How to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be, Part 1

Chip Ingram: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, is it possible to become the person you've always longed to become? I would submit it's not only possible, it's God's will that you become winsome and loving and holy, a person of faith and integrity that changes from the inside out. And God has literally arranged and designed a very special place in which this reality takes place. And today, I want to share with you where this special place is and how you can get connected to it. Stay with us.
Chip Ingram: Deep inside each of us is an image of the better person we long to become. Question is, how do we actually get there?
Chip Ingram: I'm Dave Drewy and this is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We're in a series called Free At Last, how to break out of a destructive lifestyle. And today Chip reveals how God transforms us from the inside out. And as you'll hear, the process he's created to do this work is not what you might expect. Now, here's Chip with today's message titled, How to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be.
Chip Ingram: As we start our time in God's word, I'd like you to do something a bit unusual. I want you to really lean back. I want you to feel free, even if you want to shut your eyes. I'm going to give you three imaginary pictures. And they're very important if you can let your mind, whatever helps you, begin to picture this in your mind.
Chip Ingram: Imagine driving home after an exhausting and stressful day, only to get an SOS voicemail from a not so close friend. And immediately experiencing a shift of focus off yourself, your stress and what you've got to do, and you find yourself filled with compassion and energy to meet this person and help them.
Chip Ingram: You fix a quick supper, you get back in the car, you meet him at a coffee shop, two and a half hours of counseling. You pull in your driveway at 11:35, physically completely beat, but an energy and a peace and a sense that you were a part of the living God changing a person's life forever as you put your head on the pillow.
Chip Ingram: Scene number two, can you imagine hearing of the promotion or a financial windfall in the life of your ex-husband, your ex-wife, the child that betrayed you, your ex-boss who fired you unfairly, the business partner who ripped you off financially. And as you hear of this good thing that happened to that person who betrayed or hurt you, before you have time to think, the first thought that comes to your mind is joy and gratitude to God for blessing their life.
Chip Ingram: Because over a season of time, you have so thoroughly forgiven them, that like Jesus said, you actually love your enemies.
Chip Ingram: Scene number three, you may have to lean back a little bit deeper. This will take a deeper imagination. Imagine hearing the honest conversation of your children and your closest friends as they've gathered at your house after your funeral. They can't see you, but you can see them, and you can hear them. And they've gone through little lines and grabbed little food that we always have after people die.
Chip Ingram: And they're talking about you, and your own kids, and the people that really know you, talk about your loyalty, your integrity, your love. That you were, in fact, one of the greatest Christians that they ever met. That someday they, they want to be like you. And little stories, not those exaggerated kind that people say at funerals, but the kind when it's unedited and no one's around, the little stories of moments with you, many of which you totally forgot or unaware of, where your life, your love, your integrity marked their life forever. You were actually the kind of person that we all long to become.
Chip Ingram: Can you imagine that? What each of these three scenarios have in common is they're a picture of the miracle of life change. And what they also have in common is you can't fake them. Those aren't stories of behavior modification, cleaning up a few external behaviors through a lot of hard work and discipline.
Chip Ingram: These are supernatural works of the spirit of God through the word of God, the community of God's people where the actual life of Christ over time with many ups and many downs created in you a life that we all long for.
Chip Ingram: We're going to talk in this series about how that can become a reality, if you will, and let's talk about how that can actually happen to ordinary regular people like you and me.
Chip Ingram: If you have your Bible, open to Ephesians chapter 4. We pick it up in verse 11 and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers. And so he gives gifted people to the church. Then the very next word is important, you might underline it, for. That's the reason, that's the purpose. Why does he give gifted people to the church? For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.
Chip Ingram: And put a little line through the word saints, because that doesn't mean someone's in stained glass, that's just a biblical word for a Christian, a believer, someone who the Spirit of God lives in. And then put a little box around, if you would, work of service, and write next to it, minister. We get our word for a minister. So God gives gifted leaders to the church.
Chip Ingram: They equip, and put a circle around the word equip, it's very important. It was a picture of if there was a compound fracture, a doctor resets it, so it works again. It's the picture of fishermen whose nets are broken and they repair them so the nets do what they were supposed to do. Leaders are given to restore and equip all of us people for the ministry or work of service. And when we operate together doing what Christ wants us to, then notice what occurs and what the ultimate goal is. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the statue, which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
Chip Ingram: If you would, put a line under knowledge. This isn't intellectual knowledge. In Greek, there's two or three different words for knowledge. One is sort of an intellectual two plus two is four. Another is a relational knowledge. This has to do with knowing someone, not knowing about them. And then he even put a little prefix. This is a super-powered intimate knowledge of God. Leaders are given to equip God's people to do the actual ministry until all of us corporately come together and have an intimate knowledge of God until we're what? Mature.
