Do you wish you could put the brakes on the speed
of life? I mean, between work and family, ministry,
financial pressures, carpools. Is it any wonder
that our lives and relationships are living on
the ragged edge? If you long to start loving
more by doing less, then stay with us. You won't
want to miss it. Welcome to this edition of Living
on the Edge with Chip Ingram. the mission of
this daily program is to intentionally disciple
christians through the insightful bible teaching
of chip ingram and are you ready to embrace that
radical idea chip just posed do you want to shift
your life from busyness to loving people more
then let me invite you to join us for the next
handful of programs as we revisit chip series
spiritual simplicity He'll identify practical
steps from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that'll help
us slow our lives down and refocus on what truly
matters. And because we all wrestle with this
delicate balance, let me encourage you to ask
a few friends to join you in listening to this
series, either through the Chip Ingram app or
wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, if you
have a Bible, go now to 1 Corinthians chapter
13 and settle in for Chip's talk, All You Need
Is Love. I've observed something. I've observed
there's a dance that is done. It's done all over
the country. In fact, many places around the
world. And I call it the Silicon Valley Shuffle.
The music is very, very fast. The rhythm is very,
very upbeat. And the people, I mean, they dance
with intensity and passion and often to the point
of fatigue. There's four words that describe
the Silicon Valley Shuffle as I... watch it at
times in my own life and in the lives of lots
of friends. It's bigger, better, faster, and
more. And so we live at a pace where if you don't
want to work till seven or eight o 'clock at
night, go work someplace else. And then pretty
soon you think about, well, you got to do that
with your kids. So if they're going to be really
good, you got to start them young. So like two
years old, they're playing soccer. You know,
three years old, they can't pick up the bat,
but they're trying to get it off that tee ball.
And you know what? You know, if you really want
them to do well, then you get that tutor. I have
a friend who told me his parents got him a tutor
in sixth grade and half a day, every Saturday,
he was preparing for the SATs. His sister scored
a perfect score on both the SAT and the ACT.
Went to an Ivy League school and now has changed
her phone number twice and has no contact with
her family. Does not want to ever talk to them
ever again. See, the Silicon Valley shuffle is
about pressure and about demand and about making
it happen. And it's very unconscious. And the
music is always playing 24 -7. Wherever you're
living, there's this pressure. It's got to be
better. It's got to be bigger. It's got to be
faster. And then if it gets better and bigger
and faster, then you look at what you've got
and then it's got to be more. And the music just
speeds up. And it produces something. Produces
this desire to be all and to do all and to have
it all. We don't say it, but our lives reflect
it. You know, I've got to be it all. I've got
to do it all. I've got to have it all. And you'll
notice on your notes, I put three things that
over time this will produce. It's created a very,
very complex world. that moves too fast, that
delivers too little and demands too much. When
I sit quietly with people of all ages and whether
they're in high school or whether they're running
a company or whether school has just started
and they're driving all over the place with all
the different demands, the push, the drive, the
demands, over time they produce fatigue that
is high, margin that is thin, relationships that
are shallow, families that get fractured, marriages
that drift, loneliness that rains, addictions
that surface, people who get hurt, kids that
get neglected, and our souls have a dis -ease.
Not just a disease, but your soul doesn't have
peace. You lose your grounding. You lose that
sense of I'm where I need to be moving at the
pace I need to be moving. And pretty soon you
can feel the relationships aren't where they
need to be. whether you're a parent with your
kids or with your spouse or whether you're a
single person and realize, you know, I work a
lot of hours and I have a lot of superficial
relationships, but a deep friend and time for
you and time for God and time for authenticity
and time for depth seems to be something that
you keep pushing out that you'll do that when
this deal is done. You'll do that when you go
public or you'll do that as soon as you finish
this project. Or right now, you know, they're
in diapers. You'll do that when they get out
of diapers. And then pretty soon they're teens
and you'll do that when they go off to college.
And here's what I can tell you. You'll do that
when thinking someday, some way, somehow, and
that when will not come unless you stop it and
decide, I will simplify my life. It's interesting.
