What do you do when God flat out says no? You
pray, you seek, you have faith, and yet He just
says no. If that's you or someone you love, that's
what we'll cover today. Welcome to this edition
of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We are
an international discipleship ministry devoted
to helping Christians worldwide live out their
faith for the glory of God and the benefit of
all people. Thanks for joining us today as Chip
will share a really thought -provoking message
focused on that question he just teased, what
do you do when God says no? And this whole idea
seems odd, right? After all, isn't our Heavenly
Father supposed to answer all our prayers? How
can a no be helpful to us? Well, stay with us
as Chip opens up about his journey of receiving
a no from God. Hear what God is teaching him
through this experience right now and the unexpected
ways God is blessing other areas of his life.
Okay, if you have a Bible, go to 2 Corinthians
chapter 12, beginning in verse 9, as we settle
in for Chip's powerful message. What do you do
when, whether it's a physical issue or a relational
issue, emotional issue, or sometimes it's just
finances or a job, you pray, you pray, you pray,
and God says no. How do you respond? Now, I share
that because I'm experiencing some of that right
now, and I've experienced quite a bit of it in
the last seven years. where God in a particular
area of my life just keeps saying no. And so
I've gone to where the Apostle Paul, he prayed
three times. Paul has lots of faith, so the issue
isn't faith. Paul loves God. He's being used
by God. He's in the center of God's will, and
he has some sort of physical issue. It's actually
called a messenger from Satan. And he prays in
faith once, twice, three times. The answer is
no. But then he gets this, and he said to me,
My grace is sufficient for you, for power is
perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore,
I will rather boast about my weakness that the
power of Christ may dwell in me. And that word
dwell was really interesting. In the Old Testament,
that word was used for when the tabernacle would
move from place to place. It would be the manifestation
of God's presence. And so the Apostle Paul says,
God said no to me. But what he said yes to is
I will give you grace, ability, endurance, strength
in the midst of my no. I'm not going to change
your circumstance. The answer is no. You're not
getting relief on this one, at least not right
now. But my grace will give you all that you
need. And then he says the reason is because
power is perfected in weakness. It's in these
times. that we are drawn so close because we
hurt and we're frustrated. And at times we're
angry and we've asked God and we're seeking him
and we're not getting delivered out of them.
God is going to deliver us through them. And
then he goes on in the next verse with the therefore.
Paul realizes, okay, this is the game plan. Not
what I would choose, not that I would really
want. But if the game plan is when you say no
and I'm going through difficult. challenging
times, and I'm weak. That's when God's power
manifests itself through my weakness. Therefore,
he says, I'm well content with, notice, weaknesses,
plural, with insults, plural, with distress,
with persecutions, plural, with difficulties.
Notice why, for Christ's sake. For when I am
weak, then I am strong. And I want... you or
maybe there's someone you love that's going through
something like this, and your application from
today's broadcast is you're going to send them
this and say, you've got to listen to this because
this is where you are. Because I can tell you
that you can get frustrated and angry and disillusioned.
And what I know is God made us to want to know
and experience love and joy and peace and hope
in the midst of the most difficult challenges.
And spoiler alert, what the Apostle Paul is going
to tell us is, in the midst of this, we're not
victims. God is not mad at us. It's not that
we don't have enough faith. He's going to show
us that we have every spiritual blessing currently
in the heavenly realm and that we must learn
to choose to actually take hold of what he's
already given us in the midst of it. He's going
to teach us that we can choose joy. in negative
circumstances. We can choose love in the midst
of being rejected and hurt. We can choose hope
when we don't see anything on the other side
of that dark tunnel. We can choose peace in the
midst of anxiety and mental health issues. I've
met with so many people, traveled so much lately,
and met with... Not just leaders, but people
from all backgrounds, not only here in America,
but around the world. And with all this uncertainty,
with all this division, with all the things that
are happening, with the rapid change, with technology,
with AI, the fears and the uncertainty and the
issues in people's lives are at an all -time
high. In my own personal life, I've had about
seven years of just incredible pain. everything
you could do for your back. I mean, ice packs,
every procedure, epidurals, anything you could
do with any kind of medication, I tried. And
finally, I had a fusion in my back. And I mean,
that helped about 60%, but still ongoing pain
all the time. And then fast forward a couple
of years in the middle of COVID. It tears above
and below where they fuse my back at L3 and L4.
So I have another major surgery. And since that
time, to be candid, I've had little windows of
relief where the pain's only like a three or
four and times of seven, eight, nine. And I'll
be honest with you, Lord, what's the deal? And
at the same time, I've watched God. explode and
expand the ministry of Living on the Edge in
ways that are beyond anything I could have dreamed.
