Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
What do you give the person that has everything?
Every time that comes up on my Christmas list
or birthday list, I get stumped. But here's a
bigger one. How do you give God what he wants
the most? Have you ever thought of that? You're
going to learn exactly what he wants and how
to give it to him. That's today. What does the
creator of the universe truly want from you?
It's a question that haunts every honest seeker.
Well, today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram
answers it head on. Through gripping stories
of treasure hunters and priceless discoveries,
he reveals a pattern Jesus used to shake people
awake to spiritual reality. You'll discover why
God's invitation to total commitment isn't about
losing your life. It's about finally finding
it. This teaching challenges our deepest assumptions
about what matters and exposes the plastic pearls
we desperately clutch while missing the real
treasure. Well, here's Chip Ingram with today's
message, How to Give God What He Wants the Most.
If I ask you kind of over a cup of coffee, where
did your spiritual journey really begin as an
adult? What would you tell me? Where were you?
What were the circumstances? For me, it was the
night I graduated from high school. After being
with some friends at a party, I realized I was
a workaholic. I had academic success. My dream
of a basketball scholarship was in hand. I was
all league in baseball. I had a really pretty
girlfriend. And I sat alone and empty and just
wondering, what in the world am I here for? My
little formula of success will make you happy
didn't pan out. I remember that night sitting
on my bed, looking out my bedroom window. It
was a very starry night, I remember. And I started
asking the real questions that adults ask. Why
am I here? Is there a God? What's my purpose
in life? Is there more to life than just setting
goals and achieving them? And that night, although
I had a lot of childhood prayers of, you know,
get me out of this jam and please help so and
so. And I prayed what I think was my first adult
prayer. And I remember looking at the stars and
I said, God, if you exist, reveal yourself to
me in a way that I can understand. And then I
figure everybody wants something. And I remember
praying, God, what do you want from me? If you
exist, what do you really want from me? And that's
going to be the question we're going to ask and
answer today on our journey toward true spirituality.
How do we give God what he wants the most? We're
going to walk through this journey, and this
journey is going to take us to a point of a very,
very important decision. And so I want to introduce
you to a book that I read. It was by a Yale law
professor called Risk Reason. and the decision
-making process. And it's a series of true stories
that are case studies, and they read the case
study, then they get in small groups, and they
talk about, okay, what were the risks involved
in making this decision? What reasons did people
make this decision? And what would you do? And
so they sort of peel it out, give a case study,
let the groups talk a little bit, and then give
them more information. So let me actually, I've
got a couple case studies here, because here's
the deal. The goal was to teach them to make
skillful, wise decisions. And we're going to
be talking about a very, very important decision.
And there was just some great insight about making
great decisions. So case study number one. They're
brief, but they're kind of fun. A 32 -year -old
engineer named John loves to go to estate sales
to look for antique furniture and other potentially
valuable items. One weekend, he goes to an estate
sale in the southern part of the United States.
All the items in this particular house are being
sold together for a single price. Visitors are
welcome to make a bid, and John learns that the
winning bid will be about $95 ,000. The house
is old and disrepair, probably built during the
Civil War period. John, a self -confessed geek
and history buff, recognizes a collection of
rifles that seem to be from that time frame.
He then goes downstairs to a damp basement using
a small pocket flashlight, finds an old roller
top desk, and going through the desk, he discovers
a false drawer. And in the false drawer is a
small leather pouch that contains 22 very rare
pure gold coins minted by the Confederate Army
during the Civil War. They could be worth millions
of dollars, he believes. John has to make a decision.
What should he do? He has $10 ,000 in savings.
If he can sell his car, his house, and everything
he owns, he believes he can come up with the
$95 ,000 and make the winning bid. What would
you do? Students at Harvard's business school
and MIT and other universities discuss this.
So face value, what would you do? Think about
that. Case study number two. Sheila, a 20 -something
college art teacher at a community college, was
traveling in Europe over the summer. She had
even started a small collection on her limited
salary. And while in a small village in southern
France, well off the beaten path, Sheila went
to an auction where the locals had all donated
family art to be sold to help finance the construction
of a much -needed school. One painting topped
the list and was said to be a rare but highly
valued copy of Picasso's work. It was deemed
as a non -original because the signature at the
bottom was different from all of his other works.
