Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
Do you long to feel close to God? I mean, you
know He loves you, but you're missing that emotional
connection, that sense of His presence, and you
don't know how to break out of it. Well, I'm
going to share today a spiritual practice that
God has designed to unlock your heart to create
that intimacy or emotional connection with Him.
So stay with me. You're not going to want to
miss it. Well, Christmas Day has come and gone.
Family has returned home. The emotional spike
has subsided. And we're returning to a normal
rhythm of life. So how do we avoid a post -holiday
funk that sometimes follows Christmas Day? Well,
there's a secret power that Jesus spoke about
that transcends human wisdom. It's a doorway
into intimacy with God that cannot be accessed
any other way. A friendship so rich, so adventurous,
that it transforms everything we touch. On today's
edition of Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram describes
a powerful biblical principle that turns stewardship
from burden into breathtaking adventure. And
later in the program, Chip and I will explain
how you can take advantage of the December match,
allowing you to multiply the size and impact
of your donation at livingontheedge .org. The
deadline is quickly approaching on December 31st.
But right now, let's resume our study about the
principle with secret power. This is the principle
that has secret power. I call it the oikonomia
principle. Oikeo is a Greek word for house. You
can almost hear the word. We get our word for
economy. Literally, the word has to do with being
a steward. It's translated of being a guardian.
It's translated of being a manager. And the oikonomia
principle simply stated is all that we are and
all that we have belongs to God. And he is temporarily
entrusted to us to manage according to his wishes.
This phrase or this word or this concept of the
oikonomia principle is way, way beyond money.
Notice in Psalm 90, our time is a gift from God.
Every good and perfect gift, everything you have,
just in case we missed something, James 1, 17,
every good and perfect gift comes from above,
from the Father of lights, with whom there's
no variation or shifting shadow. And so at the
heart of it, notice the passage there at the
bottom, 1 Corinthians 4, 1 and 2, here's the
responsibility of a manager or of a steward.
Let a man regard us, the Apostle Paul says in
this manner, as servants of Christ and, here's
our word, stewards of the mysteries of God. And
then in the next verse, he gives the number one,
priority with God of a steward. In this case,
moreover, it is required of stewards that one
be found, say it out loud with me, trustworthy.
Circle it in your notes, will you? This is the
issue. This is the issue in your life. God has
given you time and talent and people and money
and opportunity and leadership. And what he wants
you to do is say, Lord, I want to be found trustworthy.
I want to spend my time, my money, in a way that
I realize it's really not mine. It's your time.
It's your money. It's your opportunity. And I
want to honor you in it. And here's the thing,
as we do that, God's promise is he's a heavenly
father. He wants the very best for you. And so
the real issue when it comes to this, the real
issue is not stuff. The real issue is not what
percentage. The real issue is trust. The reason
some of us don't have opportunities, the reason
some of us are not experiencing, even financially,
all the things God wants for us, is you know
what? We're not faithful with what he's given
us. And you're a parent, right? You have one
of your kids, they wrecked the car three times.
Do you give them the keys to the next car or
not? No. Why? Because they've already demonstrated.
Until they demonstrate they can be faithful with
what you gave them here, you're not going to
entrust them with... And so here's the question
for believers, for followers of Christ. Can God
trust you? Can he trust you with a big opportunity?
Could God trust you with more financial resources?
Could God trust you with a great friend that's
gonna be loyal to you? Could God, when he looks
at your life and your character, could he trust
you with a spouse right now? Or would he know,
you know what? The way you treat people now,
I'm not gonna give a spouse in your life. You
just produce pain in that person's life. Well,
when all this issue of stewardship and trust
came up, Jesus was speaking to the religious
leaders. And unfortunately, the religious leaders
in that day have exactly the same problem as
a lot of religious leaders in our day. They loved
money. They were warped. If you open your Bibles,
turn to Luke chapter 16, and Jesus is going to
give a corrective about money and about stewardship.
