Are you in need of hope today? Has life beat
you down? Does God feel far away and you feel
very, very alone? Well, stay with me. Help's
on the way. Welcome to this edition of Living
on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our mission is
to inspire Christians to be genuine followers
of Jesus and to empower them to be active disciple
makers in our world. Thanks for being with us
today as Chip speaks directly to the powerful
emotion of discouragement by continuing our series,
I Choose Hope. And let me encourage you to stick
around after the teaching as Chip provides some
practical steps to help you overcome this obstacle.
But for now, here's Chip with his message, Experiencing
Hope, from Philippians chapter 3. I was thinking
about... A story that I heard that is a true
story, it's kind of one of those you kind of
read in the paper and it goes on the AP wire
because it was so odd and then ends up in Reader's
Digest. True story of a woman in Florida, lived
in a trailer park, and hers was sort of a really
beat up, you know, not so good trailer. And just
everything about her life and practice, just
barely making it. And a very, very, very elderly
woman, and eventually she died, and they found
her in her trailer, and they went through all
the right processes and found there was a distant
relative or something, and they came in from
out of town and found out at least, oh, she had
a deposit box. And so they went to the deposit
box at the bank, opened the deposit box. It had
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. And
yet it was like, you know, she's barely making
it, you know, walking to the little store. And
I thought about that. In other words, I'm sure
in her mind, something a little bit warped was,
you know, I'm saving this for a rainy day. Like
I might live to be 150, you know. I mean, you
know, you got to ask, so when do you think that
rainy day? So she had everything she already
needed. She had hope for today. She had. plenty
of money for as long as anyone has ever lived.
And yet, it's one thing to possess something.
It's something else to appropriate it and use
it. And I got thinking about my own life and
yours and thinking, you know, I possess all the
hope. I have been sealed by God's spirit, by
his grace. I have the absolute certainty that
Christ is coming back. I have the absolute certainty
he's prepared a place for me and for all genuine
followers of Christ. I know that every promise
is true. He said he's going to provide for me.
He's going to protect me in the midst of a fallen
world. Anything I need, anyone I need to get
through anything, I have that hope. But I don't
always appropriate it. I live at times. And I
see lots of Christians live at times as though
they're hopeless. That this relationship went
south or the job situation or a health situation
or one of your kids or how long am I going to
be single or how long do I have to stay married
and all those kind of issues. And so I want to
talk to you about not just the fact of finding
hope, but how do you experience it? Hope is the
mental and emotional attitude that life is good.
That the future is promising and that progress
is absolutely certain, even in the midst of challenging
circumstances and difficult people. In other
words, you wake up in the morning and most parts
of the day, as you're relating to people, as
you think about work and your responsibilities,
there's this buoying up inside that, you know,
life is hard, but it's good. The future is uncertain,
but it's promising because God's in control.
I'm just saying, I'm not going to trust in any
sweetest frame, no other person. God is going
to come through. I just don't know how. And progress
is absolutely certain. He made this promise.
He who began a good work in me is going to complete
it until the day he comes back. Regardless of
the difficulty and the challenges, that everybody
has difficulties. Everybody has challenges. But
I have a hope. I have an anchor to my life. That's
what we're talking about in hope. Three things.
One, wherever we put our hope will determine
what we worship. I mean, wherever my hope is,
if I think it's work that's gonna come through,
if I think it's this person that's gonna come
through, if I think fame is gonna come through,
wherever I put my hope, I worship. Second, is
false hope always ends in pride or despair? When
I put my hope in something or someone that doesn't
have the ability. to come through. Either I get
a bit arrogant when I make some success or it's
despair because life isn't working. We found
that false hope is almost always focused on external
things. True hope is always about internal things.
False hope is what I can accomplish. True hope
is about what's already been accomplished by
Christ for me. And third, we learned that true
hope is rooted in relationship and it results
in joy. and endurance. I think joy is way underrated.
C .S. Lewis said, joy is the serious business
of heaven. Jesus on the very last night after
they had gone through everything and he's in
this vineyard and he's talking about a deep connection
with him by abiding in him and the kind of rich
relationship regardless. He's already told him
it's going to be tough. And he says, these things
I've written to you that my joy might be in you.
