Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
If it's true that hope is oxygen for the soul,
joy is the spark of emotional connection. Today,
I want to help you learn how not just to add,
but to multiply joy in your marriage. It's what
sustains you. That's what we're going to talk
about today. Stay with me. Welcome to Living
on the Edge. I'm Dave Drewy. And today, Chip
Ingram tackles one of marriage's most common
yet unspoken struggles, disconnection. Not anger,
not conflict, just distance. In this message,
Chip takes us to John chapter 15, where Jesus
uses the metaphor of a vine and branches to teach
his disciples how to stay connected when he's
physically absent. The same principle applies
to marriage. You'll learn why you can't give
what you don't possess and how abiding in Christ
becomes the source of love that transforms your
relationship. Well, now here's Chip with today's
message, Connecting, How to Multiply Your Joy.
Let me give you two quick pictures. I'm driving
in the car with my wife. I've been, in my case,
I travel quite a bit. So this last year, I think
in about 14 months, I was in China three times
and in the Middle East and then some domestic
travel. And you all probably understand this
more than others. And I come home and she's had
a busy life and I've had a busy life and I've
really missed her and she's missed me. And then
I come home and it's weird. Okay? I don't know
how to say it. It's just weird. I love her. She
loves me. We told each other for like two weeks
how much we missed each other. And then I come
home, and then it's like, so how did it go? And
how do you tell someone, you know, what happened
over the last two weeks and where you were? And
then, you know, you're trying to catch up. She
starts telling me about which grandkids came
over and what they did and something. And you
sort of try, but it's just, the word I use is
you just don't connect. Anybody get that? And
you're not mad at each other, but you so want
to be connected, but you're not. And so you try
to have a conversation. And me, I'm going to
go like deep, fast, let's get connected now.
this will be a shock, but it doesn't work. And
so we've had to learn different ways to sort
of ease into when one of us has been away and
reconnect. Another little moment is I've had
times where they're really, really small. She's
not done anything wrong, but a little something
irritated me that I didn't say anything about.
or I did to her. And then there was another little
something, and then it wasn't big enough to bring
up. And there's been times where I have been
driving in the car, and she's been sitting right
there, and we're kind of talking, but I feel
disconnected. And I feel like I don't really
want to talk, which scares me, because I know
that's not, those are beginning signs of not
good things, right? When you're doing this, instead
of when you're doing that. And so the question
is, how do you get connected and how do you stay
connected? Because we're talking about four biblical
practices that great marriages have in common.
Biblical practice number one is you, with full
court press, serve your mate. John 13. You humble
yourself, find your security in Christ, and you
serve your mate. The second biblical practice
is about hope, and you plan. You plan little
times during the week, little times for the month,
bigger five and 10 years. You plan. God can change
your plans, but there's hope. This is where we're
headed. This is what we're gonna do. This is
what we feel called by God. Here's how we're
going to build our relationship. And the third
thing that you see, is connecting. Great marriages
connect. And it's interesting to me that when
Jesus with his bride, he serves John 13, then
he gives them the plan of heaven and then what's
going to happen until he comes back for us or
until we go to be with him. And then in John
chapter 15, he asks and answers this question.
I'm leaving and you're not going to see me. How
do we stay connected? How do we stay connected?
How do we keep our love flowing back and forth?
How do you hear my voice when I'm not here physically
anymore? How do you get direction from me when
I'm not here physically anymore? How are you
gonna feel my love and experience my love? Because
I'm not here physically anymore. And the answer
to that is in John chapter 15. So open your Bible,
if you will. The supper is over. They've sung
a hymn. And as they've gone out, they are passing
through a garden. And in John 15, he takes the
opportunity to give them a very clear picture
from their day about a vine and a branch, and
he gives them this metaphor, and the entire purpose
is to teach them. This is how our hearts are
going to stay connected, even though, quote,
geographically, God the Son and his resurrected
body will be at the right hand of the Father.
and all these disciples and all those will come
after him, including us in the body of Christ,
will be here on earth. And so this is what he
says to them and what he says to us. I am the
true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
he takes away. Literally, it's he lifts up. And
every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so
that it bear more fruit. You are already clean
because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Command, abide in me. It means continue in, stay
connected to me and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, stays
connected, so neither can you unless you abide
in me. Repetition, I am the vine, you are the
branches. He who abides in me and I in him, notice
two -way street, he bears much fruit. Why? For
a part from me, you can do nothing. If anyone
does not abide in me, he's thrown away as a branch
and dries up and they gather them, cast them
into the fire and they're burned. By contrast,
if you abide in me and my words abide in you,
you can ask whatever you wish and it will be
done for you. Verse eight, my father is glorified
by this that you bear not just fruit, much fruit.