I'm finally realizing there may be a correlation
here. Chip, my strength, my power is manifested
in your weakness. And I would like to tell you
that I have learned to be well content. I am
learning. I'm making progress. And what I would
say too is that One of the things that helped
me the most has been the teaching of God's Word
in the midst of that. Well, today, I want to
just pause. I've got a cup of coffee in front
of me, and I'm in the studio, and rather than
a formal teaching, would you give me just a chance
maybe to share my heart about, although I wouldn't
want them to happen to me, how God, in the midst
of our difficult, challenging times, when all
we can... on the outside feel as we're getting
a no, he's saying yes where his power shows up.
And so I just like to share a little bit of my
experience about how I'm learning to choose and
some of the impact of why we're going to talk
about in the weeks to come about choosing joy,
about choosing love, about choosing hope, about
choosing peace. At the end of the day, I love
to teach God's Word, but teaching God's Word
is a step. It's a step in the disciple -making
process. And our dream is that Christians would
live like Christians to the glory of God and
for the good of all. That's the heartbeat of
Living on the Edge. That's our vision. And we
do that in a number of different ways. And one
of the most important ways is going to be what
I'm going to be teaching. And so let me take
a minute and share. This is what I'm going to
teach in the next month, month and a half. And
this is why. And this is how together we're longing
to see in the midst of this very turbulent time
in world history. We can help Christians live
like Christians and make a real difference. You're
going to hear the next series beginning tomorrow
called I Choose Joy. And it grew out of a very
dark and painful time in my life. This was probably
a couple years ago. My wife privately said, Chip,
do you realize how negative you've become? And
I bristled a little, and yet I knew she was really
right. But I knew my thinking was negative. And
she goes, you know, I understand you've been
through a lot, but you were one of the most joyful,
upbeat persons I've ever known. And just little
by little by little by little, you just kind
of have a negative view of things. I had to admit
I'd lost my joy. I mean, I was choosing to do
the right thing. It wasn't like I was being a
terrible person. But what I realized, I wasn't
rejoicing. I wasn't having a sense of that vitality
and joy and walking with God. And I'm still praying.
I'm still reading my Bible. But an awful lot
of it was a, this really is hard. And God, I
don't know why you haven't done this yet. And
nevertheless, I'm going to do what's right. And
she really challenged me. And first of all, When
things aren't right, you just have to own what's
really true. And that was painful, but little
did she know the negative thoughts and struggles
inside my mind that never even came out my mouth.
And I'm like the rest of you. You're most honest
with the people that love and accept you the
most. So I'm sure my wife got more of my negativity
than anyone else. And about that time, I was
supposed to teach at the Billy Graham Center
a few months later. And of all things, I was
scheduled to teach on Philippians chapter one.
And as I was framing that and studying Paul's
life, I realized, oh my, this is how you choose
joy. The apostle Paul in the midst of prison
and possible looming death, his focus is on you
and he evaluates his circumstances based on your
purposes. And he has this hope and expectation
of the reality of heaven. So whatever happens
in this temporal life, he can say for me to live
as Christ and to die as gain. And his expectations
weren't that it would be rosy, but Not only would
he have great grace for joy and salvation, but
also part of the game plan is to suffer. And
so I taught that, and it became I Choose Joy,
a series, and it had a profound impact on tens
of thousands of people. And in fact, I did three
overseas trips already this year, one in the
Philippines, then in Egypt, and then later in
Dubai. Each one of those, I talked about how
we can choose joy. And I saw how it's just not
here in America, but around the world. And because
it had such an impact, we have a book coming
out. I hope you'll get it, and I hope you'll
share it. I see so many people with mental health
issues. And like me, what happened was, little
by little by little, I hate to admit this, I
saw myself as a victim. You know, God isn't coming
through, and I'll still obey. I'll still do what's
right. I wasn't someone who was living above
their circumstances. I was living under them.
And it had a debilitating effect on me. We'll
learn from the Apostle Paul, even in his weakness,
in his struggle, and even looming death, when
he has that kind of attitude supernaturally given
by God, because God's grace is sufficient for
him, God's power shows up. That's what I got
to experience, and that's what I want people
to experience. And so that's the next series
coming up. And then right after that, we'll talk
about... I choose love. And I meet so many people
that are waiting for the right person or wanting
a relationship to change and waiting for something
to happen out there somewhere, somehow. And we're
going to learn that you can actually choose to
love. And we'll talk about the four characteristics
of when you and I choose to live in this certain
way as modeled by Jesus and taught by the Apostle
Paul. we can experience supernatural acceptance
and love and connection with people. And so after
that, then we're going to talk about I choose
hope. And after that, we're going to talk about
I choose peace. And here's what I want you to
get. I declare that circumstances and external
things and things I can't control, whether it's
the economy over here or politics over here or
a family situation or a job situation, In the
month of June and early July, I'm going to learn
how to choose joy and love and hope and peace.