The great majority of executives, have a lot
of vacation and rarely take much of it. Sort
of an oxymoron, isn't it? But it's because they're
indispensable. It's because there's never a really
good time. But sometimes on a vacation or a missions
trip or a men or a women's retreat, or sometimes
God intervenes in his love and a stroke that
doesn't kill you, a biopsy report that comes
back, positive, a car crash, a little scare when
it started with a couple glasses of wine to wind
down. And now you're becoming this person that
you didn't think you could ever become as you
cope. And in a crisis or in a time where you
get alone with God, I've had men and women over
and over and over tell me, you know, I said,
I got to slow down. I got to get some margin
in my life. The things that really matter, I
can see are fleeting and going away. And the
momentum and the speed of what's happening in
all the relationships with God. I mean, how can
you not have time for God who made you? How can
you not have time for the person that you said
till death do us part? How can you not have time
for the people that half of their DNA is yours?
How can you not have time for people that want
to love you and care for you and be great friends?
So the question I want to ask and answer with
you is, is it possible to break free of the high
speed, high pressure, high demand, guilt producing
dis -ease of our complex lives. I took the word
disease because it means something's wrong. And
I put the hyphen in it because there's sort of
a dis -ease. There's a lack of ease. There's
a lack of sense of pace. There's a lack of peace.
And when you have a physical disease, what do
you do? You go to the doctor, right? I mean,
you know, your temperature goes up, you feel
terrible. And usually if you're doing the shuffle,
you say, well, you know, I'll just get through
this. I'll keep going to work. But eventually
you go to the doctor. When you go to the doctor,
you want a doctor who does something very, very
important to make a proper diagnosis before they
give you a prescription, correct? I mean, if
you went and say, I don't feel very good. He
goes, hey, I got some pills on the shelf. Take
these. Well, wait, wait, doc, doc, hold on. Or,
you know what, I'm really struggling with, and
you tell him one thing, it gets good. Tomorrow
morning, 6 a .m., surgery. You're going, whoa.
See, the key to the right prescription is a proper
diagnosis. You want them to really figure out
what's wrong before they start pumping drugs
in you or cutting you open. And the same is true
spiritually. So I want to take you this morning
to just a little stop to the Simplify Your Life
doctor. And in order to do a little diagnosis,
I'm going to ask like a doctor does, right? When
you walk in, he goes, well, how long have you
been having this? Is there any of this in your
family? Tell me about your diet. Tell me about
your exercise. Do you have any stress in your
life? And then you laugh. But they ask a lot
of questions. That's how they do a diagnosis.
And so the question I want to ask you is, what
do you want to be known for? That's the first
question because there's something behind the
bigger, better, faster, more, bigger, better,
faster, more. There's something in you and something
in me that creates this momentum and this drive
and this pressure and this demand. And part of
it is going to be rooted in what do you really
want to be known for? And we heard, I wanna be
known as a kind and loving person. I wanna be
known as a person who's fair. Other people would
say, I wanna be known to be a great mom or a
great dad, or I wanna be known as an excellent
student. I wanna be known as, one person said,
a person who solves some problem is very knowledgeable.
I wanna be known as someone who's very wise.
I wanna be known as someone who's, and if you
had to write down, I wanna be known for, what
would you write on your notes? What would you
write? Now, the problem with this question that
was kind of interesting is we all have two lists
of what we want to be known for. There's the
list that when someone like me asks you this,
I mean, no one is writing, I want to be known
as an ax murderer, okay? I'm thinking we're okay
on that one, right? But I'm figuring there's
not a lot of you who say, I want to be known
for being a driven, overextended, hurried parent
who doesn't connect with my kids. No, that's
not a good one. I want to be known for a very
successful business person who has been through
two or three marriages. No, no, no, no. I want
to be known for someone who's way too busy to
have any meaningful deep friendships. See, what
I'm going to say with my lips and what I intellectually
want to be known for is one list. And then your
schedule and my schedule And your words and where
your time and energy and money goes is a separate
list. And the bad part about life is like when
we go to the doctor, when they ask, how are you
eating? We tell them stuff like, I think pretty
good. You know, I mean, fairly healthy. You know,
I roll out of bed, coffee, no breakfast, get
a Danish, have a candy bar at noon and eat a
decent supper. I mean, isn't that good? Not that
I do that. I'm just, that was hypothetical. Do
you see the difference? Well, let me ask one
more question. If you could get it down to one
word, just one word, what would you want to be
known for? And I realize that's super hard, but
if there was one word that could describe you,
one word where if you're a parent, your kids
would say, this describes my dad or my mom. Or
if you're married, your spouse would say, this
is the one word that epitomizes when I think
of my mate, it's this. Or one word that really
epitomizes what my closest friends think of me.