And so prove or demonstrate that you're my disciples.
Just as the Father has loved me, I have also
loved you. Abide in my love. Well, how? Well,
if you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I kept my Father's commandments
and abide in his love. Purpose clause. Why are
you telling this whole story about vines and
branches and abiding? Answer, these things I've
spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and
that your joy may be made full. This is my commandment,
that you love one another. How? Just as I loved
you. Greater love has no one than this, that
one lay down his life for his friends. You are
my friends if you do what I command. And then
this is an amazing, amazing passage. No longer
do I call you slaves, for a slave does not know
what his master is doing. But I have called you
friends for all things I've heard from my father
I've made known to you. You did not choose me,
but I chose you, and I appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should
remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in
my name, he may give to you. And just in case
you missed the core of this, this I command you,
that you love one another. Now, we could spend
an awful lot of time on this passage, and I have
in the past, and we have a series talking about
Jesus unfiltered where we go through every chapter
of John, but let me just give the highlights
of what this passage teaches. Number one, Jesus
is the true vine and we are the branches, okay?
First of all, in other words, I'm the true vine.
I'm the source of life. I give life. My father
is sovereignly orchestrating the vine dresser.
The father positions and prunes us for fruitfulness.
That little word take away, if you know anything
in Napa, they have a lot of vines. And when I
studied this, I did a lot of research about how
they do it. And if a vine gets on the ground
and it's not producing any fruit, what they do
is they have a little pitchfork type thing and
they lift it up and they reposition it. so it
can bear fruit. Other times, you get too much
growth, and the energy doesn't go into the fruit,
and so they prune it. And it looks pretty painful,
but it produces a lot of great fruit. Jesus is
the vine, but God the Father is sovereignly orchestrating,
positioning, and sometimes repositioning our
life. Sometimes it feels kind of painful, but
the whole goal is to produce fruit. And the fruit
I think he's talking about here is primarily
first and foremost character. You know, how many
times did the word love come here? Right? You
abide, you bear much fruit. Keep my commandments.
Abide in my love as I kept my father's commandments.
Abide in his love. He's talking about the very
life of Christ being formed in you. You do understand
that's the agenda. Jesus didn't come and die
upon the cross and raise from the dead to make
you a little bit better moral person who goes
to religious services and hears someone talk
once a week and sing a few songs. That is not
the agenda. Okay? There's a role for that. Jesus...
came because you were lost and far from God in
and of yourself and he paid the price for your
sin and then he rose from the dead and he offers
as a free gift. He paid for the sins of the whole
world and whosoever would repent and turn from
your sin and receive that gift, he takes up residence
in you, takes you out of the kingdom of darkness,
places you in the kingdom of light. His Holy
Spirit comes in and it seals you. He deposits
spiritual gifts inside of you. He gives you an
inheritance. He has a purpose for you. your life
and his whole goal is to make you more and more
like himself so that you are the salt of the
earth and the light of the earth so there's little
Jesus or Christ -like ones everywhere. The word
Christian was a negative connotation and it started
in Antioch. It was when the Gentiles came to
faith and they lived such radical lives, the
only explanation, they're as weird as their founder.
They greet one another with a holy kiss. They
share their property with one another. They forgive
their enemies. I mean, we try and kill them off
and they go arm in arm and sing praises to their
God. They're idiots. And by the way, they're
cannibals as well. They talk about someone's
blood and they drink blood. And they're atheists.
They don't worship the emperor. They're little
Christ ones. And that's the goal. And the means
by which you become more like Christ are certainly
the raw material of God's word. But the only
one that can live the Christian life, are you
ready, is Jesus. But if you have trusted Christ,
Jesus lives in you. How? By the person of the
Holy Spirit. So your only real job is to figure
out how you can stay connected to Jesus so his
full access can have control in ways where he
can produce his life through you. Through your
personality, your uniqueness, just the way he
made you. And Jesus is explaining by way of the
metaphor of this vine how that works. Our sole
responsibility is simply to abide. Stay connected.
You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip
Ingram, and there's more coming up in just a
moment. If you missed any part of today's message
or if you'd like to share it with a friend, you
can find it anytime online at livingontheedge
.org. And while you're there, you'll also discover
a full library of Chip's teaching series, small
group resources, and practical tools to help
strengthen your relationships. Take advantage
of all we have available at livingontheedge .org.