And I want to be a Christian who lives like a
Christian by the grace of God, regardless of
my circumstances. And as you do that and I do
that, not only will we experience the benefit,
but all the people around us will experience
that as well. And so I just want to encourage
you, would you lock on with me? when we choose
to do what God wants us to do, I think you'll
experience what I've been experiencing the last
few years. In the midst of when I was weak and
struggling and praying and dependent, God was
expanding and exploding the impact of living
on the edge beyond anything I ever, ever dreamed.
It started shortly after COVID and we started
doing daily discipleships and then countries
would open up and we helped with pastors. All
I can tell you is that our vision and our mission
is to see a movement of Christians living like
Christians for the glory of God and the good
of all, literally the good of all mankind. And
as we have done that at Living on the Edge, we
developed three specific pillars, if you will.
We have a strategy to help Christians live like
Christians, not only here in the United States,
but all around the world. So our pillar one is
discipling God's people. We prayed and God showed
us just do what Jesus did. He taught the multitudes.
He got the disciples in a small group and he
gave them tools so they could share with others
what he taught them. That's what discipleship
is. It's walking with Jesus, following him and
doing what he did. So we do teaching and we provide
training. and we provide tools. We're on 1 ,192
radio stations Monday through Friday. Living
on the Edge is also on 12 streaming platforms.
You may listen on pray .com or oneplace .com
or 10 other different ones where just the Word
of God is going out through Living on the Edge
to millions and millions of people. We have over
1 million Living on the Edge reading plan subscribers
on YouVersion. In recent months, we taught a
brand new series where we day by day went through
the entire gospel of Mark. We partnered with
Jenny Allen to promote Gather 25, the global
prayer initiative. We don't think we're something
special. We think we need to partner with churches
and organizations that are making a difference.
And what a joy it was if you got to be involved
in that, to see people praying all across the
globe. As I said before, this new book, I Choose
Joy, comes out June 3rd. I just finished writing
and turned in I Choose Love that will come out
next January. And then we have a small group
coming out on I Choose Joy in the fall. And of
course, many of you are connecting through the
daily discipleship. We want to help ordinary,
regular people. Learn to open the Bible, study
it for themselves, learn how to hear God's voice,
maybe even journal a little bit, pray very specific
prayers, and learn to hear God speak to them
and then through them. But if you really want
to disciple God's people, you have to realize
God has a plan, and his plan is the church. And
the key to every church is the pastors and the
pastoral staff and the leadership of the church.
When you have healthy pastors and healthy pastoral
staffs and healthy elders and deacons, I will
tell you, you have healthy churches. The bad
news is 85 % of the churches in the United States
are in decline. And that's a sad, sad thing.
40 % of pastors, when we came through COVID,
said, I would do anything else, but I don't have
another job. And it was in that time that we
stepped in to say, We're going to help a pastor's
heart. We trained 236 ,238 pastors in 2024, and
that's double the impact from 2023. To date,
we have, are you ready for this, had over a million
visitors to the Real God Arabic site. Did you
realize that Muslims are coming to Christ through
Living on the Edge? We've had 479. Muslim background
believers come to know Jesus. This isn't that
they clicked on a website. Over a million have
come already, and they're asking questions, and
that started on a conversation. That conversation
led to individual counseling with those people,
often done in a very clandestine manner. We're
currently in 22 countries, Africa, the Middle
East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and beyond.
In January, I had a chance to partner with the
Intentional Discipleship Conference in Manila,
training 14 ,000 pastors about not just teaching
God's Word, we're helping pastors learn to become
disciple -making pastors, how to measure the
church differently, not in how many people show
up on a weekend. But how do you grow a church
where leaders are becoming Christ -like and they
have a responsibility and are given tools to
help others become Christ -like? And so we have
a very clear, simple, replicable plan that God
is using called... growing a high -impact church.
In February, our team went to Africa. We have
a huge imprint there in a number of countries.
It's growing like crazy. And we invited 34 organizations
from 23 different countries. Those leaders represent
800 ,000 churches in Africa. And of those leaders
who we shared, this is what we do. This is how
we do it. We gave them a taste. We hoped 50 %
would say, I'd like to investigate it. Maybe
25 % would say, hey, we're ready to partner.
That was not our experience. 100 % of those 34
organizations said, we got people coming to church,
but we're not making disciples. Will you help
us? About two weeks later, I went to Egypt where
we trained 609 pastors, wrapping up a two -year
journey with them. And the head of all the Protestant
churches had lunch with him afterwards. And he
gave us the green light for another two years
to literally go to the next level, to train the
trainers inside of all the Protestant churches
in all of Egypt. Now, that may not sound like
a big deal, but listen carefully. Half of the
entire population of the Middle East lives in
Egypt. It is so strategic. This is such an open
door. And it's so amazing what God is doing.
