We all know that even the very best of Christians
mess up and sin sometimes. Well, if that's true,
how do we obey God's command, be holy because
I am holy? How does that work? Well, stick around.
Thank you for being with us for this edition
of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip
serves as our Bible teacher for this global teaching
and discipleship ministry, helping Christians
develop an authentic faith. In this program,
Chip picks up in his series, The Real God, as
he continues examining God's most essential characteristics
that paint a clearer picture of His nature. Last
time, he underscored the importance of God's
holiness and provided a precise definition from
Scripture. Today, he'll continue explaining how
God chooses to reveal the wonderment of His holiness
to His people. So if you're ready, grab your
notes and Bible as we settle in for the remainder
of Chip's talk. I'd like you to open your Bibles,
and I want to walk through a familiar passage,
but I want you to see the pattern. I'm sure most
of you are familiar with Isaiah chapter 6. But
Isaiah chapter 6 is the pattern of what happens
to a man or a woman who gets a glimpse of the
holiness of God. As I read it, I want you to
begin thinking about... Three views. One, an
upward view. Two is an inward view. And three
is an outward view. And in the context, I want
to suggest that this is a deep, deep crisis in
Israel. And if you're a prophet in Israel and
the world is falling apart and the political
situation is unstable, does this sound familiar?
And you're not sure what the future is going
to be like, does this sound familiar? And everyone's
fearful and you have a moral responsibility as
a spokesman for God to know what's going on.
You go meet with God in the midst of a crisis.
And I'm going to suggest that your personal crisis
or the one that one of your kids have might be
the doorway where God leads you to get a glimpse
of his holiness. In the year that King Uzziah
died, that's the crisis. I saw the Lord sitting
on a throne. He goes into the temple and he gets
this vision. High and lifted up, and the train
of his robe filled the temple. And above him
stood the seraphim. Each had six wings, and with
two he covered his eyes, and with two he covered
his feet, and with two he flew. And one called
out to another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the foundations of the threshold shook at
the voice of him who called, and the house was
filled with smoke. And I said, here's the inward
look. Woe is me. He's the most righteous guy
on the planet. He's the prophet. For I am lost,
for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in
the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then
one of the seraphs flew to me, having in his
hand a burning coal that he'd taken with tongs
from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said,
Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt
is taken away, and your sin is atoned for. And
I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall
I send and whom will go for us? And then I said,
here am I. Send me. Did you see the pattern?
By the way, God always speaks. I think God really
speaks to us in ways often that are unique to
our personality and how we hear. And this prophet,
he's living in a world of kings and the train
of his robe. If you were a pretty important king,
you know, X amount of armies, X amount of wealth,
you might have a train that's four or five feet
long. If you were like a super, super powerful
king and you were like the big kahuna king and
you had big armies and you were in really big
control, you might have a train that's 20 feet
long and there might be seven or eight or nine
or 10 attendants behind you. The length of your
train was the evidence of your status and your
power. So when we read this, we think the train
of his robe filled the temple. It's looping,
looping, looping, filling, filling. In other
words, it's overwhelming. What it's doing to
Isaiah is of any king ever he's ever heard of,
in his mind, it's going. And he just realizes,
woe is me. He's undone. And he's a righteous
man. Here's the thing. Isaiah, compared to probably
everyone else, is here. Compared to God, he's
here. And for some of you with a really sensitive
conscience, you have to be careful that in your
moments with God, you don't just go completely
introspective. Because some of you can just,
oh yeah, my motives are bad. And I'm bad. In
fact, I'm really terrible. In fact, I'm a worm.
I'm worse than a worm. I don't even know. Got
you, right? There was an era of what I call worm
theology. And people felt really, really good
about feeling really, really bad. Here's the
deal. When the Holy Spirit convicts you, it's
for a very specific reason. You are the object
of His love, and He will tell you very specifically
where you don't measure up so that you can say
to Him, I am so sorry, and the blood of Christ
covers it to restore you to fellowship. When
the enemy wants to discourage you, he doesn't
convict. It's called condemnation. And condemnation
is vague and general. I mean, when I go through
this, I mean, everybody does, but when I have
my bad condemnation moments, it's like, I'm a
terrible dad. I'm a terrible pastor. I'm a terrible
husband. I bet 97 .3 % of all my motives are
wrong, even when I'm teaching. And you know,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And
you know what it makes me feel like? I don't
want to pray. I don't want to get near God. Condemnation,
what's Romans 8 say? There's no condemnation
for those of us in Christ Jesus. So that's when
you do spiritual warfare. You say, I don't believe
any of that. This is who I am in Christ. I'm
the son, I'm the daughter of a living God. I
have his righteousness. I'm robed in righteousness.