Sheila, however, wrote her master's thesis on
Picasso and was aware that in the first year
of his work, he did not sign his name but only
put his initials there. She looked and studied
the painting carefully and came to the conclusion
that she actually was in the presence of a priceless
piece of art. It was believed there were only
two or three of these paintings in existence
anywhere in the world. If this were so, Sheila
was standing before something worth a very great
deal of money. The $25 ,000 asking price was
a joke with regard to what it was worth, but
it was a bigger joke with her income. What Sheila
would have to do would sell her Volkswagen Jetta,
sell her entire art collection, and withdraw
her entire savings of $600. What should Sheila
do? What would you tell her? Now, I want to give
you three principles that flow out of these case
studies. Here's where the meat is for you and
me. In every big decision, and I mean big, important,
life -altering decisions especially, the number
one thing you need is just write this word down,
truth. Truth. The issue here is the validity
of the find. If the coins are legit, if they're
true, if it's a Picasso, if it's true, and for
you, when you're trying to figure out what you
should do with your life and the relationships
that you're in, you need to first and foremost
say, what's true? And after truth and knowledge,
the last thing, just write the word faith. These
are the three keys to making great decisions.
What's true? Do you have the inside knowledge?
And then faith is literally the courage to pull
the trigger. There's a great deal of people that
never have the faith or the courage to pull the
trigger and act on what they absolutely believe
is true. And so they don't make good decisions
or they make no decisions, which is really a
decision of itself. Turn the page, if you will,
because these two remind me of a case study.
by Jesus that teaches us also about risk, reason,
and the decision -making process. When Jesus
is teaching this, it's out of Matthew chapter
13, verses 44 and 45. He says, the kingdom of
heaven, in other words, following me and how
life works with me as the king of your life,
is like a treasure hidden in the field, which
a man found, then he hid again. And from joy
over it, he goes and sells all that he has, and
he buys that field. So look at verse 45. Again,
the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking
fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great
value, of exquisite value, of over -the -top
priceless value is the idea, he went and sold
all the pearls that he had, and he bought it.
So if you have a pen, pull it out. Let's go up
to verse 44. I want you to see something. Jesus
isn't talking about money and treasure. he's
making a very profound spiritual point and principle
about decision -making. And what he's saying
is this. He's saying there's certain things that
we can see and certain things we can't see. And
the kingdom of God and following me is akin to,
and this would be in their day, it would make
sense because this actually could happen in their
day. They didn't have 401ks. And so you would
take your treasure and you would hide it, dig
it someplace on your land. And the goal is you
would tell your relatives, your sons or daughters,
where it is. But sometimes people, you know,
they aren't ready quite to hear it. And they
die before they tell anyone. And so the people
realize that this story is really plausible.
And so he says here's a man who is in a field
maybe he's walking with a stick and he hears
something and he opens it up and there's a little
chest and there's a fortune in it and he covers
it back up and he is just exhilarated with what
he's just found so he recklessly with abandon
sells everything he has that's not worth very
much to get something that's worth a whole lot.
Same picture with the pearl. Here's the thesis.
Jesus is saying when you understand who he is
and how life really works and what really, really
matters now and forever, and you get the treasure
of what it is to have relationship with him and
the plan that he has for you on this earth, you
would with reckless abandon and joy forsake all
else to get that. Put another way, his thesis
is... Total commitment is the channel through
which God's biggest and best blessings flow.
You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip
Ingram. We're halfway through today's message,
so don't go anywhere just yet. Today's insightful
lesson comes from our series called God's Dream
for Your Life. Want to dig deeper into these
truths? Well, the full series is ready for you
online at Living on the Edge. Well, now let's
rejoin Chip with today's message. Did you realize
that? I mean, total commitment. He sold all that
he had. Motive? Joy. Above the word in your notes
where it says total commitment, would you write
the word surrender and put a box around it? Surrender.