And he's talking to the religious leaders and
the disciples are there. And the religious leaders
at the time, they had this false formula. It's
actually been picked up by the prosperity gospel
in our day. That, you know, if God really loves
you, he blesses you with material things. And
the more righteous you are, the more material
things. And it's a give to get mentality. Well,
the Pharisees wanted to appear very righteous.
And so they were very, very greedy. Jesus described
them as philogoria, lovers of money. And they
would, I mean, they would tithe. Oh, man, they
followed all the rules. But they would actually
even change some of the rules and the traditions
to get more money for themselves. So they felt
like the more wealthy they could be, it would
indicate that they must be righteous and experience
God's blessing. And Jesus is going to just cut
through. And here's what he's going to ask and
answer. Write in your notes where it says, can
God trust you? You might write this question.
And this question is, how do you become a wise
steward? I mean, isn't that the $64 question?
How do you become a wise steward? How do you
become the kind of man or woman or student that
God could look into your heart, because that's
where he looks, and say, I can trust you with
more time. I can trust you with more opportunity.
I can trust you with more money. I can trust
you with more leadership position. I can trust
you with the souls of a handful of people. You'll
be faithful. And what you're going to learn is
in Luke 16, he's going to take The good example
of a bad person to teach a timeless lesson. Here's
the setting. Correction to the Pharisees and
instruction of his disciples concerning wealth.
And here's the story. We pick up the story, Luke
16, verses 1 and 2. A mismanagement occurs and
the steward or the manager is going to get fired.
Now, he was also saying to the disciples, there
was a rich man who had a manager. And this manager
was reported to him as squandering his possessions.
And he called him in and he said to him, what
is this I hear about you? Give an account of
your management for you can no longer be my manager.
So as you're following along in your Bible, your
iPad or mobile device, whatever you're using,
you know, just understand this is a guy who was
given oversight like Joseph and he was squandering
it. He wasn't a good manager and he's going to
get fired. Now, the second thing that's going
to happen, he's going to say, so what are my
options? He's going to come up with two options,
decide neither of those are very good, and then
he comes up with a very creative third option.
Picking it up in verse 3. The manager said to
himself, what shall I do since my master is taking
my management away from me? Option number one,
I'm not strong enough to dig. In other words,
I can't do just labor. I'm ashamed to beg, option
number two, can't do that one. I know what I
shall do so that when I am removed from the management,
people will welcome me into their homes. And
he summoned each one of his master's debtors
and he began saying to the first, how much do
you owe my master? And he said, 100 measures
of oil. And he said to him, take your bill, sit
down quickly and write 50. Then he said to another,
how much do you owe? And he said, 100 measures
of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill,
write in 80. And his master praised the unrighteous
manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the
sons of this age are more shrewd in relation
to their own kind than the children of light.
And then he makes an application. And I say to
you, make friends for yourselves by means of
wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails,
they will receive you into eternal dwellings.
The commendation is not that he's a crook. Here's
the spiritual principle. I put it in a box so
that we wouldn't miss it because this passage
has been often very poorly interpreted. The dishonest
manager used his present temporal opportunity,
his stewardship, with a view of receiving future
reward. This made good business sense, and according
to Jesus, it makes good spiritual sense. Jesus
is saying is, here's someone who realized I'm
only going to have this job for a little bit
more time. So I'm going to do in this limited
time something that will allow me once I get
fired to have these guys. His boss apparently
was in commodities, olive oil and wheat. And
he says, then they'll be indebted to me. And
I can say, hey guys, you know, I need some money
or I need a place to live. Remember what I did
for you? In fact, if you don't. Remember, I could
maybe let my master know what you did. And so
he's just operating. He's shrewd. He's saying,
I'm going to take this little window of time
and set myself up for the future. And Jesus'
application is, if you could understand eternity
and you could understand that this tiny little
dot called time and inside that tiny dot is a
microscopic little dot of your life that's maybe
70 to 90 years max. He said, you want to take
this present temporal little opportunity and
the wealth that God gives you, and what you want
to do is you want to leverage that so that after
you die and there is a real heaven and there
is a real hell and there is a real thing called
rewards, that you will be like John Savile, who
right now, I'm sure, has hundreds if not thousands
of people saying, John, I was that teenage girl
and I met that chip guy and, you know, he wrote
that check. I didn't know you're the one who
did it. Thank you. I wouldn't be here except
for you. That's what Jesus is saying. He's saying,
use this temporal management opportunity to invest
wisely. Now, notice what he goes on and says,
however. The teaching is faithfulness with material
wealth is the prerequisite to being trusted with
spiritual wealth and rewards. Notice the axiom,
verse 10. He was faithful in a very little thing,
is faithful also in much. Now, that's true of
finances. But that's also, that's axiom, that's
a timeless principle. He who is faithful in a
very little thing is faithful also in much. That's
what people who look into the lives of stewards.