Later in the month of March of this year, I was
in Dubai. We had 35 leaders from the Gulf states.
We also brought in our staff members and trainers
from Nepal and India. And then I had the privilege
of speaking at Movement Day to a thousand leaders,
pastors and marketplace leaders from 40 countries.
The same message, the same message, the same
message. We can make a difference. We have to
get back to the basics. We have to help regular
people be Christians who live like Christians,
to become disciples, to follow Jesus, to get
into his word, to pray, to prioritize their lives,
to say no to the world, to say yes to the Lord.
That's the message of Jesus. And so I just want
to tell you that we are having an impact. in
churches here and all around the world, because
when churches are healthy and pastors are healthy,
churches begin to have impact, impact in their
community, impact in their neighborhoods, impact
in the marketplace, impact in whole cities and
eventually whole nations. And we're seeing God
do that. Our first pillar is disciple God's people.
Our second is to equip and train pastors and
leaders. And our third pillar is one that's near
and dear to all of our heart. It's reaching the
next generation. And many of you remember this
time last year, we came out with a book called
Not Beyond Reach. It was our partnership with
the Steiger Ministry and Aaron Pierce and some
training with them the year earlier in Germany.
And their staff came from around the world. They're
reaching the young people that are farthest from
Christ in 100 major cities. And as I spent time
with them, I saw they have such a biblical approach,
but it's one that we've missed. And I said, Aaron,
we need to codify this in a book and get it into
the hands of people. And so we did, and it has
had a huge impact. And then the next step was,
how could we get it from a book that people could
read to a small group video resource that could
go to churches all across America and all around
the world helping? pastors and parents and grandparents
and regular people reach to the next generation
in their community. And so that's finished. And
a little bit later, I'm going to have Aaron come
and give us a report on how that's going and
what's the impact that we made together. We did
a series, Dealing with Doubts, and we really
focused on that. whole reconstruction that's
happening with young people and really sought
to answer their questions from where they're
coming from and brought some expert voices to
help you and me connect with and understand what's
happening in our culture, people like Sean McDowell.
And finally, we did a three -day off -site to
say, what is our plan to reach the next generation?
What's the technology? What's the focus? What's
the target audience? Where are we going to go?
How are we going to do it? It means that we need
to go where young adults get their information.
It means we need to break up the teaching in
shorter snippets. It means we need to have new
and younger communicators that can connect with
them in ways that I can't. We're asking God for
a movement of Christians who live like Christians
for the glory of God and for the good of all.
We've watched this happen. We've seen God explode.
And here's what I would remind you. All this
has happened while my own personal life, and
I'm not unique, many of the leaders on our team
have experienced things very similar and some
even more challenging than me. God wants you
to know His grace is sufficient for you. Power
is perfected in weakness. I'm on the journey,
and I invite you to go on the journey with me
to be able to say, I am well content. Doesn't
mean I like it, but I'm well content. I'm well
content with weaknesses, with insults, with distress,
with persecutions and difficulties for Christ's
sake. For when we are weak, we really are strong.
And so as we start this month of June, there's
never been a better time to say, I'm going to
choose joy and choose love and choose hope. And
what's great is we're just entering our mid -year
match. So every dollar that you give, thanks
to a very generous small group of people that
have created this match, every dollar you give
will be matched dollar for dollar to make a double
impact. I wish in many ways I could say, I never
have a bad day. I'm just knocking it out of the
park. But what I would say more is that I'm on
the journey. I'm doing way better than I did
a few years ago. It's still a battle. I sure
wish God would heal my back and take away some
of the pain I have. But if that's the small price
to pay for seeing not thousands, not hundreds
of thousands, millions and millions of people's
lives, many of them transferred from the kingdom
of darkness to the kingdom of light. and having
new life now and new life forever and ever and
ever with Jesus. It's worth it. Let's choose
to make an impact. Let's choose to do it together.
You've been listening to Living on the Edge,
and we pray you were encouraged by this special
message from Chip called, When God Says No. To
learn more about the ministry work that Chip
shared today, visit livingontheedge .org. And
as we close, I want to thank those of you who
support this ministry with your generous financial
support. Listeners like you make all the work
you've heard about today possible. And right
now is the perfect time to partner with us because
every gift we receive from today through midnight
on June 30th will be doubled dollar for dollar.
To support the global work of this ministry,
go to livingontheedge .org or call us at 888
- That's 888 -333 -6003 or visit livingontheedge
.org. App listeners, tap donate. Well, that's
all the time we have today. Join us next time
as Chip dives into his series, I Choose Joy,
based in Philippians chapter one. Until then,
I'm Dave Drew. Thanks for listening to this edition
of Living on the Edge.