Chip Ingram: That's our word teleos, telescope. It's when you fulfill the design that God longs for you. In essence, the goal is to become like Jesus. The measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ.
Chip Ingram: And then he gives a little test. Well, how do you know if you're making progress? What would be the evidence of a person that this really occurs as the supernatural community of the church works together? Verse 14, as a result, in other words, the impact is, we're no longer to be children, tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine, by trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. In other words, you're no longer manipulated by false teachers. You're no longer wandering or led astray by people who tell you one thing but it doesn't line up with scripture.
Chip Ingram: And so there's a doctrinal stability. There's people that are mature that know the word of God. But it moves from that to a relational dynamic. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. And so there's a level of relationship in the body of Christ where you just don't speak truth, and you're just not nice and loving, but there's this authenticity of caring where you even share the hard things. You help people grow.
Chip Ingram: Then it talks about participation. From whom the whole body, speaking of the church, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, that causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Did you notice those key words fitted and joint?
Chip Ingram: The word fitted was in construction, you know, you'll see people that you make a cut here and you make a cut here, and you align them. That's this word. And joint has to do with two things that actually touch. He's saying that something happens when every single member of the body of Christ is walking in obedience to him by faith and understands your role, there's a coming together, a loving and a support and a connection. And notice those phrases where each and every, every single person matters.
Chip Ingram: And as we function in that way, this thing happens. This amazing thing happens. You experience God's love through other people, and you get loved by other people. And God uses you to love other people. And then what did Jesus say? Jesus said, the whole world will know that the Father sent the Son, not by the sizes of your church, not by how intellectual you are, not by the success of your people. Not by how cool or hot or wonderful your music is.
Chip Ingram: He says the world's going to know the reality of a God who created the world and sent the second person of the Triune God, his son, to die in people's place and give them new life and want to be with them forever will be how we love one another.
Dave Drewy: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and we'll continue the lesson in a moment. But while you're with us, did you know that Chip's teaching is also available on YouTube? The Living on the Edge channel has full video series, short form clips, and a growing library of content you can watch anytime. Check out Chip's other series like Sacred Strongholds, exploring the lies we believe that quietly destroy the lives we love. Just search Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram on YouTube and hit subscribe so you never miss what's new. Well, now here's Chip.
Chip Ingram: What you have in verses 11 through 16 is, if you will, God's design. God's actual design for how those who call ourselves followers of Christ relate to one another in such a way that the life that we long for and the life he destines us for actually becomes a reality. There's three principles and a proof that flow out of this passage. Principle number one tells us what leaders are to do. Leaders are gifted to equip. God's people for service.
Chip Ingram: It's what leaders do. And then he gives four examples of leaders in the early church, and you'll notice he literally gives the foundation. He says, first, there's apostles. The word apostle literally means one who is sent with a commission. Jesus had many disciples, but he chose 12 apostles. The qualifications for being an apostle is you had to be actually with the risen Christ from his baptism on to the rest of his ministry.
Chip Ingram: Now, there's the office of apostle, you have these 12. And then you have the the function of apostle. These are people that uh aren't original apostles because there's no one living today that actually, right, was back when Jesus was resurrected. But this function of starting new things, the idea of missionaries, people who start ministries, there's a function of apostleship.
Chip Ingram: And then after he had the apostles, there's the prophets. In the early church, they didn't they didn't have a New Testament. And so they got revelation from God. Prophecy primarily is the foretelling of God's truth. Then you have evangelists. These are people gifted with an extraordinary gift and a winsomeness that lead lost people into an understanding of a saving knowledge of Christ. And when you're around them, they motivate the rest of us to do the work of an evangelist, to really care about people outside of Christ.
Chip Ingram: And then once they're sent and once there's truth and once people come to Christ, then pastor teachers. The word pastor literally just means a shepherd. It's someone who comes along someone and says, I want to help you through the valleys and the ups and the downs and the struggles. And I want to teach you the truth so that you understand, this is how God wants your marriage to work. This is what God says in terms of living a single life. This is how he his instruction about your finances, your dreams or ambition. Here's how you deal with these kind of temptations.
