Chip Ingram on Sunday Service

Today's episode of Sunday Service by Pray.com features Chip Ingram

Chip Ingram explores seven attributes of God’s character that shape how we live, pray, and see ourselves. Discover why our view of God is the most important thing about us—and how seeing Him as He truly is can transform everything.

Sunday Service is a weekly podcast featuring some of the nation’s most renowned faith leaders. Every Sunday, tune in for inspiration, encouragement, and Bible-based teachings.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, Yet
shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die. Believest thou this John eleven, twenty five
and twenty six. O Lord, how powerful you are. Martha

(00:25):
wasn't too happy with you when you finally arrived after
her brother Lazarus died. She complained that if you had
been there, her brother would have lived because she believed
you would have healed him. When you tried to comfort
her and said that her brother would rise again, she
brushed it off as if it were a generalized statement
for the last days. But you said, I am the

(00:50):
Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me will live
even though he dies. I don't think mark Artha got that,
as many don't. You said, I am I am the
Resurrection and the Life. You pulled her out of her

(01:10):
grief and opened her eyes to see the truth of
who you were. With the revelation that you are the Resurrection,
it is not coming, It has arrived through you. Even
if I die. You were talking about physical death. Yet
I will live. I will be resurrected from the grave,

(01:35):
and if I believe in You, I shall never die.
My spirit is tied to yours eternally. My body may
wear out, but my spirit will fly away home and
never know decay or death. Yes, Lord, I believe you.
Thank you for what you have done for me and

(01:57):
for all those who believe in You. I give thanks
to the Holy One and bow down to you and cry, Holy, Holy, Holy,
as the Lamb of God in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Thank you for listening to today's daily prayer. For more

(02:18):
inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay
tuned to pray dot COM's Sunday service.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram
Here on pray dot com. We are an international teaching
and discipleship ministry devoted to helping Christians worldwide live out
their faith for the glory of God and the benefit
of all people. Today, we're excited to share the first
message in Ship's powerful series to the Real God, How
He longs for you to see him through. This insightful

(02:56):
teaching hip highlights seven fundamental attributes of God's care that
will give you a fresh, accurate perspective of who he
really is. And as you'll learn, when you get an
accurate view of God, it changes everything. But before we
dive in, let me encourage you to subscribe to our
page here on pray dot com so that you can
follow along with Chip's latest series, including the entire The

(03:19):
Real God Study, which begins September third. Also, do you
want to listen to Living on the Edge without commercial interruptions,
then click the give and go.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Add free button right now.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's a great way to support pray dot com and
our ministry as well. All Right, if you're ready, here's
Chip with today's message, Seeking God.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
There's a quote by aw Towzer that changed the course
of my life many many years ago. What comes to
your mind when you think about God is the most
important thing about you? He'll go on to say, by
a secret law of the soul, whatever your mental image is,

(04:00):
you will gravitate toward it. How you view yourself, how
you pray, how you relate to others, how you perceive
the future. Every relationship, every decision will be rooted in
how do you mentally perceive God? And here's what you
need to know. All of us are off. We're falling people.

(04:23):
You have a distorted picture of God. I have a
distorted picture of God. The question is how distorted your
mental image of God? Is a montage, a montage of
early experiences, family of origin issues, some religious training and
experiment that someone said this is what he's like, or
a religious group, or you've difficult times or pain, or

(04:46):
a parent or someone close to you that has died.
All these different things over the years have brought you
to today. And today, when you bow your head or
when you think about God, you have a picture. It's
so unconscious. The reason I had you start is I
wanted you for Some of you you thought, I don't
know what the picture is, right. I'm guessing some of

(05:08):
you bowed your head and go, well, I'm He's God.
I don't know that I really think about who I'm
talking to. That, by the way, is a problem, but
it impacts everything. Let me give you some very quick
examples from my life that might help you know connect
the dots. I did not grow up as a Christian.

(05:28):
I did not grow up in a church that taught
the Bible. But I remember vividly thinking that my view
of God. By the time I was about sixteen or
seventeen was that there was he was like a cosmic
cop and there was this some big powerful person in
the sky somewhere that had a blue suit and his
arms are crossed and a toe tapping, and he had

(05:50):
a badge and a big club. And basically, if it
was fun, it was wrong. And the whole goal was
to catch me doing something wrong, which was not hard
to do. And it was basically, you've messed up again, Ingram,
You've messed up again. So my view of God was
longing to pray. In the song we sang about delight
and beauty, that wasn't my God. My God was you

(06:12):
don't measure up and you need to get with the program.
And then that got compounded because despite a father that
really loved me, he went through World War Two, he
lost his dad when he was thirteen. He was a
fifty caliber machine gunner. He spent time Guamiwajima, saw all
of his friends killed. I became an alcoholic, very functioning,

(06:33):
really cared about me, and in his hara, you didn't
say I love you, and no one hugged you. And
the way you loved your son was you want him
to be successful. So I was setting goals. By the
time I was nine years old, I had three jobs.
By the time I was twelve, I lent my money
three thousand dollars to my parents at six percent interest
when I was thirteen years old because I had and

(06:55):
I collected, and by the time I was I knew
I wanted to do this in basketball, this in baseball,
have a girlfriend that looked like this, get a scholarship
and get a's. And I work like crazy because what
I found is the only way you could please my
dad was you had to succeed and affirmations, not love.
But it's the next best thing you're growing up. So

(07:17):
no matter what I did, the bar always went up
the bar. So I got a God in the back
of my mind because our parents and we as parents
and grandparents were impacting our kids and grandchildren with a
view of God by who we are, and so I
had a God. So I trusted Christ by God's grace,
introduced to the Bible, and a group of athletes loved
me and cared for me, and a bricklayer began disciple me.