If you're faithful in this, God entrusts you
with more. You're faithful in that, he'll entrust
you with more. And whether it's money or whether
it's time or whether it's your gifts, whether
it's your talents, but he was unfaithful in a
very little thing will be unfaithful in much.
Now notice the commentary to the group. Now the
Pharisees were lovers of money. And they were
listening to all these things and they were scoffing
at him or literally they were sneering. He's
talking about, see, they've got this religious
pretense like I had, 30%. I wasn't generous.
I thought I owned that car. I thought I owned
my gifts. I thought I owned my future. I thought
I owned my dreams. I thought I was in control.
And I'm gonna figure out a little way to use
the religious system that I was understanding
to promote me. And God didn't want to take away
a car. God wanted to take away an idol. And the
only way God gets a hold of the idols in our
life often is he asks you to surrender them.
The only way you know whether it's really his
or not is he taps you on the shoulder and says,
you know something? I want you to give that away.
Or I want you to relocate. Or I'll tell you what,
I want you to cross a boundary and invite that
neighbor and I want you to love him. Or I want
you to take a risk over here. Your time isn't
your own. It's not your reputation. It's my reputation.
You're my child. And he says here, they were
scoffing. And then this last line, this is a
verse I memorized that some of you, you might
want to jot down. This is what Jesus said to
those of us that tend to have that bent toward
legalism, that bent toward performance. And he
said to them, you are those who justify yourselves
in the sight of men, but God knows your heart
for that which is highly esteemed among men.
is detestable on the side of God. I wrote that
on a card, memorized that, and reviewed it for
years and years and years and just kept asking
God for that which is highly esteemed among men.
Let me ask you, what's highly esteemed among
men? What's your drive? What's your zip code
number is? What's your portfolio? How many zeros?
How many letters behind your name? Who you know?
Drop a name here and there. How you look, how
you appear, your body, right? That which is highly
esteemed among men is detestable in the sight
of God. When God gives you nice things, when
he entrusts you with position and power and wealth
and opportunity, and if he gives you a wonderful
and nice body and you're on a good diet and all
those, and when as a steward you're thinking,
oh God, thank you. I can't believe how generous
you've been. And by the way, I just want you
to know, anytime, any way you want to use any
of this, I just, it's in your hands. See, those
kind of people, you know what God does? He just
keeps pouring more in. He keeps pouring more
in because he's like one of those venture capitalists.
You know, we invested some money with that group
and they made us $100 million. They're coming
back. What do you think we ought to do? I think
we should invest some more. Next time out, they
win us a billion dollars. Well, they got another
great idea. What should we do? I think we'll
invest some more. What Jesus is saying is if
you could understand that there isn't scarcity,
that God owns everything, and that true spiritual
wealth It's not about money or things, but it's
about relationships. But the symptom, the symptom
that tells you where you're at in relationship
to God and how much you trust Him is your money.