Total commitment. I mean, it was... All or nothing
in order to gain that land with the treasure
inside. Now, Jesus told these two parables to
get into their world in such a way that they
would get a new set of glasses. Because when
you talk to people that want to follow God about
total commitment, it's like, well, I know pastors
are supposed to be totally committed and maybe
missionaries. And there's always like a 98 -year
-old lady who really prays like 37 hours a day.
And there's only 24 hours. And we know she's
totally committed. But, I mean, for most of us,
like, we're just like regular Christians, and
that sounds really scary. And, you know, I really
want to love God. I'm glad I'm going to heaven.
I'm glad Jesus forgave my sins. And, you know,
I would like to be a good person. In fact, I
think I'm a little bit better person than most
people. But total commitment sounds like scary.
Like, I mean, lock, stock, barrel. I mean, God
has the say on my time, my money, my future,
my family. And so what most of us do is we see
the lens of total commitment negatively. Here's
what I want to tell you. When Jesus taught about
surrender or total commitment, it is the channel
to get God's very best in your life. But he said
it's for joy. His motivation is positive. It's
wise. It's logical. It's shrewd. It's not so
much renouncing as it is a reevaluation. And
that was Jesus' point. And that's his message
to you. Remember, this is about how to give God
what he wants the most. And I told you it involves
a decision. And before our time is over together,
we're going to have a very sober and holy moment
where I'm not only going to explain exactly how
to give God what he wants the most, but it will
require a big step of faith, total commitment,
and surrender. And what you'll have to start
asking is, is how I hang on to things and my
view and what I want versus what he can provide,
which one of those am I going to trust? Reminds
me of a story I heard many years ago. And it
was a story of a little girl that went on vacation
with her family. and it was by the seashore,
and they had one of those cottages, you know,
that's right there, and you walk out the door,
and the sand is there, and you could walk on
the beach and had a little pier, and at the end
of the pier was a fishing boat with a very old
man. It was in a very small town in New England,
and the little girl, five or six years old, cute
pigtails the whole bit. You know how they are
at that age. And she would walk down to the pier
and walk down, and there was an old, old fisherman
who was just known in the town as the mean one.
He was just mean. He was old. He was bitter.
His friends had died. He'd had a hard life. And
so he just shut everybody out. But there's something
about a little five or six -year -old girl, you
know. Hi. Hi. Well, after day one, day two, day
three, day four, his heart starts to melt. And
no one's ever treated him nice. And every day
she would get shells and give him shells. And
she'd sit at the end of the pier with her feet
dangling. And pretty soon he's giving her a little
fishing line. And in their seven -day vacation,
a bond occurred. And he realized, no one in the
whole world cares about me, and I'm going to
die very soon. He was in his late 80s. And this
little girl does. And unbeknownst to others,
he had a little pouch of over the years of fishing,
and he found a number of shells and pearls. And
the thing that he noticed about this little girl,
she would dangle her feet over, but she would
always clutch. She had these little, you know,
plastic beads that you get like at Walmart or
Target or the CVS pharmacy. You know, you're
on vacation. Kids always want something. You
know, $1 .99, you're all set. And so he noticed
how much she liked him. So he took his pearls
and stayed up most of the night, drilled holes
in them, took a piece of fishing line and made
a necklace. He thought. I'm going to give it
to this little six -year -old girl. And so the
next day she came to say goodbye, and the station
wagon is all packed, and parents are, you know,
100 yards away, and okay, honey, get ready. Yes,
you can go say goodbye. She runs down to say
goodbye, and he says, come here, honey, I have
a present for you. And she walks up to him, and
they've been very close, and he says, give me
those plastic beads off your neck. And then he
hung out, glistening in the sun, real pearls.
Now, the problem with being five or six years
old and you're very immature, you don't know
what's worth what. All you know is what you're
comfortable with. All you know is what feels
right. And so he took another step and he said,
here, I have these. These are real pearls. Now,
take those off so I can put them on. And the
little girl stepped back, grabbed her necklace,
and ran 100 yards, jumped in the station wagon,
said, I want to go. That man tried to take my
pearls. And I want to tell you about eight out
of every nine Christians that really do sincerely
love God cling to plastic pearls and are not
receiving anything close in their life experience.
their relationships or their eternal impact,
what God has chosen and destined for you to have.