Chip Ingram: And the goal of apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers is to equip God's people for the work of service. So that literally we become the body of Christ. Jesus when he was on the earth would walk around and if someone needed a cup of cold water with his hands, he would give him a cup of cold water. Or if they needed food, he would break some bread and pray over it and give them food. But today, Jesus' body is us. But what you got to understand is the role of leaders are to equip.
Chip Ingram: Um, by and large, the design of God has been Shanghaied by the enemy and by our own sort of uh dysfunctional way that we look at relationships. In the average church in America and around the world, uh the average size is about 75 to 100 people. Over 90% of all the churches in the world are under 100 people. Most of them under about 80. Because that's if you if you turn the model of God upside down and do it completely wrong, that's about how many people one person, if you work like crazy, can shepherd.
Chip Ingram: And so many of us have grown up in a world where the idea is the pastor is the spiritual person and we're the regular people. And our job is to come and listen to him. And then if we have someone in the hospital, we say, pastor, go visit them in the hospital because they're in need or maybe we have someone who needs to hear about Christ. We say, well, pastor, you know, why don't you come over and share the gospel with one of my friends and so they do everything.
Chip Ingram: And can you imagine if if someone came from like the Amazon and um and they never had seen the design of a car and and maybe, you know, their parents were doing Bible translation and they came to a a city and in the name of this city would be called backward city. And and they wanted to learn how to drive a car. And if they got in the car and everyone who drove a car did it like this. They put it in and they went like and and they would they would actually either turn their head like this, but they they always drove the car backwards. And the car is always made this funny sound when it got going really fast. And people couldn't go very fast. I mean, you know, they go about 20 miles an hour. But if that's all you ever saw, and you would always wonder, why do the people who drive cars, why do their necks hurt so much? And why do the cars make such funny sounds?
Chip Ingram: Now, engineers would tell you, the car was designed with a big windshield, an engine, and gears one, two, three and four to go forward. But if that's all you ever saw, you would learn to drive a car like that and think it's normal. That's how most pastors have grown up. I'm supposed to do it all, and most churches believe you're supposed to do it all, and we'll come and watch you do this. And when you get really, really tired, we'll give you a little pat on the back and say, good boy, keep going. And we know that there's too many things going on. But if we're in the hospital, pastor, you have to be there. Or if there's a need, you have to be there.
Chip Ingram: And what happens is, is that the leader isn't equipping. It destroys the pastor and all those gifts in the church don't get used and people don't grow and their lives don't change. I could give you a very long, sad story. My first two or three years as a pastor, that's all I knew. That's what I did. I worked 80, 85 hours a week. I grew this magnificent church from 35 to almost 100 people and and just about landed in the hospital.
Chip Ingram: And then this passage became a reality and we flipped everything around in that church and we helped we helped everyone discover what God made them to do and we moved the pastoral care from a person to a system of small groups the way Jesus did. And they started loving one another and in that little town of about 3,000 people, pretty soon we had about 500 people. And pretty soon we were connecting with the black church in town and the Hispanic kids. And ministries were being launched by people because I finally got my job was to help.
Chip Ingram: Leaders equip. They drive the car forward. They help people like you, all of us regular people to discover how God's made us, grow to maturity, use our gifts so that, notice the second principle. Second principle is every member is a minister. Remember that little phrase I said, work of service, that's our word for minister. Every member is a minister. When someone would ask me, well, how many ministers do you have at the church that you get to pastor? You know what my answer is? Well, we have between 3,000 to 3,500 that come on the weekends. And I know about a third of them or 40% of them are out doing something and, you know, for lots of good legitimate reasons or off a Sunday or weekend here or there and, and some of them for not so legitimate reasons or off a Sunday here and there. And so I would say we have about 3,000 ministers.
Chip Ingram: Now, some of them pose like secret agents as stay-at-home moms or software engineers or CEOs or plumbers or construction workers and and other people are on college campuses posing as students. But actually, underneath of it, underneath the robe of their clothes, it says full-time minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's who you are. So you minister. You you are the hope of your neighborhood, the hope of your family, the hope of where you work. You are a full-time minister of the gospel. Leaders' job is to help equip you personally, spiritually, relationally. So that you can be an effective minister in your home, and at your school, and at your work, in your neighborhood.
