daniel, Jeremiah, Joseph, Elijah. They were in the center of God's will, and being in the center of God's will meant pain and suffering and injustice and difficulty and being light and salt in a perverse and dark world. I mean even in Jeremiah's case, I happen to be reading there right now, God God even tells him, Guess what? You just you just obey. And by the way, they're not going to listen. How would you like that job assignment? And he didn't say, Well, could I get a transfer?

I'd like transferred out of this one. I'd kind of like to be uh a prophet in some other No, no. Jeremiah. Remember what he said in the first chapter? You know, before you were in your mother's womb, I have called you for this. Life is not certain. Life is not easy, and life is not fair. That's a biblical appraisal. When you do what is right, when you're in the center of God's will, if you are expecting that everything lines up and goes your way, that your circumstances align, that people are going to be wonderful, that all your kids are going to make great decisions and turn out right, that you never going to have a major problem in your marriage, that you're never going to go through difficult, painful health issues, that you're never going to be betrayed by a friend, that you're never going to have to have a messy church situation, you're never going to have someone in business cheat or lie or do something difficult to you, then you set yourself up wrongly for a life of despair and discouragement, and you'll get disillusioned with God.

I meet Christians all the time that are disillusioned with God. God promised the abundant life. God promised I would be happy. God promised, and I'm thinking, Yeah, God promised persecution. God promised suffering. God promised character building. How come no one's writing books on that? Seven steps to great character through intense suffering over a long period of time. I can just see that baby flying off the shelf. But is is that not if if if if Jeremiah was writing a book, that's the one he'd write. If Joseph was writing a book, that's the one he'd write.

But what do you find out about those prophets? What's the lesson? It's where they land. It's not what they go through. Consider all joy, my brother, and when you encounter various or all kinds of difficulties, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. He's going to use this word hupo to be under meno stress or pressure. Knowing the testing of your faith produces perseverance and allow It's a command, but it's in the passive voice. Allow perseverance or the difficulty to do what? Produce Christ-like character or maturity in you that God may do in you what he wants to do.

See the the premise of the New Testament is not God wants to make you happy. You know what the correct premise is? God wants to make you holy.

Dave Drouilly: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And a message called Why a Change in Scenery Rarely Improves the View. It's part of our series Building Authentic Community. And if you missed any of today's lesson, just go online to livingontheedge.org. Staying put through a hard season in a marriage, a job, or a church isn't just about gritting your teeth. At its core, it's a decision to love even when the feelings aren't there. That's exactly what Chip's book I Choose Love is all about. Get your copy of I Choose Love at a special price today at livingontheedge.org/offers.

You know, we often hear from listeners walking through exactly the kind of season Chip described today. One listener, Holly, told us the last 3 years had been really tough and really dark. But Chip's teaching helped her stop looking at her circumstances and start focusing on God's promises. In her words, even though we're in the midst of circumstances that we can't control, God has promises, and he has a plan, and he works everything out for good. Well, stories like Holly's are why we keep teaching, and they're possible because listeners like you stand with us. Become a monthly partner or make a one-time gift by going online to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003.

You can also send your gift by mail to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia 30024. Well, now here's Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: Under pressure, we all play the if only game. I I mean, a lot of us just do it in our head and we never verbalize it, but we have this mindset, if this was different then. And let me tell you, perseverance is not fun. Um hanging in there, not giving up in relationships, in a work situation, in something that you know God wants you to do. Changing will only bring a new set of problems. But I have to tell you this, you're going to need help to get there. And my best recommendation is to ask yourself, Who are four or five people that I could go through this series, five lies that ruin relationships with?

And begin to deal with these false beliefs I have about the if only game and about work and about my tongue and about how life really works. There's certain lies we believe. They just wreck your life. This series is about pulling back the curtain and you seeing those lies for what they are and then getting biblical solutions by the grace of God to live differently. Can I encourage you start a journey with some people that you trust and watch God work in your heart.

Dave Drouilly: Just go to livingontheedge.org to find the series Five Lies That Ruin Relationships. We'll join us next time as Chip concludes our series on Building Authentic Community right here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.