(07:39):
But deep seated was this God who was always waiting
for you to mess up. And this God who, no
matter how much. So do you pray fifteen minutes seventeen
half hour? What if I'm praying a half hour and
God wants thirty one minutes? And then pretty soon the
group I was with really was in descripture memory? So
is it a verse a day? Well? Is it one
hundred verses? Is it five hundred verses? What about it?

(08:00):
I know some guys that are memorizing books. I don't
have many books down. And I became this neurotic, workaholic
Christian trapped in a performance trap because that's my view
of God. You know, I probably need to go to
like a twelve step Christian recovery program. You know, all

(08:20):
that was rooted deeply in some family of origin issues
growing up, and I didn't know. You know, when you
grew up in a family you think is normal, right,
so we all it's just we're all dysfunctional. It's just
how much. And I don't think it's all bad, it's
a fallen world. But then I get married and my
wife begins to speak to some things, and I realize,

(08:41):
down behind all of that, if down deep in your heart,
you don't view a God who, apart from anything you've
ever done, looks at you and says you are precious.
I delight in you because of what Jesus has done.
You are my son, you are my daughter. You are precious.
I want to be with you. I affirm you. If

(09:02):
that's not your God, then you'll create all kinds of
different things to try and stay quote on his good side,
or perform. And so if you don't think God really
likes you just for who you are, and you don't
like yourself for who you are, when your wife starts
saying some things that she didn't think is so good
about who you are, I was very defensive. So, you know,

(09:23):
some marriage counseling and some time where little by little
by little, a guy gave me a tiny book called
The Knowledge of the Holy by aw Tozer, And I'll
never forget. It's just thin little chapters I read. Literally,
I read a portion of that book for the last
thirty five years, the first ten or fifteen years, a
chapter a week, and I would read these little chapters

(09:44):
on the goodness of God. I would just it was
like God finds holy pleasure in the happiness of his people.
Tozer would write that what would happen if we could
all but believe that we live in a friendly sky,
and that God, though exalted it majesty and power, is
eager to be friends with us. He's cordial, kind, benevolent, loving,

(10:07):
eager to share hearts. Those were like foreign thoughts for some.
It's on the whole other end. You think God's you know,
like grandma. You know, all he wants to do is
give you a dessert all the time. That's what my
wife does, sort of in the sense of God's white hot,

(10:28):
unapproachable holiness. And so we have Christians that don't see that. Yes,
God is pure and loving, but he is absolutely above. No,
he's holy, He's a consuming fire that his commands are
for our benefit. But you don't mess with the Holy God.
You don't look at his commandments as options. You bow

(10:51):
in reference. You meet anyone in scripture that encounters God
their face down. There's no casual. This isn't my buddy upstairs.
This isn't you know, pointing everything's okay, and you know
high five in Jesus and Jesus is my homeboy T shirt.
This isn't the God of jewelry and stickers on the
back of cars. This is the name that's too holy

(11:14):
even to utter that the scribes and the Pharisees would
just write the four letters of his name of Yahweh,
wouldn't even pronounce it out loud, and then go ceremonially
and wash before they could continue to copy the scriptures.
So all of us are off. But the most important
journey you'll ever have on your life that's never too late,

(11:34):
is to pause at certain seasons and say, God, I
want to see you as you are, the real God,
not the God that I've made up in my mind,
Not the God that's being passed around in Christian circles.
The real God, the God of the Bible. How he
longs for you to see him. That's what we're going

(11:54):
to study. And the first session here is to ask
the question is your God too small? And if you'll
open your notes, we're going to begin by some ground rules,
because if you don't get these ground rules, I will
assure you you will never see God accurately. There are
three common mistakes that we make when we think about God.

(12:18):
Three things that you have to know that are facts
to know him accurately. And then there's one really really
big question that I can't answer for you. You have
to answer for yourself. But to see God, the real
God of twenty twenty vision. And here's the difference. We
are not here to learn more about God. There's a

(12:39):
night and day difference between the knowledge about a person
and the knowledge of a person. I mean, you can
take a movie star, or dignitaries, or you know, the
president of the United States. We know a lot about people.
You can Wikipedia and know a lot about people like that.
We're taking about a knowledge of them, a relationship, a

(13:04):
heart knowledge, a connection from the heart. Knowing God by
way of intimate connection and relationship, not knowing facts about them,
not simply ideas that float around in your mind, but
a connection with Him. So three facts you need to
know for this to happen is One is that God
is not like you. Shocking, isn't it. God is not

(13:28):
like you. But our tendency is to take sort of
the best that we can think of, the kindest person,
the best person, the most holy person, and then somehow
we blow it up by ten, or blow it up
by one hundred, or blow it up by a million,
and things well, God somehow, some way is a lot
like a bigger, better, more pure, perfect vision of this.

(13:49):
Here's what I want you to know it's not true.
There is all created things, even the angels, and that
is a category. And then there's a another category, and
that's God, completely different category, completely other. That's the concept
of the word holy. It means he's separate, he's a
cut above. He's not like us. But every religion and

(14:13):
even we Bible followers, we want we want to make
God like us because we want to manage him, we
want to control him. Listen to what Isaiah would write
when it comes to God, because this is this is
not a new problem Isaiah forty verse twenty five. To whom,
then will you compare me? That I should be like him?