The joy of Christ and that your joy might be
full or literally overflowing. See, real hope
produces a joy when the external circumstances
are going, no way. So here's what I want to ask
you, okay? I mean, a lot of what I'm going to
say for many of you that have been around for
a while, it's like, you know these things, okay?
The issue isn't, do you know them? The issue
is, are you experiencing them? And so I'm going
to ask you to do a little something. This is
very private. Don't write anything down. But
I want to ask you, what relationship or what
circumstance, just right now, just where you're
seated today, doesn't have to even be a huge
big thing, but it feels hopeless. I mean, just
in your life, it just feels hopeless. It might
be just an area of your marriage. It feels hopeless.
It might be something at work and a supervisor
or a frustration or a project. But it might be
one of your kids that you've tried, tried, tried,
tried. I don't know what it is, but what I want
you to get your arms around, we're going to talk
about how the Spirit of God wants to take the
truth of God's Word and help you not know about
hope, but experience it. One of the best ways
is to start with, where do I feel a little hopeless?
Have you got it? You didn't think I was going
to go on, did you? Okay, you need to get that
in your mind. And I'm not saying it's true, but
it's how you feel and your feelings influence
how you respond. The big question I want to ask
and answer with you today is this. How do we
experience true hope in everyday life? Monday
morning, Saturday night, Tuesday in the midst
of a meeting. Thursday, when a project's not
going well. Friday, when your kid's sick. How
do you experience hope in everyday life? The
answer is Philippians chapter 3, verses 10 and
11. And there's an important context. If I would
read what I'm going to read to you, and if I
knew historically like Paul, this hater of the
church, this persecutor, this murderer, this
super religious guy, totally out of touch with
God, just came to Christ, and he'd been a Christian
like six months and was all fired up, I would
read this one way. But what I'm going to read
to you is the Apostle Paul, former Saul, 30 years
after his conversion. This is what he says after
he's been beat up more than a few times, where
he's been left in the ocean. He's been left once
for dead already. I mean, his life. This is the
guy that was the rising star of Judaism. So he's
a Roman citizen, city of Tarsus. He has wealth,
reputation, education from the Stanford, MIT,
Yale of his schools. He has got it all, and this
is how he's viewing life. Have you got it now?
30 years later, here's the passion that's pumping
through this guy's spiritual veins. He says,
what's more, I consider everything a loss because
of the surpassing value of what? Knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord. We underline that. This is his
hope. The prestige, the power, the wealth, the
influence. All of that I consider a loss now
in comparison to. A deep, personal, intimate
relationship with Christ for whose sake I've
lost all things. And here's our accounting term.
I consider them garbage or literally dung that
I might gain Christ and be found in him. Not
having a righteousness of my own that comes through
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.
Circle, faith in Christ. Memo to people who like
to skip ahead. Faith is going to be the key to
moving from hope that I actually possess to hope
that I experience. It's the righteousness that
comes from God on the basis of faith. Now here's
verses 9 and 10 where he now just kind of zooms
in about his consuming passion and the source
of his hope. I want to know Christ. and the power
of his resurrection and the fellowship of his
suffering becoming like him in his death and
so somehow to attain to the resurrection from
the dead. I want you to understand exactly what
he means and then I'll talk about what it really
means to us. What he's saying is I don't want
to intellectual knowledge about God. I don't
want facts. I don't want data. I want a deep
intimate relationship with God the Father through
the person of Christ. In fact, the Hebrew word,
when it's translated in this passage, if a Hebrew
was translating this, he would use the word yadah.
And the word yadah was when God is speaking about
Adam and Eve, and it says, Adam yadahed Eve.
And she gave birth to a son. He takes the most
intimate moment. In the relationship between
a man and a woman, the culmination of communication
of spirit, mind, and body. And he says, I want
to have the kind of intimacy with the living
God that a man and a woman who are unashamed
and come together physically. He says, that's
the depth. That's the level. And then grammatically,
basically, it would be, I want to know Christ.