Because when he says, give me you, put me first
in your time, put me first in your future, put
me first in your decisions, put me first in your
family, put me first in your work, put me first
in your money, I want you to trust me wholly
because I have pearls, not stuff. And if you
don't believe he's good, if you don't know the
heart of the Father, then you just stay around
him long enough not to feel too guilty and semi
-hope you go to heaven and you cling on to the
plastic, temporal, non -treasure. But when you
meet the people that get more and more pearls,
you realize it just weighs them down instead
it gives them life. Total commitment. Surrender
is the conduit. It's the channel to which God's
best and biggest blessings flow. And so what
I want to do in the remainder of our time, I
want to define very specifically what total commitment
looks like. We are not leading up to some emotional
moment. We're leading up to a wise decision where
you're going to weigh the risk and the logic
of saying to God in a few minutes, I surrender
all to you. I would sign a blank check made out
to you. I would say to you, from this day forward,
I'm all in. I may be a little fearful, but I'm
all in. But in order to do that, you know, what's
that look like? The answer is in Romans chapter
12, verse 1. And after 11 chapters of treasure,
of what God has done, of how much he loves you,
of his sovereignty, his goodness, his forgiveness,
his power, his spirit living within you, his
gifts. all the plans that he has for you. In
chapter 12, your response to that is, therefore,
I urge you, brothers, sisters, fellow family
members, the Apostle Paul writes, in view of
God's mercy, offer your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual
act of worship. Notice the structure. There's
a command, there's a motivation, and there's
a reason. I'd like you, if you will, put a box
around the word offer, put a box around living
sacrifice, and then put a little box around the
word holy. And then I want you to put a squiggly
line under spiritual act of worship. The command
is to offer your body to God. And this isn't
metaphorical. This is like your physical body,
your eyes, your head, your hands, all that you
are. And the word offer here is in a tense in
the Greek language that's punctiliar. And what
that means is on a certain day at a certain time.
This passage is not explaining how to have your
sins forgiven. This passage is not explaining
what it means to be in God's family. Salvation
occurs at the end of chapter 3, 4, and right
in chapter 5, the work of Christ by grace. You
receive the free gift by faith. Chapter 12 is
saying, how do normal Christians follow Jesus
out of gratitude? And God says, are you ready?
This is what I want. I want you on a certain
day at a certain time to say to me, all I am,
all I have is yours. That's what it means to
offer. I will tell you that. Tens of thousands
of people in America and around the world do
not understand the channel through which God's
best and biggest blessings flow. The power for
the Christian life comes in this moment of offering.
Now, it requires faith. It requires believing
in an invisible treasure that you can't see,
but it's a historical living God who's walked
upon the earth and died in your place and rose
and sits at the right hand of God and says to
you, There's an unspeakable treasure who for
joy says to you, let me give you the best. You're
listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
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And don't forget to subscribe to the Living on
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available wherever you listen to podcasts. Well,
now here's Chip. As we wrap up today's program,
I've really introduced a very different paradigm
about what God's like. I mean, surrender is not
this great, huge sacrifice. It really is the
channel. It's the opportunity. It's the window
through which God is going to do the biggest
and best things in you. Now, what I know is that's
a lot easier said than to believe. And so here's
your assignment for today, and you can do it
right now. I want you to ask this one question.
How do you tend to view God as kind? Or is he
demanding and hard to please? That will tell
you why it's hard to surrender. Here's your little
action step. Get a three by five card and write
out Romans 8 .32. He that spared not his own
son for you, how will he not with him freely
give you all things? If he loves you enough to
give you his son. How can we not trust him for
the little stuff like our future, our cars, our
money, our homes, and our locations? He wants
to help you. Surrender today. I'm Dave Drewy.
Be sure to join us tomorrow as Chip explores
what really happens when we stop holding back
and finally trust God with everything. Don't
miss it next time on Living on the Edge. Today's
program is produced and sponsored by Living on
the Edge.