(14:35):
Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high
and see who created these, who brings out their hosts
by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness
of his might, And because of he is strong in power.
Not one is missing. Why do you say, oh, Jacob,
and speak O Israel. My cause is hidden from the Lord.
It's disregarded by my God. Do you not know? Have

(14:57):
you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting go the
creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn't grow
faint or weary. His understanding is unsearchable or beyond what
we can fathom. He's just completely different. But that's helpful.
That's why when the Ten Commandments, you know, no other gods,

(15:19):
no images, no pictures, nothing that can reduce him, nothing
that can get him in a smaller box. See, we've
got a box, and we want a God that we
can know and feel comfortable with. It's the great lines
by C. S. Lewis, you know, and the conversations were
Aslan and he says, you know. The little girl says, Aslam,
Are you tame? He says, no, I'm not tame. I'm

(15:42):
loving and I'm compassionate, but I'm not tame. God's not tame,
He's not on call. He's the creator word the creatures.
I put in your notes a great passage for me
as Romans chapter eleven, when when the apostle Paul was
talking about the sovereignty of God and the response stability
of man and the crescendo of that great Book of Romans,

(16:03):
he ends up with a doxology, Oh the depth of
both the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How he
talks about, Oh, the depth and the power and the
richness of his wisdom and his knowledge. It's beyond finding out.
He says, who has known the mind of the Lord,

(16:24):
that they should be his counselor no one who has
ever first given to God, that God would owe him
no one. And then he says, this amazing thing, For
from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory. Have you ever thought about
that everything in all the world is from him and

(16:46):
through him, and to him and to him be the
glory or the weight? And so what I want you
to know is that God is not like you, and
He's not like me. And so there's this category, this awesomeness,
this purity that we want to grasp. The second is
related to it. Left to ourselves. We tend to reduce

(17:08):
God to manageable terms. I want a God that I
can see. I want a God that I can control.
I want a God that I can tame and manipulate.
And that's not the God of the Bible. Every world religion,
you know, the old totems right or the moon or
the stars, or the image of a god is you know,
a lion or some animal. And it was the strength

(17:31):
of the bear. And if you go to anthropology all
over the world and you see what people worship. We
get some concept, whether it's a strength or some power
and the moon or the stars, and we take something
and we get it where we can see it, and
we actually, as human beings, will bow down to things
that our own hands create. And Isaiah would later reprove

(17:52):
his people and say, you worship gods that you have
made yourselves. They have ears and they can't hear. They
have hands but they can't they have feet and they
can't walk. And he was contrasting them to the real God.
But we all do that, we just reduce him. Exodus
thirty two one to six is the first and most

(18:15):
graphic story. Remember the story of when the people were
delivered out of Egypt and just try it, you know,
to not make it a Bible story, and try and
imagine what it would have been like. You know, for
ten generations, you've heard about this invisible God who made
some promises to some people that lived a long time ago,

(18:36):
and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and some guy named Joseph, and
you've heard the stories passed on carefully. But you're a
slave and life is hard, and I mean it's been
four hundred years and then this Moses guy shows up
and then there's these these wild things happening that happened
to the Egyptians that don't happen to you. And since
you've lived there, you know that every one of these

(18:57):
plagues is an attack on one of them, the Egyptian gods.
And so one by one that god, this god, this
god's the hail guts and the last god was the
Egyptians believed that Pharaoh was God, and so his son
would be the next god, and so the last plague
was the firstborn children. And you didn't get it. You know,

(19:17):
what's this blood over the door post? All? It was
a bunch of weird stuff. Then pretty soon it's the
middle of the night and everyone's saying get out of here,
and get out of here now, and here's gold, here's silver,
and take your kids and you know, you and a
couple million people, and then there's this fire huvving over you.
And then there's this wall of water and you remember
that night, and the wall of waters up like forty
fifty sixty feet this dry land and it's like, you know,

(19:39):
your kid's thinking you're going camping out and this is
a weird experience. And then the water comes back, and
I mean you know, this is like you've seen power power, power, power, right,
And then you're sixty days in. You're just sixty days in,
and you know, it doesn't feel quite like a camping
trip anymore. And you're in the middle of nowhere in wilderness.
It's it's wilderness is like desert type, and you know

(20:00):
where we're gonna get water, where we're gonna get food,
where we're gonna live, and you know, it says sixty
days and pretty soon Moses said, because God said, we're
come to this mountain, it's Mount Sinai. And you get
there and you know, he disappears for a while, and
you know, then it's like, okay, you know, you guys
are supposed to come out, and you come out to
the mountain and you you know, purify yourself and just
a bunch of weird stuff. What do you mean, You

(20:21):
wash your clothes, don't have any sex for a couple
of days, and then they mark off this boundary and
if anyone crosses the boundary high and then you come
out that morning. Exodus nineteen, by the way, is where
we're at. And you come out that morning and everyone's
standing and then pretty soon, pretty soon you hear this
rams horn. I think it's louder, and it's really really sweet,
and part of the wants to listen part of oh this.

(20:42):
And then you hear a voice and it's God's voice,
and you tremble and the earth starts to shake and
your face down and you look up and smoke is
billowing out. There's fire, and you're going, oh my gosh,
and you're just petrified. And then Moses speaks and you
hear his voice again, and then you're Moses, Moses, no more.
You just talk to him. He can't take it. And
that's God, right. This is a you are there moment.