We'll now back to our message. How do you stay
connected to a best friend? Let's get this off
the theological realm, and I want you to think
of maybe a buddy, a girlfriend, or if you're
a guy, a guy, someone that you're really close
to, that no matter what, you've stayed in touch.
I mean, maybe even when you're far apart, it's
like three minutes and you reconnect. How do
you stay connected like that? What do you do?
Why is it? You have a common heart, you have
common values, you stay in touch, you communicate,
you share your heart. They're the person that
you can share what's really going on, where you're
afraid, where you blew it, maybe a big mistake.
See, what God is saying is, that's what I want
with you. I want you to stay connected to me.
I don't want you over here thinking that I need
to do certain things to try to earn God's favor.
I want you to understand that if you would allow
your heart and my word to reconnect, and if you
would keep your mind renewed so that you begin
to, Take in your mind and your heart exactly
what the truth is, that that truth, as you ponder
it and think about it and put it into practice,
would actually do what? It would set you free.
Free to be who I made you to be. Free from addictions,
free from pleasing people, free from codependency,
free from getting your identity in work or looks
or money or accomplishments. Free to be my son
or my daughter. See, that's the agenda. And he
says, I want you to stay connected. The consequences
of the results of being connected are access
with vivid answers to prayer. Did you notice
that? When you're connected to him and he's connected
to you, your desires start aligning to his desires
and you can ask whatever you want because what
you're gonna want is what he wants. The second
thing is fruitfulness, an extraordinary life
with extraordinary impact. You just become one
of those people. Don't we all have people like
that? Like, she's like the most loving person
in the world. He's like, I mean, someday, somehow,
someway, I would want to be a dad like him or
a friend like him. Don't we all have some people
like that? That's just the life of Christ that's
been manifested. The third thing is that love.
It results in heartfelt obedience. When you're
connected, I don't know about you, there's a
little verse in 1 John. 1 John says, and his
commandments aren't grievous unto us. Has anyone
ever read that one? I read that for years and
I thought, they may not be grievous to you, but
they're very grievous to me. I'm just being honest.
It's like, I mean, at the time I was single,
no sex before marriage, that's grievous. I'm
supposed to be in your word, that's grievous.
I'm not very disciplined. I mean, it wasn't until
I experienced the heart of God And understood
the goodness of God. And really grasped the grace
of God. That I realized that. Every single command
in Scripture is designed to keep me on a path
so that I get the very best, the very best decision,
the very best friends, the very best mate, the
very best job, the very best future. All of a
sudden, I got this word picture of, imagine,
you know, like there's this kind of sort of beautiful
house up on this high mountain, and there's all
these windy roads, right? And on the roads, you
know, there's drop -offs of a thousand feet,
but there's guardrails. And you're in this car
and this car is your life and there's a lot of
twists and turns. And you know what? If you go
over the side, you're in trouble. You know what
the guardrails are? God's commandments. So they're
not grievous. It's like, you know what? It's
like, I don't want you to get AIDS. Like, I don't
want you to have the memories of seven or eight
other partners to take into your marriage. It's
like, I don't want you to experience the loneliness
and the emptiness of greed dominating your life
and accumulating things only to find out that
what you've done is alienated people that really
matter. I don't want you to be old and lonely
and have mortgaged relationships and have kids
that are grown that don't even like you. And
so I have commands, and if you'll obey the commands,
See, they're not grievous because what they do
is they allow you, don't you do this with your
kids? I mean, you give them all kind of grievous
commands like don't touch the stove, don't run
into the street. Why are you so restrictive,
right? How come I can't play with the gun, Dad?
You just, what kind of parent are you? And why?
Because you want the very best for your kids.
Sometimes the commands are hard to swallow, and
so we by faith have to say, you know, Lord, the
whole world is telling me that this is really
a good thing, and you say it's not. So I'm going
to trust you. And what you'll find as time goes
on is that God's ways are not our ways, but they're
way, way better. Final thing he says that is
the result of this abiding is intimacy, and it
results in supernatural joy. Isn't it interesting
that in John 13, he serves them to demonstrate
and they experience love. In John 14, he gives
them the long -term plan and the intermediate
plan and what to do next. And planning produces
hope. They know, you know what? We're not left
alone. And now the reason he wants them connected
is he wants them to experience not just joy.