What would it be? Got it? I'm going to suggest
that there might be a lot of good solutions,
but there is one word that No matter what word
you came up with, if it's not this word, that
your word is a distant second. And not there's
anything wrong with wanting to be a good mom
or a good dad or a hard worker or a successful
business person or to start your own company
or to be a great athlete or a great artist. I
mean, those desires are fine, but you can do,
you could fulfill all those desires. But if you
didn't fulfill this one word, according to God,
all of those are not like a close second. They're
like such a distant, distant, distant second.
If this one word does not describe my life and
your life, we will find ourselves missing what
matters most. And I'm convinced the only way
to simplify your life is to get clear on what
really matters. The Apostle Paul would write
one very overarching principle. And he's going
to tell us that anything minus love is nothing.
Anything. Any success, anything powerful. And
then he's going to tell us, put another way,
that everything minus love is nothing. And you
might say, well, Chippewa, where did you get
that? The apostle Paul is writing to a church.
I mean, they're high capacity. They're very gifted.
They're situated in a part of the world that
where they, I mean, they have just great influence.
It's the Corinthian church, but I mean, they
have a lot of shuffle problems. They have dysfunctional
relationships. The things that matter most aren't
going very well. And so there apparently was
maybe a tattletale, a good tattletale who sort
of said to Paul, you know, that church, they're
not doing very well. Here's all the issues. And
like the first four or five chapters, he talks
about, you know, they're suing one another and
there's divisions. And it's, you know, all the
things about living the way Jesus said, they're
just not doing very well. That's not what you
taught. And then later, Paul gets a letter. And
they have a number of questions. They have questions
about marriage and questions about singleness
and questions about divorce and questions about
lawsuits and questions about the Lord's Supper
and questions about all kinds of things, the
gifts of the Spirit and spiritual maturity. And
so Paul is writing this letter to address all
these specific issues. You're listening to Living
on the Edge. We'll get you back to our series,
Spiritual Simplicity, in just a minute. But first,
if this teaching has ministered to you, consider
becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial
support goes a long way to help us encourage
pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with
today's youth. Visit livingontheedge .org today
to learn how to support us. Well, with that,
here again is Chip. And one of the issues, he
opens it up in chapter 12, verse 1. He says,
Now, most of your Bibles, you can actually open
up because we're going to go to chapter 13 in
just a second. But if you open your Bibles to
chapter 12, it'll give you some context here.
He says, now concerning spirituals, literally,
it's spirituals. Now, most of your Bibles will
say spiritual gifts because when it's not completely
clear, it'll be in italics, and then 12 is about
gifts and 14 is about gifts. But if you study
all three of those chapters very carefully, what
you understand is The major overarching issue
of chapter 12, 13, and 14 isn't gifts, it's spiritual
maturity, or what's it mean to be spiritual?
Because the Corinthians believed that what made
you spiritual was they were really into the gift
of tongues, speaking a language that they hadn't
learned, and they felt like really spiritual
people had this gift. Paul will argue in chapter
12, that may be a very important gift, but the
most spiritual gift is prophecy because it benefits
other people and it reveals God's truth. And
look at chapter 12, look at the very end, look
at verse 31. He says, now he makes this, talked
about all the gifts and their role in spiritual
maturity. And then he says, now let me show you
a more excellent way. And then he opens it up
and he says, if I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels but have not love, I'm a resounding
gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift
of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and
all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move
mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all my possessions to the poor and
surrender my body to the flames but have not
love, I gain nothing. Could you go in your notes
and just underline but have not love, but have
not love, but have not love. Three times, right?
But have not love. And did you notice the progression?
It goes from not very good to bad, then to worse.
And so he takes that gift that they esteem, and
it says this ability to speak in another language
that you haven't learned, if you could even speak
it in angels' languages, but if you don't do
it with love, I mean, you guys really think this
is the biggie? If you don't do it with love,
you just become like a gong and a clanging cymbal.