(21:07):
And then after all of now get this, and then
Moses says that God, okay, I'm going to go up.
He wants me to come, and he's going to give
me commands. You know what he wants. He wants to
do a cutting. It's a covenant. And because of your background,
you understand a covenant has to do with blood. A
covenant has to do that we'll make a commitment to
God that we're saying that we would die before we'd

(21:29):
break the covenant. And he's saying the same thing, and
he's going to give us the agreement of the Covenant.
What it is we're going to agree to. I'm going
to go up and get that. So Moses goes up
and then we're people. Right, have you seen him? I
don't know. Where's he coming back? I don't know. It's
been on a long time. Kids are getting restless. This

(21:51):
is end camping trip. Is he coming back at all? Aaron?
We need a god. I mean, you know, people were
getting restless. It's getting a little up tidier. We need
but we did a solution. Okay, fear pressure is very powerful.
Why don't you all take off an ear ring bring
it to me? And he fashions a calf and they
put a golden calf and from their Egyptian background, the

(22:13):
bull the calf power fertility. We'll call him Yahweh because
we don't want to get in trouble, right, syncretism it
always works, so we'll call it Yahweh. And then tomorrow
will bring your sacrifices and have said they brought their sacrifices,
and then they begin to express their worship in the
King James's revelry. It's like a really hot weekend in Vegas.

(22:37):
I mean, and you need to understand all the worship
the ancient world built into all the fertility gods, it
was sexuality, all kind of in moral ways. And then
God looks down and sees what's happening. He says, Moses,
we got a problem. Now here's the question. I want
to ask you. How in the world could you have

(22:58):
that kind of experience with God, see those kind of miracles,
that kind of power, actually hear his voice, see the
earth shake, and then demand that you had to have
something you could see. I want to tell you it's
human nature. And before we get like I don't know.

(23:18):
As an early Christian, I remember reading through the Bible
and stuff like this. I'm thinking, man, these people are
nuts or the disciples, you know, like you know, Jesus
would heal someone and then they're uptied about not having bread.
You know. I was young and never read the Bible,
and I thought, man, man, I wish I was there, Man,
I wouldn't have those kind of problems. I have to.

(23:39):
I do have a confession. I need to make that.
So far, it's sort of the sign of spiritual growth.
I've never come home after you know, a long day
of work and say, honey, you know, just stay right here.
I know, I put a little statue in the back room,
I'm going to go pray to it. So I've never
done that, just once. You know, I've never worshiped, but
I've worshiped a lot of idols that I've created in
my head, idols like success, family, kids, education, prosperity, money, comfort,

(24:13):
self fulfillment. See, we don't worship idols. They actually used
God made a picture, worshiped it in a way that
they could actually get quote what they wanted, in the
way they thought that would satisfy them with total disregard
for the real God. And I like to suggest that

(24:37):
we do the same thing. There's two big idols that
I want to touch on that I think have infiltrated
Bible believing evangelical Christianity. The first one is what I
would call happiness and self fulfillment. The awesome God that
spoke the galaxies into existence, sent God the Son on

(24:58):
a rescue mission to explain him, to redeem mankind, to
forgive us of our sin, to restore relationship and build
a bridge, bring people to himself, and that he would
actually be God and we would be followers, or the
word is disciples. To take that ministry and mission, and
he would be the creator and we're the creatures, and
we would obey Jesus and follow him as his spirit

(25:21):
in the New Covenant living inside of us, and we
would be on this mission together to fulfill God's will
and he would be the focus. That was the game plan.
But somewhere along the line we flipped it and it
was Jesus is my self, help, genie and Guru. And

(25:42):
there's a Christian way that if I read the Bible
and if I pray, go on a short term missions trip.
You get extra points if you give beyond ten percent,
go to religious activities and try and be a little
bit more moral than other people. The promise is you'll
have a marriage that's out of sight with no problems.
Your kids are all going to turn out great. You're

(26:02):
going to be upwardly mobile. They're going to get into
the buried best schools. If other people get cancer, you won't.
You're going to have amazing prosperity. God's going to bless
you financially, and Jesus' role in your life and the
formula is is that his goal is to make you happy,
because what really matters is are you happy? Are you

(26:24):
fulfilled so much so that if some of the commands
of Bible are some of the challenges in your life
threaten to make you happy, you redo your theology and
we do our theology and say this couldn't be God's
well because God wants to make me happy. I remember
we did a series that living on the Edge called Love,
Sex and Lasting Relationships and became one of our real

(26:46):
well received small groups, and then a book came out
of it. And so when you do that, usually are
on these like two or three days, you do these
radio kind of talk shows and people call in and
they talk about that stuff. And this lady said, well,
I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying that.
I just want you to know I believe in God
and I love Jesus so much. You know, Jesus really
loves me. But I'm just we've lost the love in

(27:08):
our marriage. And I said, well, I mean, as your
husband committed some immorals. Oh no, no, no, he's okay.
But you know what, I just want you to know
that I know God wants me to be happy, so
I'm divorcing him, and I'm divorcing him because I can't
see the next ten years. These challenges are just too hard.
God wants me to be happy. And you know, then

(27:28):
I sort of gave her a number of kind clear
passages about he certainly as a byproduct of obeying him,
wants us to have joy and happiness. But actually, you
made a covenant and made a covenant with God, and
you know, these are pretty normal times we all go through.
But I will tell you is in the Evangelical Church,
the divorce rate is no different than outside. And by

(27:50):
the way, I mean, I'm just please, if you're sitting here,
going my wife is divorced. There are biblical divorces. My
wife was an unbeliever, married a guy. He started selling drugs.
He ran away with another woman. She wanted it to work,
and he after two years. And you know, God can
can redeem and take things. But the great majority of

(28:12):
divorces in our day are not about that. It's you know,
irreconcilable differences. It's hard, it's difficult, it's painful. Hello, And
guess what. The second one is hard and difficult and painful,
and the third one is harder and more difficult and painful.

(28:32):
And honestly, here's the thing. We think that the whole
goal of marriage is self fulfillment redefined it. Guess what
it's to make you holy? The purpose of marriage is
that the people could see the covenant of a man
and a woman worked out in the flesh, with the
ups and downs and struggles, and so they could see
what Jesus in the church looks like. It's a testimony.