What's it say? Verse 11. These things I've written
unto you that my joy might be in you and that
your joy might be made full. See, the joy of
the Lord is your strength, but that comes when
you're connected and abiding in him. And in this
passage, he's going to tell us exactly how to
do that. So with that, let's go from sort of
the teaching to the principles. Principle number
one is you can impart what you do not possess.
We must abide in him to have his love to give
to our mate. Right? I mean, I don't get up and
read a couple chapters or three chapters or a
small book or a little paragraph of the Bible
in the morning and go, wow, man, two chapters
a day keeps the devil away. Glad I got that done.
Okay, let me think. I'm going to set my watch.
I prayed for seven minutes yesterday. I'm going
to go for nine today. Someday I'm going to pray
for 23 minutes. Is that how you sit with a best
friend? I opened the Bible because God wants
me to see myself. He wants to feed my soul. He
wants to renew my mind. And are you ready? Conversation
is about two things, right? Listening and talking.
This is God speaking to you and to me. This is
our lips speaking to him. And sitting quietly,
very, very often the Holy Spirit will take his
word or something he wants to say to you if you're
open and strongly impress upon you so you can
stay connected to him. And it can be, sometimes
it's just a little thing, like a little prompting.
I want you to give so -and -so a call. That's
out of the blue. And you call them and you find
out they're really struggling. Or, you know,
in my case, sometimes it's a little prompting
that, remember yesterday when you guys were doing
this and doing that? Yeah. Did you realize you
hurt Teresa's feelings? Huh? You need to apologize
here. Are you sure? Right? And, you know, it's
amazing. When God asks you to do something that
you're kind of uncomfortable, that's very helpful
to another person, that will embarrass you, there's
a good chance it's the Holy Spirit. It's not
you. Right? And so my point is, as you stay connected,
as you're in his word, as you talk to him from
the heart, as you have some guy friends if you're
a guy and some girlfriends if you're a gal, and
if you have some couples if you're a couple,
that you build into one another's life so that
Jesus living in them, right? Faith is as much
caught as taught. And as you abide, then you
have this capacity because you're receiving his
love to give it away. This is Living on the Edge
with Chip Ingram, and we're continuing our series,
Choosing Love. Today, Chip revealed a powerful
truth. To love your spouse well, you must first
abide in Christ. Chip will be back with more
in just a moment. If you're inspired by today's
teaching about biblical love, Chip's book, I
Choose Love, takes you even deeper. In it, Chip
explores what the Bible calls agape love. This
isn't love based on feelings or romance, but
love characterized by sacrifice and putting others'
best interests first. Drawing from Philippians
chapter 2, Chip shows how agape love gives, serves,
obeys, and cares. When you choose this kind of
love, it transforms every relationship in your
life. I Choose Love offers practical help to
discover and apply this transformative love in
all your relationships. Get your copy today by
going online to livingontheedge .org. Friend,
this teaching ministry exists because listeners
like you invest in biblical truth. When you give
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to the Living on the Edge podcast on your favorite
podcast app. Well, now here's Chip with a final
thought. As we close today's program, we're launching
into the third practice that Jesus did with his
disciples that caused love to be fresh and alive.
And he's modeling for us what he does with his
bride is what we need to do for one another in
our marriages. First he served, then he planned.
And third now he says, I want you to be connected.
And he gives this very classic passage in John
15 about the vine and abiding and connecting.
And what I want you to know is that you cannot
impart to your mate what you don't possess. The
most important thing that I have done in my marriage,
that Teresa has done in our marriage, is spending
time with God and being connected to Him so that
we can give the kind of love that we don't have
to give to one another. It's supernatural. It's
a love that's patient and kind and understanding.
And it's not perfect. I have my ups. I have my
downs. But what I want you to know is that connecting
is what brings joy. We've been bombarded by the
idea that happiness and self -fulfillment is
what makes life wonderful. And the fact of the
matter, it's in great, deep relationships where
happiness is not the goal, but there's a byproduct.
And the byproduct is joy. It's a sense of connection.
And what he wanted to say to his disciples was,
here's how you stay connected. I've given you
only the first principle here today, that you
can't impart what you don't possess. But next
time, I'll share the principle of connection,
that connection is built on communication. And
then I'm going to help you understand that joy
overflows as you learn to connect. And I will
share with you a tool. I mean, a tool that Teresa
and I have used for over 35 years that literally
rescued our marriage. And that no matter where
we're at, we know we can do this tool and we
get reconnected. I'll see you next time. What
practical steps keep you connected to Christ
and your spouse? I'm Dave Drewy. Don't miss tomorrow's
teaching as Chip Ingram continues choosing love
here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is
produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.