I'm accepted by the beloved. Get out of here.
But when he says, you were rude to your wife.
Hmm. You, uh. kind of left the channel on and
you started with, I don't believe that's on primetime
TV. This is terrible. I wonder how much they're
going to show. I should probably investigate
to make sure. And then one of the kids or someone
walks in the room, click. And then you realize
you were sucked in. Or 68%, I don't know where
they get these statistics. I hope they're all
wrong. But all these people who do these things
say 68 % of Christian men are on triple X porn
sites regularly. I don't know if you saw Time
Magazine and Esquire in the epitome of biblical
journals, in my opinion. Has done research recently
on pornography. Independent research. Basically
said that a man who watches pornography has a...
four times the probability of divorce. When a
woman begins watching pornography, it's six times.
And basically what they're discovering is that
it's a complete rewiring of the brain that is
absolutely akin to cocaine use. When God wants
us to be pure and holy, it's not that old thinking
of there's probably something really fun and
he's like a cosmic killjoy. He is a loving Father
who knows the implications. Every command of
Scripture is given by an absolutely holy God
who in His kindness and tenderheartedness wants
to prevent you from being hurt or damaged. Holiness
is wholeness. Holiness is for your health. And
Isaiah has this picture of upward and then inward.
And then notice when that happens, your priorities
change and you say, God, what do you want me
to do? It's just the opposite of our day. God,
what can you do for me? God, how do you make
my life work out? How can I be more fulfilled?
How can I get more of this? How can I do some
of that? How will you change? We're always asking
God to change everything. Try this one. God,
change me. Just change me. Now, the next place
where God reveals is 1 Corinthians 6. And sort
of time permitting, all I want to do is read
the passage. It's interesting because of what
the deep bonds that occur in the realm of sexual
activity. It says, flee from sexual immorality.
All other sins a man commits are outside his
body, but he who sins sexually sins against his
own body. We now have the evidence in our day
and our world long before this was written about
what happens. Do you not know that your body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you receive from God? You are not your own.
You were bought with a price. Therefore, honor
God with your body. Now, I just want you to,
it's hard, but just pause, and I want you to
go back to that mountain with the smoke and the
lightning. The earth shaking. And then I want
you to sort of semi -visualize this temple filled
with this train of this robe and these bizarre
looking creatures with all these eyes chanting
holy, holy, holy as your face down on the ground.
And then I want you to try and even ponder that
the temple that God has chosen in the new covenant
where he wants his presence manifested is your
He owns you. He bought you. You know, we read
of these Old Testament characters and David empowered
by the Spirit and the prophet empowered by the
Spirit and Elijah doing this. Even Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, Peter, you know, Transfiguration.
We, New Testament believers, have a more intimate
relationship and access. to the God of the universe
than any of them did. Because the Spirit of God
would come in the Old Testament at times and
anoint with power and manifest His presence.
And Jesus that last night said, there's a new
covenant. A covenant is an agreement that people
make that on the basis we will shed blood to
demonstrate that we will give our lives before
we will break the covenant. And he said, this
is my body given for you. And when he shed his
blood, when a person repents of their sin, turns
and says, Oh God, I believe Christ died to pay
for my sin and as my substitute, will you come
into my life? The Spirit of God literally pulls
you out of the kingdom of darkness. places you
into the kingdom of light. The Spirit then enters
your mortal body. You're sealed with the Spirit.