(28:53):
It's the most powerful other than the Body of Christ.
It's the most powerful visual that God has for his
relationship with this church. So as I obey that, yes,
there's a byproduct of joy and connection, but we've turned
everything on its head, and so life really becomes about
am I happy? Am I self fulfilled? And then all

(29:15):
of a sudden, we've got this prosperity stuff everywhere, and
we have disillusioned Christians because guess what. You can have
your quiet time, read the Bible, give above ten percent,
go on a short term missions trip and a drunk
driver hits one of your kids, or your wife gets cancer,
or you save and save and save and faithful and

(29:35):
serve and serve and serve, and it's a fallen world
and you saved, and these are going to be the
sunset years and you're sixty eight and in great health,
and someone gets cancer and has gone in three months,
and it's like, what, man, this, what happened to the
formula Jesus? Here's what it is. You owe me God,
you owe me happiness, you owe me a future, you
owe me this. You say, you know why, because we're

(29:57):
claiming all kinds of promises that aren't in scripture. When's
the last time you heard a Christian claim this promise
For all those who desire to live a godly life
in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. Oh yeah, that's the
plaque in the bathroom. Or how about Philippians, one for
to you, for to you? It has been granted not

(30:20):
only to believe in Him, but to suffer for his sake,
experience the same conflict what you see and here to
be in me that I'm presently suffering. The apostle Paul.
What a joy, right, American Christians? It's like what I
sat across the table from a house church undercover pastor
in Hong Kong who came out to do some work

(30:42):
and go to a seminar, and on his last trip
out his wife was beaten by the police and she
claimed to be the pastor so he wouldn't get in trouble,
and none of the other people. And I mean, she
was beat to a pulp. And I'm at the edge
of my seat in my mind thinking, man, I don't
know if I could be very Christian with those police.
When I got home, you know, I sting like a butterfly,

(31:09):
you know, and I'm getting mad for this pasture. And
then he gets to the end where I'm thinking, you know,
in my good American Western Christianity, man, I know it
would be sinful to do something really wrong, but I
want to take him out. And then with tears in
the eye his eyes, he looks at me, he goes,
can you imagine that our God gave us the privilege

(31:29):
to suffer for him even as He suffered for us?
And I was thinking, embarrassingly, actually, I didn't say this.
That thought never crossed my mind. It never entered my mind,
that we get to enter into a suffering, that the
goal would be intimacy with God, that the goal would

(31:51):
be we say it glory for God. That the goal
would be that God would take the difficulty and the
pain of a difficult marriage, or a hurting child, or
a physical disability, or a downward economy or the upside
down house, and that the real goal is that God
would meet you in ways that your friends, your neighbors,
your family could be completely aghast at what holds you

(32:15):
up inside because those circumstances cross you everyone else because see,
that's He's God. He's a kind God. But it's a
fallen world where I live. I'm surely it's not where
you live. But I see great Christian families that you
would think that the goal in life is to have

(32:38):
your kids in as many activities as possible, to be
in the car most of the time, to figure out
how not to eat together almost ever, not tuck your
kids in bed, and don't teach him the Bible. But
they made the traveling team. Now, don't get me wrong,
I love sports. God paid my way through school and sports.

(33:00):
I've coached my kids. But we I've just I mean,
is there like ESPN forty five channels now or something.
I mean, it has become a cult movement. I mean,
we don't even care about the games anymore. It's just
my fantasy team. And they even think of the focus
of forgive me Lord, but the self focus of it

(33:23):
doesn't even matter what teams play, I just choose people
that I'm coordinating. He got hurt at take him off
my team.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
The trivia of life. Here's what I want you to
know is if we get a clear view of the
real God, some of the things that we have slowly, slowly,
slowly come accustomed to and think is normal, as Christians
would shock us. And one is the idol of happiness

(33:54):
and self fulfillment. The other idol, I think is what
I call the salad bar approach to Christianity, and the
way it goes is something that we're seeing in Bible
or into churches now. And it's like God had a
good day when he gave the ten Commandment's just not
a great day. Eight out of ten are good. Now
you get to choose which two you don't like in

(34:15):
our day. You know, this one about.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Adultery or sexual purity, I think that was very old fashioned.
It was probably for the community of that time and
in our more existential, wiser way. I don't think that
really applies today. Oh this one, Oh no, we don't
just know that we've been You know that thing about greed.
Greed is good. He obviously hadn't seen the movie, we'll
cut that one out. And we have taken the Bible,

(34:41):
and we've decided selectively which parts are true, which parts
are not true, instead of it being the authority, and
we've created it around a lifestyle and an American dream vision.
And we have taken a book removed the God of
authority and the God that holy and the God who
loves us and the God who wants our best, and

(35:03):
we have basically said, how again can this? And so
when you decide what's true and what's not true, there's
a new God on the throne and it's you. I mean,
it's massive across America right now. We have tens of
thousands of people flocking to services where part of the

(35:25):
Bible is taught as though it's some sort of a
positive thinking self help manual instead of the Holy creator
of the universe sent his son, and that he's asked
us to join him in a mission to rescue people
off this world called the Titanic that's sinking. And we
have the only hope and that needs to be our priority.
And by the way, by the way, as that's your priority,

(35:48):
and he is Lord, and as you serve him, he
is so kind and so generous that the byproduct is
very very often an amazingly deep intimate marriage. The byproduct
is the level of joy regardless of circumstances. The byproduct
is that your kids will see that and catch the
vision and probably follow in your steps. But it's a byproduct.