Namely, now I'm going to give you three phrases
that identify how you experience this kind of
intimacy. First, namely, the power of his resurrection.
He's not talking about someday, some way, after
he's resurrected with Christ. He's talking about
the operational power, the supernatural power
in daily life, life -changing power over guilt,
life -changing power over addictions, life -changing
power over the way he used to think, life -changing
power to forgive the people and to receive God's
forgiveness and to experience the very living
Christ inside of him. He says, that's how I want
to know him. I want to know him so that every
day is different than any other day because the
living Christ lives in me. The same power that
rose him from the dead dwells in me. I want to
experience that. Second, I also want to know
him intimately through something that most of
us don't want and we would never welcome, but
it's a reality, the fellowship of his suffering.
The word koinonia, we have a koinonia class.
It means to participate in, to associate with,
to share, oneness, communion. It has this idea
of, A connection with someone that as you're
going through something, they're with you. They're
with you all the way. And the ups and the downs
and the struggles. And what you know, the people
that you're closest to in all the world are the
people that you have been through some huge,
difficult, painful thing, and you supported each
other on the journey. And he's saying, in my
life, if the suffering comes from without, if
it comes from persecution, if it even comes from
within, I want to experience the very presence
and the comfort and the enabling of Christ in
the midst of that. And third, he uses this word,
becoming like him in his death. Morphe. You know
what the word morphing means? It means to change
intrinsically from the inside out. What he's
saying is, I want an intimate, deep relationship.
I don't want to know about God. I want to experience
him. And I want to experience him with a level
of power and energy and impact that transforms
me. And I see things happen that have no human
explanation. And I want to experience him in
the lowest and the hardest and most painful things
of life so that I am actually morphed or transformed
from the inside out. How? Into the likeness of
his death. And you say, well, what do you mean
by that? Well, what was the likeness of his death?
Jesus came to the point, Father, I do nothing
unless you say. He comes to the very end of his
life and he prays, Lord, if there's a different
way rather than going to the cross, let's go
with that plan. Nevertheless, not my will but
yours. You're listening to Living on the Edge.
We'll return you to Chip's message in just a
minute. But first, let me tell you, God is doing
incredible work through this ministry all around
the world. And if you'd like to join us, consider
partnering with us during our mid -year match.
Every gift we receive until midnight on June
30th will be doubled dollar for dollar. Join
us today by going to livingontheedge .org or
call 888 -333 -6003. We appreciate your generosity.
Well, with that, here again is Chip. Paul's praying,
I want to be so transformed in an intimate relationship
with Jesus that when my Gethsemanes come and
I have to make a crossroads decision about I
so want to do it this way, or I so want to cheat
just a little, or I so want to, I will say, not
my will, but yours be done, because he... would
come to the point where he'd be so changed that
he would actually believe that a good, kind,
loving, all -powerful, sovereign God that would
be for his best regardless of the front end cost.
And so somehow, here the somehow is not, he's
not doubting whether he's going to be resurrected.
So somehow to attain to the resurrection from,
to put a circle around from and write the little
word out of. It's a little Greek preposition.
He's saying, I know that all people of all time
are going to be resurrected. The righteous and
the unrighteous will be resurrected. He said,
out of that general resurrection, he says, I
want to be reminded that whether you come back
or whether I die, because remember, he thinks
he's going to get executed or might be. He says,
out of that resurrection to the final end that
my faith in knowing you would turn to sight and
it would be forever. That's what he's teaching.
I want to kind of flesh out how do we experience
this intimate relationship with Jesus in everyday
life for you and me. And I'm going to suggest
that Paul has said, this is what I want, namely,
that there's three Things that we must know and
progressively, underline progressively. This
isn't overnight. This is like this morning early.
I was in my study kind of reviewing everything.
And I was reading a psalm that talks about your
descendants and them walking in righteousness.