Spiritual gifts are deposited. You're engrafted
into a supernatural family called the church,
and the Holy Spirit lives in your body. And now
God's game plan to take his message to the world
is not to get people to come to a temple in Jerusalem
to see the glory and the power of God and a nation
that's been transformed, but to take you and
I sort of decentralized distribution. And now
we go forth and in your home, you are the ambassador
of the living God with his spirit living within
you. And your job is to reveal God to your family.
Then you go in your driveway to reveal God to
your neighbors. And then you go to work to reveal
God. And not only to reveal God, but then because
you are part of a new kingdom, you bring the
kingdom. And you bring the kingdom love and the
kingdom life and the kingdom values. And so instead
of ego and pride, You champion humility. Instead
of who are the powerful people to get close to,
you care for the marginalized. And you become
this living temple that begins to impact like
salt and light or leaven in bread transforming.
That's how the world got changed. And nothing
has changed in terms of God's agenda. Have you
ever thought? So ask yourself, so what do you
put in this temple? What does this temple view?
Where do these hands go? How do you treat this
temporary temple? You're listening to Living
on the Edge, and we'll get back to Chip's message
in just a minute. You know, we love to hear how
you are deepening your relationship with God
as you study His Word with us. But another way
we want to support you in that is through our
free resource called Daily Discipleship with
Chip. Let me encourage you to stick around after
this message as Chip will tell you more about
it and how to sign up. But for now, let's get
back to the remainder of his talk. If we would
ever grasp that, wouldn't there be a set of very
logical implications? And again, it wouldn't
be some legalistic, I can never do this, I can't
watch this, this is bad, I don't wear lipstick,
I don't go to movies and I don't play cards.
I don't think that got us very far. But you,
like the psalmist, would say, oh God, I will
put no worthless thing in my mind. You would
say, I want only holy thoughts. You wouldn't
be asking questions like, I wonder how close
to sin can I get without falling in? You would
be asking, how close can I get to righteousness
and holiness to be pleasing to my God? It's just
a completely different paradigm. Well, God's
holiness raises a couple questions, and we touched
on them earlier. I think it's important that
we at least address them here. If God is so holy
that he can't gaze on sin, how can sinful people
like us have a relationship with God? Right?
This is the greatest news in the world. It's
the gospel. It's the gospel. Guess what? You
can't. But Jesus made it possible. Romans chapter
five, verses six through 10. For while we were
still helpless at the right time, Christ died
for the ungodly. Notice it's not when we cleaned
up our act. It's not when we got it together.
It's not when we got religious at the right time
when we were helpless, when you bring nothing.
And then he says, for one will hardly die for
a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man,
someone would dare even to die. And then underline
this verse, verse eight. But God demonstrates
his own love toward us. And that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us and put a circle
around the little word for. There's two words
in Greek for for. This is a word that means on
behalf of and in the place of. He's your substitute.
Everything that I deserve because of my sin,
as the just righteous wrath of God would come
toward me, Jesus steps in front, says, I got
it. And as we'll learn later, he'll say, I'll
take the judgment of God. And I will give you
the righteousness of Christ. Much more than having
been justified by his blood, we shall be saved
from the wrath of God through him. For if while
we were his enemies, we were reconciled. That
word just means you become friends. Think of
the juxtaposition of what we're talking about.
This holy, awesome God. We're undone. And then
over here, we're friends. I mean, don't get over
that. If you're just thinking, wow, that's amazing.
That's far out. I can't grasp it. Good. That's
not casual. For while we were his enemies, we're
reconciled to God through the death of his son.
Much more having been reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life. The second question then is,
if trusting God's work on the cross blots out
our sin before God and we're holy in his sight,
why do we keep on sinning? And we touched on
this, but just write in these notes because it'll
be more clear. The three aspects of holiness.
There's a point in time, there's a process, and
there's an end. The moment you put your faith
in Christ as Savior, you are legally declared
righteous. So sin's penalty. In other words,
the penalty for sin. You are forgiven because
of Christ's work. And as I said before, I love
this picture. Just had this picture in my mind
of a computer screen and Jesus and me. And under
mine is all the sins and thought, word, and deed.
And under Jesus is the very righteousness of
God. And I just love this picture. When I trust
in Christ, I'm justified and it's delete. And
then the righteousness of Christ is put into
my account. That's my positional legal standing.