We'll hear more from Chip Ingram's message in
just a moment. First, we invite you to multiply
your year in support of Living on the Edge through
an exciting match that's active through December
31st. Every gift is matched. Every dollar multiplied
by two. Every investment maximized for kingdom
impact. Double the impact of your gift at livingontheedge
.org. From his series called The Genius of Generosity,
again our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram. There's
a young man that I was spending some time with
in Atlanta. And just gifted, he was an artist
and a photographer and just had all these dreams
and wanted to start this ministry and he was
trying this and trying that and he did an art
exhibit and got with other artists in Atlanta
area and everything he tried, it was just like
there was no air in the balloon. Just failure,
flat, flat. And I met with a guy and he had a
heart for God and he was gifted and the stuff
was amazing. And I just, it was one of those
times where you just thought, You know, it's
like playing basketball with a guy that has a
40 -inch vertical and he can't dunk. And he goes,
there's something wrong here. And so I went to
Starbucks one day and I said, hey, Josh, let's,
because he said, what's wrong? Why is God not
blessing this? And I said, you know, I don't
know. But I read through Luke 16 with him out
loud. And I said, I don't know. And I don't want
to mess with your interior life. I don't know
you all that well. But just let me ask you, what,
like, where are you at in your finances? You
know, and the story comes out, he really hadn't
worked full -time anywhere for two and a half,
three years, was living off credit cards, had
amazing amounts of debt, wasn't giving a dime
to God in any way. And I said, Josh, do you think
it would be wise for God to entrust a ministry
to you and people's lives to you and maybe even
give you a position of credibility to tell people
about Christ when actually you haven't even been
faithful with the little thing, money? And, you
know, he's got on a plan to get out of debt.
And, you know, it was just an amazing story to
watch him turn things around. But see, the test,
there's two tests. We'll talk more about these
things a little bit later. But just, you know,
here's two financial tests that are just crystal
clear that can let us know if our priorities,
if, in fact, God really were trustworthy. Test
number one is generous stewards give the first
and the best to God. There's an Old Testament
passage here and it's all through the New Testament.
It says, honor the Lord with all your wealth
and with the first portion of your produce or
your crops. So he says, you know. The first fruits
would be like the harvest comes in or the grapes
just come off the vine. You take the best and
the first and you bring it to the temple. And
you say, I'm not sure how many grapes are coming.
I don't know how big the harvest is going to
be. I don't know if it's going to be a tenfold
or a twentyfold or a thirtyfold. I don't know.
But God, I want you to know the very first and
the very best is yours. And you are the one that's
responsible and I'm a steward. You give your
first and your best to God. And then what's the
second half of that say? Honor the Lord with
all your wealth and the first fruits of your
produce or your crops. Then your barns will be
filled to overflowing and your vats will burst
forth with new wine. See, there's no scarcity.
When God sees us trust him like that, he says,
hey, the blessing of my hand will be upon you.
But you know, there's this faith thing, isn't
it? See, when you're not sure how much harvest
is coming in, giving the first and the best is
a little, risky unless God is really real. The
second test is that generous stewards give regularly
and systematically. Apostle Paul would write
to the church, it says, on the first day of every
week, each one of you should set aside a sum
of money. Notice how much. What's it say? In
keeping with his income. It means rather than
looking at just a percentage as, hmm, I've given
that, I'm okay. I mean, I've had... Somehow God's
linked me with some people that have been extraordinarily
wealthy and very blessed. And I know one friend
and, you know, he's just so smart and so gifted
and really loves God. And yet he kind of has
this attitude that, and I mean he's worth, well,
he's got one piece of property that's worth $10
million. It's just an empty lot. I won't tell
you where it is. And he's got about four different
houses. And as we talk, it's like, oh, yeah,
I want to be faithful to God. And, you know,
whatever God brings in, I give the first 10%.
And it's like, hey, you know, like I wrote the
bill. So that's it, right? And I'm thinking,
oh, man, you really don't get it at all. It doesn't.
It says, let each on the first day of the week
set aside a sum of money in keeping with your
income. Those that have a lot give a lot. Those
that have a little just can give a little. saving
it up so that when I come, the collections won't
have to be made. And Paul's saying, I'm coming.
You agreed to help the poor there, and the Gentile
church is going to help. There's a famine, and
I just want you to know, no manipulation. Boy,
the New Testament, when you feel pressured by
people or you hear people making these outrageous
promises, you know, on the radio, if you give
this and God's going to do this, just forget
all that stuff. The Bible's really clear. It's
an issue of the heart. He says, I want you to
get before God. I want you to decide in advance.