(36:10):
And so what happens is when you make the means
the end, it becomes an idol. It's what happened I
believe with Abraham. Why would God ask Abraham to give
his son? I mean, you wait one hundred years for something,
you think that by twelve thirteen the kid kind of
was an idol. So anytime we worship an idol, two

(36:31):
things happen. The idol can't deliver, and we take God
out of the equation in our life. So the whole
point of Abraham giving Isaac was for his good to
free his heart. Isaac can't deliver fulfillment. Isaac can't fulfill
my will. Isaac is a gift. It's to steward. Children

(36:54):
are a gift from the Lord. And so that moment
for him to take Isaac up was a moment of
life lordship to believe that he could trust what God's
word and Hebrews eleven says what he went there believing
that though he slay him, he would rise. And you know,
just we might as well just start this time off together.

(37:15):
Just ask yourself before you hit the pillow, do I
have any isaacs? And usually they're good things. It's a
good job, can be a great marriage, could be one
of your kids. It can be ministry, believe me. So
what we want to do is we want to pause
and say, okay, Lord, I know that you're not like me.

(37:39):
I know that I will reduce you to manageable terms.
And third, God can only be known as he reveals
himself to us, and he does that in three ways,
and these will develop throughout the whole time. But let
me give him to you. The first way God reveals
himself to us is through nature. Saw in nineteen one says,
the heaven's declared the glory of God. The sky I

(38:00):
proclaimed the work of his hands. Day after day, they
pour forth speech, night after night. They reveal knowledge. One
of the things I do, I like, I just like
to get up early. It's just work for me, and
so it's always dark and often when I get up,
you know, that's when I spend time with God and
my warped personality. Sometimes I think of all the things

(38:22):
I've got to do, and I start feeling pressure, and
so I usually list the things I'm thankful for to
get my perspective, and then I'll write a little box
in my journal, and I'll put a box and then
I'll write, and I'll turn the pressure into a prayer request.
And some of them sometimes, you know, I have like eight, ten, twelve, going,
oh my gosh, and that's just today. And and then
I often, you know, I'll get that second cup of

(38:42):
coffee and I'll and I'll go outside. And when I
go outside, and then I just look at all these
stars and I just look at my little boxes, all
those stars, and I just think men have been looking
at these for thousands of years. You hold you know
every name. This is just the Milky Way. There's only

(39:03):
a billion stars, only a billion, and you know all
their names. By the word of your power. You're holding
them right now. Outside the Milky Way. There's between two
hundred and three hundred billion galaxies. I'm going to cast
my care upon you because you care for me. You're

(39:24):
an all powerful god, and yet you care about one
little guy in California named Chip and you know I
feel those pressures, and you're committed to giving me the
grace to either say yes, to say no, or to
do whatever you want me to do. So I'm going
to go back inside and I'm just going to remember

(39:46):
who I'm really talking to. And sometimes it's three minutes,
sometimes it's ten. And then I go back and I say, Okay, Lord,
what do you want me to do? What do you
not want me to do? What could someone else do?
And then okay, I know these Okay, I got to
record this video and prepare me. I need to have
a hard conversation I need And it just changes, It

(40:14):
just changes. When when's the last time you were out
in nature and saw it? The theologians call it general revelation.
In Roman's One, the apostle Paul would say, we're all
without excuse because from the stars and the balance of
nature and the mystery and the harmony of nature alone,

(40:35):
God's invisible attributes, his eternal existence and his very character
is revealed. What kind of a god has a bird
that lays an egg here and flies thousands and thousands
of miles way over to here, and a year later
drops an egg twelve inches from the same spot. What
kind of a god has gps into wales that travel

(40:57):
and crisscross. What kind of a god has six hundred
different kinds of beatles. He's a god of variety, a
god of beauty, a god of power, a god of love,
a god of design. But you know what, he can
just be the God of Help me get through this, God,
I need a parking spot. Help it to be on sale. Yeah,

(41:18):
I mean, go to some of our prayer meetings. You know,
they're like anatomy meetings. Help Ethel's toe, help Bob's shoulder,
help Georgia's ear, help him clean out thou the alven Bob,
it's a second time through. If you listen to his pray,
you would think, honestly, what we really feel like is

(41:38):
I can only pray about things I think I can control.
And since God is obviously unaware of all this, what
I'm trying to do is take this awesome, powerful God
and bring him into my little world to get him
to do what I think he ought to do. Then
listen to how the apostle Paul prays. I pray that
the eyes of your heart might be enlightened. I pray
that you might grasp the height and depth, and length

(41:58):
and breadth, and to know the love of Christ that
surpasses knowledge. I pray that God would give you insight
into his will, that you could discern good from evil,
in order that you might walk in a manner worthy
of Him. I pray that you would understand the depth
of His love for you, how precious of an inheritance
you are to Him, and the power that dwells within you.

(42:21):
I pray that you might be filled with the knowledge
of His will. I mean those prayers and Philippians one
and Philippians three and Phesian three and Philippians and Clautionans.
I mean, I'm not the apostle Paul, and you're not
the apostle Paul. But wow, it sure seems like he's
asking not so much about tactical things. And I don't

(42:42):
think it's wrong. I pray for tactical things. But I
think he actually believes that if people could see God
for who he is, if people could be aligned, if
God would reveal himself and they would be open, they
would follow his will. All those tactical things that probably
get taken care of the second Wave reveals himself as

(43:02):
through his word. John chapter one and the beginning was
the Word, and the word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Through him all things were made, and without him nothing
was made that has been made. And him was life,
and the life was a light of the world. I mean,
I love you might just in your notices, I think