I've been forgiven. legally of all my sin and
the power of sin has been broken. But notice
then sanctification is progressive holiness and
so the penalty of sin is gone but now I work
out. I begin in my practice to become holy and
so I now before I couldn't decide whether I wanted
to sin or not. Now I can choose to live righteously,
but since the flesh wages war against the soul,
and since I live in a world system drawing me
away, I can still choose to sin. And when I choose
to sin, it breaks fellowship with my heavenly
Father. I don't lose my salvation, but the connection,
the line, they're static. And the more I willfully
sin, I can over time begin to shut off connection
and relationship of his power in my life. So
I confess my sins. He's faithful and just to
forgive me my sin and keep on cleansing me. Finally,
the day will come when either the Lord returns
or I die and I immediately go into his presence.
And when I see Christ, I'll be transformed. Let
me give you an illustration. I bought a house
in California, which is actually pretty miraculous.
So I put X amount money down and legally that
house is in my name and my wife's. I own the
house. It's mine. Bank doesn't own it. I own
it. However, each month I'm progressively owning
more. I'm beginning to get in reality what is
legally true. And it keeps coming down as I pay
off each month, right? This is where, if you
really play this out real carefully, it doesn't
quite work, but just stay there with me, okay?
And then, at some point in time, at least some
of you have had the experience, you pay it off.
It's fully mine. It was mine legally because
there was a down payment, and I own it. Anybody
know what the Spirit of God is called in the
book of Ephesians? Your down payment of the Spirit
of God coming into your life, the residence of
Christ. Then you live out and you progressively
become more holy and it requires, like a newborn
babe, long for the pure milk of God's Word so
that by it you might change and be transformed.
I have to go through the process of putting off
the old, putting on the new. It's a journey.
It's a process. I'm not going to be conformed
to this world. I'm going to be transformed by
the renewing of my mind so that my lifestyle
could progressively demonstrate God's will, the
good, acceptable, perfect will of God, Romans
12. But at some point in time when I die, that
which is true of me legally and Lord willing,
my life has progressively and dramatically changed
in the last... 35 more years, then I will meet
Christ and I will be transformed once and for
all and be holy, glorification. Okay, that's
the best explanation. And if you, by the way,
if you can come up with a better illustration
or fine tune that one, email me. Because the
middle part doesn't quite work, right? I mean,
because you're making payments and you could
read in works and, okay. How must we respond
to the holiness of God? First, it's a commitment
that we make. Hebrews 12, 14, make every effort
to live in peace with all men and to be holy.
Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. You
don't slide into holiness either. I mean, it's
a commitment. Scripture says God hates sin. God
hates arrogance. A commitment to holiness is
I want to be holy. Not I'm doing better than
others or, you know, I think, you know, I've
had this struggle and I come from this family
background. So anger is an issue in our family.
And, you know, everyone I've known in our family,
well, they've always divorced. And, you know,
it's really hard and I'll try and do good. But,
you know, we just don't do relationships well.
Or, you know, you know, I had this problem with
my, you know, just stop it. We all have that
stuff. Be holy even if God is holy. Is it impossible?
Of course it's impossible. The Christian life
is impossible. Only Jesus can live it. And once
he lives in you, that's why surrendering, being
in his word, doing life in community, together,
God causes us to be transformed progressively.
But it starts with, you gotta wanna be holy.
I remember one profound thought from someone
I really respected said, you'll be just about
as holy as you wanna be. Think about it. Be ye
perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.
The word is mature. Then the command is in 1
Peter. It's a command to obey. I love it because
he makes it really clear that. You know, it was
hard for those early Christians. It's hard for
us. And it's not about willpower. Therefore,
prepare your minds for action. Be self -controlled.
Set your hope fully on the grace that's to be
revealed. It's that eternal perspective. Set
my hope on the grace, the line, not the dot.
Be sober, right? Understand what life's really
all about. And prepare your... I love the King
James on this. Does anybody know this in King
James? Gird your loins. If you were a Roman soldier,
is you would have a long robe and you would have
a belt. But when you were ready to go into battle,
you would gird your loins. And so what you do
is you would take your robe and you would tuck
it in your belt. So now you're ready for action.