I want it to be proportional to what God has
given you so that when I come, there's no pressure.
There's no manipulation. It's an act of worship.
Because see, at the end of the day, the Lord
really just... Is wanting to increase the size
of your heart. And your faith. That he's trustworthy.
And he has a plan for you. And he wants you to
know. If you'll be faithful in little things.
I have lots of money. I have lots of time. I
have all these positions and opportunities. That
I'd like to put my children of light into. But
some of them I can't put them in those. Because
the position and the opportunity would increase
their wealth and their power and they would just
become proud and they would disgrace my name
and they would ruin the situation. And so until
you can be faithful in the little thing, the
little responsibility, and the little thing starts
with money, but it's just the training wheels.
And then it's relationships. And then it's integrity.
And when we're faithful in little things, he
gives more and more and more and more. Well,
on the very back, there's three questions that...
I guess what I'd say is if there's someone safe,
it might be your mate, it might be one of your
best friends, it might be your small group, but
I would encourage you to ask those three questions
out loud. It's what wise stewards ask. Am I spending
the owner, which is God's money in a way that
he wishes? Am I keeping track of the owner's
money? If I give 30%, I'm still responsible for
the 70%. He owns it all, right? And am I becoming
best friends with the owner? If giving is, you
know, like I was where, hey, you know, I got
that done. I'm so glad. It's an obligation. You
may give, but you're missing what it means to
be generous. What is it that God wants to do
in your life to entrust to you so that you could
experience the joy and the genius of generosity?
Giving to God's work isn't something to check
off our to -do list. It's an opportunity to experience
the joy of generosity. You're listening to Living
on the Edge with Bible teacher Chip Ingram. Chip,
there's not a day that passes without someone
telling us what they gain from Living on the
Edge. In fact, after 30 years of sharing Living
on the Edge, we've discovered that our listeners
are learners. When today's culture seems divided,
there's a growing hunger for knowing the truth
about God and His Word. Chip? Thanks so much,
Dave. Here's the reality. A lot of Christians
have been treading water in the shallow end of
faith for years. They know enough of the Bible
to get by, you know, a few favorite verses and
some comforting promises. But when life really
hits hard, when tragedy strikes, when doubt creeps
in, They just don't have the depth to stand firm.
They're sincere believers with shallow roots.
And when that first big wind of a disappointment,
a bankruptcy, a divorce, those things just knock
them out or knock them over. And Living on the
Edge exists to build spiritual roots that go
deep so that nothing can uproot them. For 30
years, we've been hearing from grateful listeners
and they've told us, I've been swimming in the
deep end of God's bottomless wisdom as I get
into God's word with Chip and Living on the Edge.
That's 30 years of impact, all made possible
through faithful partners like you. Today, you
can join them and your impact is going to be
doubled through this match. Every gift is matched.
Every dollar multiplied by... too. Every investment
maximized for kingdom impact. The opportunity
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best gift today? Living on the Edge is uniquely
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faith. We're celebrating 30 years of God's faithfulness
to Living on the Edge. Remember the first time
you heard Chip's Bible teaching? Well, that moment
was sponsored by someone you'll likely never
meet. It was made possible by someone just like
yourself who was given generously to support
the ministry of Living on the Edge. Maybe today's
the day you'll decide to do for some unsuspected
listener what a generous stranger did for you.
All that to say, as you feel God nudging you
to respond, please follow His leading. Whatever
amount he places on your heart will be multiplied
by two because of the match. To give right now,
go to livingontheedge .org or call us at 888
-333 -6003. To send a check in the mail, write
to Living on the Edge, P .O. Box 3007, Atlanta,
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until we reach the goal. And the deadline for
receiving your match gift is midnight, December
31st. Again, write to P .O. Box 3007, Atlanta,
Georgia, 30024. You can also call 888 -333 -6003
or visit livingontheedge .org. Well, I'm Dave
Drewy, grateful to have you along today and urging
you to hear Chip Ingram describe the genius of
generosity Monday on Living on the Edge.