And three of my grandkids really, really just,
they just came to my mind. And I just, it was
like, I'm going to go out of town tomorrow. I
just have to see them. So I got up and ran donuts
and grandfathering is a big plus. So I went to
the little donut shop, and, you know, I drove
over to my daughter's house and knocked on the
door and came in, and I had a little bag for
them, a little bag for them, and coffee for my
daughter and her husband, and just, you know,
just 15, 20 minutes. But it was this, I just
want to be with them. I just want to experience
life with them, and I long for them to experience
what God has for them. And so it's, but when
I was there, my little one grandson, he just
learned to walk about. two and a half weeks ago.
I mean, we went from, you know, like, is he going
to make it? And I mean, it was like, you know,
he gave me this. You know, he knows donut already.
And all you health food people, I eat very healthy
normally. When you're a grandparent, you get
to do this stuff. My daughter can feed him healthy
stuff all the time. I'm bribing them. Sort of.
Here's what I want you to get. As you listen,
I ask you to plant in the back of your mind,
where do you feel hopeless? I want you to begin
now to take that thought as I walk through, how
can you progressively experience the power of
his resurrection? How can you progressively in
the midst of this experience him in your suffering?
And how can in the process you can come to, even
before we walk out of this room, a sense of morphing
and changing that even if you can't see it, by
the way, hope you can never see. It's a certainty
of things unseen that you would say, Lord, not
my will, but your will, because I'm going to
trust in what I can't see. You, your power, your
love for me. And so with that, he says, what's
the power of his resurrection? How exactly do
you experience that? What the apostle Paul did
in verses 10 and 11 is he gave you the overarching
kind of big issues of how to have an intimate,
personal relationship with God through Jesus.
But his teaching through all the epistles is
just filled with explaining these phrases. So
what I thought I would do is each time I'm going
to give you his theology of resurrection power,
and then I'll give you his experience. Then I'll
give you his theology of suffering, and then
his experience. Because as you see both those
things, guess what you're going to do? You're
going to go, aha, I got it. It's his power in
our weakness. The way the apostle Paul is going
to teach us that we experience the resurrected
power is out of our weakness. Romans 8 verse
11 says, but if the spirit of him who raised
Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in
you. In other words, the same power that raised
Christ from the dead, when you turn from your
sin, ask Christ to forgive you, come into your
life, the same power, the same spirit lives inside
of you. So you should expect supernatural things
to happen. And then what he's going to say is,
but the way those supernatural things happen
is a recognition that what you need is his strength
or you need his power in the midst of your weakness.
Most of us, Just our mental, human, fleshly bent
is that I'm going to make it by what I do and
this is what I can accomplish. He's going to
say the flip with God is it's when you come in
humility and admit you can't. The 12 steppers
have a lot to teach us on that one. Bill Wilson,
by the way, was a believer. Anybody know what
the first step is? I'm absolutely powerless.
I can't do this. I can't overcome this addiction.
Well, guess what? You can't overcome forgiving
someone either. You can't overcome your fear
of failure. You can't overcome your family of
origin. You can't overcome your fear about the
economy. You can't overcome what's going to happen
to your kids. Right? Can you really? So what
the Apostle Paul is, he has this difficult situation.
Three times he prays. God says, no, no, no. And
then in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, notice what
he says. God, you have said no to me when I've
asked you to remove this difficulty, this tribulation,
some physical issue. Therefore, I'm well content
with weakness, with insults, with distresses,
with persecutions, with difficulties. Did you
notice they're all plural? For Christ's sake.
Why? For when I am weak, then I am strong. This
is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've
been listening to Part 1 of Chip's message, Experiencing
Hope, from our series, I Choose Hope. Chip will
be back shortly to share some helpful application
for us to think about. In times of uncertainty,
where do you turn for hope? And how confident
are you in your source of comfort to provide
the stability you desire? As Chip teaches through
Philippians chapter 3, he'll share what God has
to say about our fears about the future and how
feeling secure is possible, even when anxiety
comes. Learn how to embrace a more resilient
hope that will help you face each day with certainty
and peace. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now
to share a really powerful challenge with all
of you. Thanks so much, Dave. Let's be honest,
the future of the church hinges on what we pour
into the next generation. And there's an alarming
number of young people walking away from their
faith because they haven't found relevant answers.