And so what he's saying is, you want to live
a holy life? You got to, you got to. Gotta get
your game face on is the way we would say it.
You need to get your mind in gear. You need to
realize there's all this stuff coming at you
and you're not gonna slide into it, but here's
what's gonna be hard, but you're gonna set your
hope on the grace and then therefore as obedient
children, don't be conformed any longer to the
former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,
but like the holy one who called you, be holy
also in all of your behavior because it is written,
be holy for I am holy. And I love that in all
your behavior. Before we go on in the program,
I want to stop right now and speak to those of
you that are followers of Christ. And as you've
heard this message, you realize there's issues
in your life that are preventing you from getting
God's best. He is holy. He cannot bless your
sin. We can't compromise. You need to repent.
You need to tell him that you're sorry, and he
will help you. He wants to forgive you. But I
also want to talk to some of you that just find
yourself listening to this and maybe you were
channel surfing and who knows how you got here.
But you realize, if God is that holy, I'm in
big trouble. I don't know what to do. I want
a relationship with God. I want love. I want
intimacy. But I have sinned. I want you to know
that today... May be, in fact, the most important
day of your entire life on this earth. And God
is offering you, through the work of His Son,
forgiveness and peace. Wherever you're at in
your heart of hearts, acknowledge, I have sinned.
I have blown it. I've hurt people. I've stolen.
I've lied. We've all done these things. You admit
that you've sinned and you fall short of God's
pure, holy standard. And in your heart of hearts,
even if you're driving right now, God knows and
hears. Cry out, oh, dear God, forgive me. Cleanse
me. I admit my sin. And in this day, at this
moment, I put my faith in Jesus, his work on
the cross to cover and pay for my sin once and
for all. Lord Jesus, come into my life. Cleanse
me. forgive me. I believe you died on the cross
for me and that you rose from the dead in my
place to prove that you're in fact God. And you
may not have all the answers to this, but pray
in your heart right now, cry out to God. Our
heart's desire is to see you connected with your
creator who loves you. He's got a great plan
for your life, but the next step is yours. Put
your faith in him today. If you just prayed to
receive Christ with Chip, we have a free resource
we'd like to put in your hands that was uniquely
created for new believers. This tool will help
you understand what it means to trust in Jesus
and what to do next. Request this free resource
by calling 888 -333 -6003 or by visiting livingontheedge
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livingontheedge .org. Or call 888 -333 -6003.
Let us help you get started in your faith journey.
Well, Chip's still with me in studio. And Chip,
for those who just made the decision to follow
Jesus, or for the many Christians looking to
deepen their faith, we have two words for them.
Romans 12. This chapter is so rich with foundational
truth vital for every Christ follower. So if
you would take a minute and talk about a special
study we've developed to help our listeners grasp
the power of Romans chapter 12. Well, for the
last several years, you know, Dave, that we've
produced a resource called Daily Discipleship
with Chip. It's a free video tool where our listeners
and I study the Bible together for 20 minutes.
I do 10 minutes by way of video in a one -on
-one mentoring environment. And then I ask them
to take another 10 minutes on their own to study.
And I've done a number of these. I took just
classic core passages that I know are just instrumental
in every believer really growing in Christ. Well,
as we were preparing these, I couldn't not do
one on Romans chapter 12 because it talks about
what it looks like to be truly spiritual, to
be a authentic follower of Jesus Christ. So what
I want to invite our listeners to is to join
me. It's a little bit longer. It's actually 17
days. But as you do this study, true spirituality,
How to Become a Romans 12 Christian, I believe
it'll help you like never before be the man or
the woman that God really wants you to be. Great
encouragement, Chip. To sign up for this free
video resource, go to livingontheedge .org. We
want to see you grow in your faith. and be a
Christian who really lives like a Christian.
And this daily discipleship series from Romans
chapter 12 will help you get on the right path.
For complete details, visit livingontheedge .org.
App listeners tap discipleship. Well, as we close,
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Well, from all of us here, I'm Dave Drewy, thanking
you for listening to this edition of Living on
the Edge, and I hope you'll join us again next
time.