(43:23):
I put Hebrews one. It's one of my favorite passages.
In times past, God has spoken to us through the
prophets and the apostles, been in this last days, He's
spoken to us through his son, who is the icon,
the exact image or representation of the Father. It's the
picture of if you've ever if you took a piece
of putty, and you took like a silver dollar or
something like that, and if you pressed it into the

(43:44):
piece of putty and then pulled it out real carefully,
you have the exact image. Right. That's the word. Jesus
is the exact image calautions to all the fullness of
the Godhead dwelt in christ se. If you really want
to know what God is like, it's Jesus the very

(44:04):
last night, right. He's getting he wants the disciples to
stay on track, and he's talking to him and he's
preparing them, and it's really encouraging because they're really slow,
which gives me a lot of hope. And he talks
to me, well, you know the way I go, except
to Thomas, you know what this is? The Ingraham translation.
I think you're talking in circles candidly, Jesus, I really

(44:26):
don't know the way, and I don't really get it.
And Jesus said, Thomas, I'm the way and the truth
in the life. No man comes to the Father except
by me. And then Philip frustrated, Well, such, it'll be enough.
Just just show us the Father and it'll be enough. Philip,
how long have I been with you? If you've seen me,
you've seen the Father. If you want to know how

(44:49):
does your image of God? How does God respond when
you really mess up? When you do something that's wilful, malicious, sinful, shameful,
wish you hadn't done it, and you feel terrible about
it and you're coming to God. How will God treat
you exactly the way he did the woman caught in adultery.
If you want to know how God thinks of you

(45:11):
and how he'll relate to you when you know some
of those times we feel like, Man, I'm reading the Bible,
I got the quiet time going, we gave a little
extra money to missions. I think I'm feeling pretty holy.
Then the way he feels about you is Jesus with

(45:31):
the Pharisees. If you know when your heart is hungry
and you're and you don't know the direction, and you
wish you knew what to do, and you're messing up,
but you're making progress, and you say, Lord, but you
just help me. It's how Jesus related to the disciples.
Did you realize he never got mad at them? One
only issue all in all the gospels, only one thing. Oh,

(45:54):
you have little his God's agenda is so simple. We
make it so complicated. Here's to trust me. Trust me
in the hard marriage, Trust me with your kid, trust
me with your money, trust me with the decision. I've
got a little question that I write down in hard situations. Question,
what does it look like to trust God in this situation?

(46:17):
Not how do I fix it? Not God, will you
do this and that? What's it look like to trust
God in this marriage, in this decision, in this financial loss,
in this hard conversation coming up? What's because here's the
thing without faith it's impossible to please him. You can
build a ministry, you can build a business, you can
have a decent looking family. Without faith, you just can't

(46:39):
please God. The heart of what it means to be
a follower of Jesus is to trust him. And you
can't trust someone you don't know. You only trust people
that this is their character, this is their track record,
and over and over and over all. The lessons to
the disciples are what you can trust my word, because

(46:59):
when you see my word, it's always faithful. So many
of the miracles. Why did he do him the way
he did him? When he wanted to calm the sea?
What did he do? He spoke? I mean he could
have done hand signs. When the little girl was dead,
how did he He didn't touch her? Little girl? I
say to you, arise, bam, see calm, demon, come out.

(47:23):
If I'm a disciple of what I'm thinking, I'm not
sure about this guy. But whatever he says, you can
trust it. And that's for us. So he reveals himself
through nature, through his word, and ultimately through Jesus. No
man has seen God at any time. John One tells
us the word became flesh and dwelt among us we

(47:43):
build his glory. Glory is the only one. And then
he says to us, no man has seen God at
any time, but he has explained him. The word is exegeted.
Jesus explained the thought. You want to know what God's like,
it's Jesus. That's why I think it's no matter where

(48:04):
we're reading in the Bible, don't go too far away
from the Gospels. I've got a buddy. He's a Bible aholic.
He's my hero when it comes to the Bible. I've
never been around it. We went overseas together when I
was young, and he was the first guy that started
memorizing small books of the Bible. And every time i'm
with Glenn and he goes, chip, I just learned something

(48:24):
what he says, no matter where you're reading, you're ready
for this. What if you just read just like three chapters,
just three chapters in the Gospel? I mean, can you
imagine only three chapters. If you read three chapters every
day in the Gospels, you can get through the Gospels
like fifteen times in a year. Can you imagine fifteen times?
You really see Jesus. I'm thinking, Glenn, you're still blowing

(48:45):
me away. But what he's saying is, no matter what
we're doing, Jesus is the focus. Jesus is the focus.
Get to know Jesus, you get to know God. Okay.
The big question and this is the one will impact
and are time together. What must I do to see
the real God as he is? What must I do

(49:05):
to see the real God as he is? The answer
is seek him, seek him Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven.
Follow along as I read, for I know the plans
that I have for you, declares the Lord plans to
prosper you and not to harm you. God's not the force,

(49:28):
He's personal plans to give you a hope and a future.
The God that you're talking to wants to give you
hope deep in your soul and a future. And he understands.
Then you will call on me, and you will come
and pray to me, and I will listen to you,
and you will seek me, and you will find me.

(49:49):
What's the condition when you seek for me with all
your heart? And then all I can say is it's
almost mind boggling. Says I'll be fond of you. I'll
be fond of you. This isn't for Superstar Christians. This
isn't just for people went to Bible school or seminary.

(50:09):
This isn't people who are smarter than the rest of us.
Jesus would make the same statement, Seek and you'll find right.
Knock and the door will be opened. Ask seek, knock.
He wants to meet you. But here's the deal. How
how do you seek God where you really know him?