And he's referring to their background. In their
background, in pagan worship, they believed that
you had to wake up the gods. And the way they
would wake up the gods as they would start their
pagan festivals is they got bong, bong, ching,
ching, ching, bong, bong. And they would make
all this noise that didn't have any music or
any sense to it to get their god to wake up.
And so Paul's giving a little dig to them because
there's not love in this group. They've got a
lot of gifts. They treat each other badly. They
gossip about each other. There's division. There's
disunity. And they've got all kinds of dysfunctions
in this church. And he's saying, you want to
really be spiritual. He said, if you had this
greatest, greatest gift ever that you think is
so hot without love, you just basically come
like the beginning of your old pagan worship
services. And so actually it produces nothing.
Then notice he goes on to say, if I have, so
he moves from a performing something that you
do to something that you possess. And then he
goes back to his spiritual perspective of if
prophecy is the highest one, and he goes, even
if you have that and you knew mysteries, you
had all this knowledge and you had this faith
that you could trust God that I mean, supernatural
things would occur. If you do that without love,
not only does it not produce anything, you become
nothing. Think of that. Just, I mean, that's
your essence. And then finally says, if you exercise,
I'm sure he's thinking here of the gift of giving
that he explains to him later. If you are so
sacrificial in your giving. But I mean, it's
lavish. I mean, 10%, I mean, you blew by that.
20%, you blew by that. 50, 60, 70 % of your income,
you're lavish. In fact, you decide at one point
in time, you would actually lay down your life,
allow your body to be burned, be martyred, sacrificially,
you are providing. But he says, if you didn't
do it out of love, profits you nothing. I want
to summarize love supremacy. And what I've done
here, I've taken a little bit of liberty because
in the context, Paul is speaking to them about
the focus they need to have. They lived in a
complex world. They were a very gifted church.
They had a lot going for them. And so I wanted
to apply this passage to us. And so performing
in your world with the greatest gifts and abilities
without love, jot down. produces nothing. Performing.
Some of us are good at performing because we
have learned that when you perform, you get strokes
and affirmation and strokes and affirmation.
Although it's not like real love from in -depth
relationships, it feels pretty good and it's
a cheap substitute. Second, possessing the best,
the finest, the most amazing things you can imagine
without love, you become nothing. Now in the
context here, he was talking about possessing
these amazing gifts and what you possess in terms
of position and privilege and what you possess
in terms of the esteem of other people and what
you possess in terms of reputation and how old
are you and how quickly are you moving up and
what you possess in terms of your little kids
and can they hit the ball or run faster or farther
than other little kids. And what you want to
be known for, these get into the things that
drive you. This is why so many people are living
in SUVs and eating fast food five nights a week
from minivan to minivan, from practice to practice.
This is why people don't eat dinner together
and don't have time to eat dinner together and
why couples see each other briefly in the morning,
see one another with blurry eyes and reconnect
not very well at 10 o 'clock that night. And
keep thinking, okay, there's more to do. There's
more to get done. The to -do list is longer.
I just got to keep it going. And then the lie,
but when this season is over, it's always just
a season. But it seems like the seasons stack
up on one another. And third, sacrificially providing
for those you love, the neediest, the greatest
cause on earth without love, profits you nothing.
I mean, a lot of us with our motives and our
heart, it's not like we're trying to live insane
paced lives. I can't tell you how many people
I've talked to said, I've tried to slow down.
I've tried and I just keep getting pulled back
into the rushing river of movement, demand, push,
go, make it happen, innovate. You're losing it.
Market share. What about this? Providing. And
so you want to provide for your kids this and
provide for yourself this and provide that until
you can accumulate. Now listen very carefully.
Every time you buy into a lie and the biggest
ones are so subtle, they're coated with such
significant amounts of truth that you feel like
you're between the rock and the hard place and
you can never get out. Here's what I wrote. Many
of us live very hurried, overextended, complex
lives with shallow superficial relationships,
even with our closest friends. and families,
because we have unconsciously learned to believe
performing well, possessing much, and providing
stuff is what life is all about. This is Living
on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been
listening to part one of Chip's message, All
You Need Is Love, from our series, Spiritual
Simplicity. Chip will be back shortly to share
some helpful application for us to think about.