Chip Ingram: And I uh I remember the story. I I always like the the old Westerns. We still kind of watch them. And I always love the part on the old, you know, Westerns where the bank's been robbed. What are we going to do? And then the marshal comes up, all right, fellas. We're going to form a posse. And then what's he do? All right. Marshal Dylan, I'm going to deputize all you people. Fred, you're dep you're now deputy. Bob, you're deputy. And right, they deputize them. And then what do they do? They all get on their horses and have their guns. They now have the power to go do exactly what the sheriff does.
Chip Ingram: Can I tell you when you came to Christ, God gave gifted leaders to equip you. You're deputized.
Dave Drewy: You've been listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message called, How to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be from the series Free at Last, How to Break Out of a Destructive Lifestyle. Part two is next time so don't miss it. You know, these daily messages are available anytime on the Living on the Edge podcast. Subscribe so you never miss what's coming next in this series. And if you want the complete uncut sermon, the Chip Ingram Sermon podcast is free and available anywhere you listen.
Dave Drewy: Deep inside each of us is an image of the better person we long to become. And everything in this series is pointing toward that. Chip's book, Yes, You Really Can Change, is the companion for that journey. It takes the principles from this study and makes them personal, helping you identify the barriers that have held you back from God's best and showing you how to break through them. Right now, every purchase includes a second copy so you and someone you care about can read it and work through it together. So get your copy and one to share at Living on the Edge.org/offers.
Dave Drewy: You know, for 30 years, Living on the Edge has pursued a clear goal, to help Christians live like Christians. This impactful ministry has stayed on the air because faithful listeners decided the teaching was worth supporting. If you'd like to join with us and help reach new listeners with God's life-changing word, we invite you to give online today at Living on the Edge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. And you can send your gift by mail by writing to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia 303024. Well, now here's Chip.
Chip Ingram: As we close today's program, I was talking to your pastor. And I was talking to him indirectly because what I know is I've been in his world for the last 20 years and I've been worn out. And I've tried to do it all. And you love your pastor and you care about him and you you are listening to your pastor's best friend. I love your pastor. I don't even know him. But the church is the hope of the world and God has placed pastors in a strategic position. The tragedy is is they're worn out doing all the ministry instead of equipping us regular people to do the ministry. So what do we have to do here?
Chip Ingram: I'm going to suggest it begins with you. If you're a pastor listening to my voice, I want to pray that God gives you unbelievable courage to set boundaries and say no and develop a team of people to help you do ministry. And then what I know is most people listening to my voice, you're not a pastor. You need to step up. You need to help your pastor. You need to free him up. Yes, you pray. But you need to say, what needs to happen in this church? What are normal ministry activities? Of course, visiting the hospital, praying for people, teaching classes, counseling people, starting a mentoring program. But I got to tell you something. I'm just going to be honest here as a pastor. I get people all the time who come to me and say, this is what we ought to do. And they dump it on my plate and I'm already overloaded and then I get discouraged and then they're down on me as a pastor because I can't do it all. That's not God's plan. Let me tell you what to do. Come to your pastor and say, you know what? I think our junior high ministry needs to take it up a notch. My wife and I have prayed about this. We've already recruited two or three other couples and we want to run them by you and talk about it. But we would like for the next year to see if we could take junior high where God wants it. Would that be okay?
Chip Ingram: Can you imagine how your pastor's going to feel? Or you're a lady listening to my voice and you think, oh, he's got all this counseling and he probably shouldn't be counseling ladies anyway. What if you got with three or four other ladies and thought about who's gifted in this and you get together and you pray and you go to the pastor and say, hey, there's four of us women. They're godly. They're people that have been walking with the Lord for a long time. And we actually even found some material. We want to run it by you first, pastor. When all these women come or married situations that the woman needs someone to cry and to pray with, we want to tell you, we want to be your team. Can you imagine the difference that'll make?
Chip Ingram: You can't, can't you? So what's the application? The application is, dream the dream, find a couple of friends and go do it. And not only will you help your pastor and bless your church. You know who's going to change? You know who's going to get transformed? You, because God gave you gifts and he's going to use you beyond your wildest dreams.
Dave Drewy: I'm Dave Drewy. Next time Chip Ingram continues his lesson, How to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be. Don't miss the next edition of Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.