(50:30):
It's not through external religiosity, It's not through just intellectual
cognitive information about him. There is a way to seek God,
and the wisest person who ever lived, Solomon lines out
for us. Notice what he says in Proverbs too. I've
put it in your notes, my son, If you will
receive my words and treasure my commandments within you, put
a little arrow and write initiative in God's word. You

(50:55):
will never find a man or woman that knows God deeply.
That isn't a man or a woman of this book.
Treasure his commandments, receive his sayings. Second, make your irritentive
to wisdom. Incline your heart to understanding. Put a little
arrow and write teachable attitude. This isn't like, oh I

(51:16):
would like to understand the outline of the Book of
Philippians oh, I want to understand what's the major themes
of the pentituke this all. I have a reading program.
I read three chapters a day to keep the devil away. No, no,
this is God. I want you to speak to me.
This is me. I got questions, I got issues, I
got struggles. I'm going to open your word. I want

(51:38):
you to speak to me in specific ways. Because here's
the deal. If you'll speak, I'll obey. That's when God speaks.
I don't want to become a smarter sinner. I'm going
to become a more obedient son or daughter. So I'm
going to read this and I don't understand it all,
and I may not understand it all, but I want
you to speak to me. I have a teachable spirit.

(52:01):
Incline your heart to understanding. Third, for if you cry
for discernment, lift your voice for understanding. Put a little
arrow and write passionate prayer. Passionate prayer. It's the kind
of prayer God answers. This isn't no, No, Lord's good
to pray hard Father art and haven't have a bath
that nam bath kingdom kind of. I might have missed

(52:22):
a couple. Now I let me down to sleep. Something
about my soul to keep catch you later. I'm getting deep.
This is the kind of prayer when you got a
kid and I see you and the doctor says, I
don't know if he's gonna make it. This is the
kind of prayer when your wife or your husband positive results.

(52:43):
It's cancer and it's serious. How do you pray? No
little form prayers? You bury your heart before God. God.
I'm asking you, would you intervene? Safe my boy? God,
I'm here. What you know? God? It searched my heart.
If there's something between us, let me know. But it's
passionate prayer. It's cry out to God. God wants to

(53:03):
hear from you. This isn't religious people. This is people
who long to know God. Notice, say says, if you
seek for her speaking of this wisdom, this knowledge of
God as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasure.
Look at the result. Then purpose clause, you'll discern the
fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God.

(53:24):
Circle this discover You won't get it from a preacher.
You won't get it from a book. You won't get
it from someone else. You will discover. You want God
to speak to you, and he wants to speak through
his word, and he wants to speak through his spirit,
and yes, he speaks through people. But Solomon is saying,
as you dig in, as you make it a priority,

(53:46):
he'll speak. He wants to speak next to the one
where it says seeker for silver, right priority, priority, right,
first priority. If I told you right now that, and
if you have a really big backyard, then then just

(54:07):
limit it to like thirty feet out and across. If
you have a small backyard, this illustration works. If I
told you that in your backyard, why you are here.
Ten million dollars was buried in your backyard. We've resotted everything.
You have no idea where to look. It's only six

(54:28):
feet deep. You have three days to find it. From
the moment you get home. You have three days. If
you don't find it in three days, it will be
returned to me. Now you get home, your three days
starts the moment you hit the driveway. I can't quite
imagine you going, well, you know that NFL season has started.

(54:51):
I think I'll look for a little bit later. But
you know it's a big game. Cowboys are playing Pittsburgh Steelers.
You know I love them, or you know I think
it is Sunday afternoon. You know, naps are really important
on Sunday afternoon. I need I think I'll take a nap,
or we could. I'll start tomorrow. Now. I can't start

(55:12):
tomorrow because the kids have a ballgame tomorrow. I have
the ladies lunching in the afternoon. Gosh, I just is
that what you do? You know what some of you,
some of you would be buying shovels at Ace Hardware
on the way home, and some of you are high
tech shovels. Are you kidding me? The back hoe will

(55:33):
be delivered at four thirty five pm, and then this
mart need would you knock down the fence? In this
back ho is digging up your whole backyard, your neighbors?
What are you doing? Man? You're messing up our yard?
What are you doing? Hey? Forget it. I'll buy you
a new backyard about three days. You wouldn't care. What

(55:53):
if you had if you would have that kind of
passion for ten million dollars in your backyard? What if
you had that kind of passion to know God that
you would receive his commands, that would incline your heart
to understanding that you would cry out with passionate prayer,
and that you would seek it as for silver and
as for hidden treasure. Then here's the promise. Then, not

(56:19):
someone else, you will discern, first of all the fear
of God. You'll learn he ain't your buddy, He's God.
And then these great words of toes Her again, the
great paradox of the faith is that you will be
afraid in awe and yet because of Jesus, fearful, but

(56:42):
not be afraid to come and come to the Heavenly
Father who is eager to be your friend.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
You've been listening to Living on the Edge with chipp
Ingram here on pray dot com. The message you just
heard is from our populars the Real God, and if
you want to join ship as he uncovers more about
our great God, subscribe to the Living on the Edge
page here on pray dot com. He'll explore key Bible
passages that reveal seven fundamental characteristics of our Heavenly Father,

(57:15):
attributes that reflect the very essence of his divine nature.
So I hope you'll join us beginning September third for
this entire study. Well, that wraps up this edition of
Living on the Edge with chip Ingram. Thanks for listening
to this Sunday service here on Prey dot com. I
hope you'll join us again. Next time.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
You will be like.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
God, human unity. God was severed and through it all,
God's promise remain true.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Follow me, April, and I will make you great.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
This the Chosen People. Listen to the Chosen People at
the Chosen people dot com. That's the Chosen People dot
com