Have you ever felt like there's never enough
time in the day for yourself, the people you
love, even God? If you can relate, don't miss
this series. Chip's going to challenge the unrealistic
standards and expectations we all feel pressured
by. Join us as we learn how to break free from
this demanding cycle and discover the simpler,
more fulfilling life God has in store for us.
I hope you'll be with us for every part of this
study. Well, Chip's with me in studio now. And
Chip, since you're teaching from a pretty familiar
passage in 1 Corinthians, highlight what you're
wanting our listeners to walk away with. Why
are these truths so necessary for all of us right
now? Well, that's a really great question, Dave.
And it is a classic passage, right? 1 Corinthians
chapter 13 are often called, you know, the love
passage. Even people that... Don't think anything
about religion or God or the Bible. Have read,
you know, love is patient, love is kind, and
is not envious. This kind of poem, if you will,
by the Apostle Paul as he was directed by the
Holy Spirit. And it happens to be sandwiched
in between two passages about how different we
are and how we have different gifts and how we
really need to take all of our differences and
how they fit together. And the Apostle Paul says
there's a more perfect way. There's a way for
the church to get along. There's a way for people
to get along. There's a way to, instead of comparing
with one another and being against one another
and seeing all the things where we're different,
this is a passage that is sandwiched in between
those differences that says the more perfect
way is loving one another. And contrary to kind
of popular culture, Dave, where love is basically
a feeling and you hear love is love, well, love
has some boundaries. It has some clarity. There's
some objectivity to what it means to love a person.
And this passage is very unique in that it's
the way God is toward us. If love is patient,
that means that God is patient. God is understanding.
And in a world that is so polarized right now,
In families, in politics, in racial conflict,
in, you know, all the things that we face coming
out of those years of pandemic. What's it look
like to really love? Because love covers a multitude
of sins and love never fails. Thanks, Chip. Well,
I hope you'll join us for every part of this
series. And to help you get the absolute most
out of Chip's teaching, let me encourage you
to get his message notes. They include his outline,
the verses he references, and some key fill -ins
to help you remember what you hear. Download
them under the Broadcasts tab at livingontheedge
.org. App listeners, tap Fill in Notes. Well,
now here's Chip with a few final thoughts from
what we heard today. Thanks so much, Dave. You
know, I want to repeat the very last line of
today's message because it really struck me,
and I'm guessing it struck you. Many of us live
very hurried, overextended, complex lives with
shallow, superficial relationships, even with
our closest friends and families, because we
have unconsciously learned to believe performing
well, possessing much, and providing stuff is
what life is all about. And I know intellectually
as a follower of Jesus, you don't believe that.
But the fact of the matter is our behavior, our
rush, our hurry. Because I live out here in the
Silicon Valley. I call it the Silicon Valley
shuffle. How many of us, hey, let's get together.
And, you know, yeah, someday, sometime. And then
this badge almost of honor. Well, I'm really
busy. And when things slow down. And you know
what? We'll always be busy. Things never slow
down. As we begin this journey about learning
to do less and to love more, I'm going to ask
you to really pause today, to pause and say,
why am I in such a hurry? Where am I going so
quickly? And why are tasks dominating my life?
And who's the person in the cubicle next to me?
Or how will I greet my roommate when I get home?
Or my wife or my husband? Is it just hurrying
the kids off to get them here and to get them
there? Have you looked into their eyes? Have
you wondered what's really going on inside? Do
you have some margin where you can turn off the
TV and everyone kind of shut off their screens
and sit around a table and eat a meal and just
say, what was your day like? How are you really
doing? And pause before those kids go to bed
and take your time. sit down on the bed, and
if they're little, you can still tell them a
story, and if they're older, you can just probe
into their heart. Margin, unhurried lives develop
deep relationships, and deep relationships is
what fills our heart and gives us meaning. Could
I encourage you? Let's live more simply. Great
challenge, Chip. Let me take a second before
we go and thank the generous people who support
this ministry every month. Your faithful gifts
help us inspire Christians to live like Christians.
If you haven't partnered with us, would you prayerfully
consider joining the Living on the Edge team?
Now, you can set up a monthly donation at livingontheedge
.org Well, join us next time as Chip continues
his series, Spiritual Simplicity. Until then,
I'm Dave Drewy, thanking you for listening to
this edition of Living on the Edge.