And quite honestly, they haven't had godly models,
even in their own homes. In addition, they're
enduring an unending barrage of secular messages
vying for their attention and their allegiance.
Young people are looking for meaning, for purpose,
and belonging. The recent research that just
came out through Barna is there's been a movement
of young adults, 12 % more in the last four years,
going to church, walking with God and making
a difference. In fact, in the UK, I mean, the
UK is like dead spiritually from 2018 to 2024.
Two million more people are going to church,
and it's fueled primarily through young adults.
But, you know, young adults coming to know Jesus
is step one. Who disciples them? How do they
navigate through all the challenges, the worldviews,
what they've been taught all these years? In
our partnerships here and around the world, we're
helping young adults grow in Christ, get in the
Bible for themselves, creating resources that
make sense to them, that deal with the very controversial
and difficult issues of their day. If you care
about the next generation, can I encourage you,
partner with Living on the Edge. Double your
prayers and give financially so that the young
people that are turning to Christ won't simply
have a great experience, but they'll go on a
journey of becoming more holy and more loving
and more faithful until the day they die. Our
country and our world is in desperate need of
a movement of God, and He's beginning to spark
things among young adults here and around the
world. Join us in making a difference. Well,
if you want to join us in reaching today's youth
with the gospel, partner with us during our mid
-year match. From now until June 30th, every
dollar you give will be doubled for greater impact.
To send a gift today, call 888 -333 -6003 or
go to livingontheedge .org. That's 888 -333 -6003
or livingontheedge .org. App listeners, tap Donate.
And thanks for praying and then doing whatever
the Lord leads you to do. As we close today's
program, lean back, will you? What relationship,
what circumstance, what's going on in your life
that's nagging at you or literally makes you
feel hopeless? I mean, we're studying Philippians
chapter 3, and I'm going to be honest with you.
The Apostle Paul's perspective is pretty revolutionary.
He counts all this success, all this education,
all this career that he's achieved as loss compared
to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus
as Lord. And I'm going to just tell you right
off the bat, that doesn't come naturally to me,
and I'm guessing it doesn't come naturally to
you. But this is what he says. He says, hope
is rooted in the person of Christ. And it's interesting
to me that the first step to get there is to
recognize there's power in our weakness. You
know, for some of us, we've tried really, really
hard to be good Christians, right? You know,
read the Bible, pray, go to church, give, go
on a missions trip. For others, you know, we've
been taught that there's some miraculous emotional
experience and we can have that and everything's
going to be perfect. But the reality is we live
with this world of tension and struggle and it's
a journey. And the Apostle Paul says that what
he learned is that in his weakness, when he got
to the point where it's not just hard, not just
difficult, but when he got to where it was impossible,
that's in his desperate dependence. He said,
God, I can't do it. Are you ready for this? That's
when God meets you. That's when you'll experience
his power. Do I understand it? Of course not.
Is it true? Absolutely. So what I want you to
know is that stop fighting the difficulty and
the challenges. What if you just said, okay,
God, I'm putting up the white flag. I surrender.
I recognize I can't make this marriage work.
I can't make my relationship with you work. I
can't be this perfect person, but I will be your
son. I will be your daughter. And now I'm asking
you today, fill me afresh with your spirit. Help
me to depend on you and to walk in step with
your spirit. As you open his word, he'll speak
to you. As you talk honestly from your heart,
he'll whisper to your soul. As you get connected
with other believers, he'll encourage you through
them, and you will encourage them as well. Thanks,
Chip. And as we close, I want you to know that
as a staff, we ask the Lord to help you take
whatever your next faith step is, and we'd love
to hear how it's going. Would you take a minute
and send us a note or give us a call? Either
one is easy. Just email chip at livingontheedge
.org or call 888 -333 -6003. That's 888 -333
-6003 or email chip at livingontheedge .org.
We'll listen to next time as Chip picks up in
his series, I Choose Hope. Until then, this is
Dave Drewy saying thanks for joining us for this
edition of Living on the Edge.