You Can't Give Away What You Don't Possess

Chip Ingram: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, have you ever tried to fix something, but the tool that you needed wasn't in the toolbox? It just doesn't work, right? Well, the same thing is true when it comes to building great relationships. There is a specific key requirement. And if you have it, you're in business. If you don't, it's probably not going to work very well. If you want to learn what it takes to build great relationships, stay with me.
Dave Druey: I'm Dave Druey, and this is Living on the Edge. Today, Chip Ingram continues his series, Caring Enough to Connect: Building Bridges to Those We Love, with a principle he says completely changed his own marriage from the inside out. You simply can't give away what you don't already have. If you don't know, deep down in your own heart, that you are already loved by God, Chip says you'll spend your whole life trying to manufacture love and acceptance from everyone around you instead. Well, now let's get started with today's message titled, You Can't Give Away What You Don't Possess.
Chip Ingram: I'm talking about basically life lessons in terms of building a great family and just great friendships, principles that have to do with marriage, parenting, friendship, your boss. And so, let me do a quick review. Principle number one, the biggest lesson I learned was it all begins with God. God created relationships, and His Word gives direction on how to have great ones by His intent. The second principle was that everyone is desperately insecure. We looked at the very beginning of time and Adam and Eve and that once sin entered the world, in varying degrees, we're just desperately insecure people. And so we said the passage was Genesis chapter three, and then our practice was take off your mask. Authenticity builds genuine relational intimacy, and hypocrisy destroys it. Principle number three is everyone behaves in a way that makes sense to them. When people act in immature, inappropriate, or even have patterns that appear absolutely dysfunctional and damaging, they're doing it for reasons that at least inside their head and from their experience, it makes sense. Principle number four: you cannot impart what you do not possess. In other words, if you do not like you, you will never love others. And I don't mean that like pop psychology. I mean that like Jesus. We say, what's the great commandment? Matthew 22:38 and 39. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor how? As yourself. Now, if we're desperately insecure and I don't like me, it's really hard if I don't feel whole, if I don't feel loved, it's really hard to give away something I don't have. And so most of us, some point in time, figure out how to get affirmation. And then, by God's grace, many of us come to know Jesus and we know intellectually what's happened. We were pulled out of the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God. All of our sins have been forgiven. We have a new Father, we have a new family, we have a new peace, we have a new future. We have a certain, our significance has been established. We're the object of God's love. The prayer of the upright is His delight. We're loved like we will never ever be loved, totally apart from our performance, and we're a brand new creature in Christ that we live out in this fallen world. But see, Second Corinthians 5:17 says if any man or if any woman is in Christ, the old things pass away. Tense of the verb, they're gone forever. Behold, all things become new. Tense of the verb, it's a process. Yes, I was in darkness, now I'm in light. I was a child of the darkness, now I'm a son of the light. Yes, I'm forgiven, I'm significant, I'm loved. I have the Holy Spirit. I have gifts. I've been sealed, my future, I'm the object of God's affection. But it's a process. And so when I began my marriage, some of these things that I've learned, they stick, don't they? It's called the flesh. And so I thought to myself, not consciously, let's see. If I want to have a good marriage and I want the most important person to love me, accept me, and affirm me in ways that really matter to me, I'll figure out what she wants. And so okay, a good husband is this, this, and this, I'll do that. Oh, I guess it's this too, and then I need to do this. And so I performed, performed, and worked and worked and worked and worked. But an amazing thing happened. I was working in the relationship to get my wife to love me in ways that I thought were significant to me, and it was all built, it came out of a hole. It came out of my need. It came out of manipulating and trying to do the right thing to push the right buttons to get someone to love me. I wasn't loving her unconditionally. I was loving her in a way that I hoped I'd get love back. The passage is Ephesians 5:1 and 2. It says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." If you'll open your Bibles to this one, we've got to do a little work, okay? There's two commands there. But you've got to open your Bibles because the therefore means something happened in verse 32 and 31 of chapter 4. As you turn there, you'll notice that the point is you can't impart what you don't possess. In other words, if you are not sensing, knowing, accepting the love that you already have from God, you can't give away love to others. You will be forced into some dysfunctional means of trying to manipulate, pretend, image-cast to get people to affirm and to love you. But notice it says, "Therefore be," command one, "be an imitator of God, a mimic." Well, what are you supposed to mimic? Look in your Bibles. What's verse 32 say? Go ahead, look in your Bibles. "Therefore be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God also in Christ has forgiven you." Well, what's verse 31? Skip up. "Therefore," he says you're this brand new person in relationships do something. "Let all malice and wrath and anger and slander and all these negative attitudes," what's it say? "Put them away. But instead, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another." And then the verse that we looked at is, "Therefore be a mimic of God." You're to mimic God. Well, what's a mimic? A mimic, if one person does this, they do that. They do that, they do this. So what are we to mimic? We're to mimic to be kind in relationships the way God is kind. We're to be tenderhearted with people the way God is tenderhearted. We're to forgive or release or let people go the way God has let us go and forgiven us based on Christ's work. And so you have a command that says mimic God, and did you notice the second command? It says walk in love. And then it describes what love looks like. This isn't an ooey-gooey feeling. How do you love? Just as Christ loved us. Well, how did He love us? An ooey-gooey feeling in His heart? Well, I hope there was some of that. But the Bible says the way He loved us, He gave Himself up for us, sacrifice, and He made His life a sacrifice. He gave. He radically gave Himself whether we responded or not. Now, here's what I want you to do. Between mimicking God and walking in love, in parenthesis, and you could put a circle around it in your Bible, what's the little phrase between those? Mimic God how? As a beloved child, or literally as a dearly loved one. Do you understand what the passage is teaching? He's saying, "I want you to love in this impossible way. Forgive like God forgives. Be kind like God forgives. Be compassionate like God. And I want you to live this amazing, supernatural, sacrificial life toward others." But where's the resource? As a dearly loved child. You can't give away what you don't possess. My experience is the average Christian may intellectually know they're loved. The average Christian doesn't feel loved. You are significant. You are valuable. You are loved by God today apart from anything you could ever do, as much as you will ever be loved. There's nothing you can do to diminish His love. There's nothing you can do to get more of His love. He loves you. And the basis of the Christian life is not I'm going to read my Bible, I'm going to pray, I'm going to go on a mission trip, I'll try and be a good Christian, I'll try and have really good morals. Now God, will you accept me? Do you love me? No, no, no. Completely opposite. It's you've already been forgiven, I love you, I care for you, the object of My affection. You are My child. Now walk in a manner worthy of who you already are. And you don't read your Bible to get brownie points. It's because you like being together. I don't go have coffee with my wife and say, "Okay, excuse me dear, do we have the little box? Talked with wife today. Okay, next little box, helped clean up around the house. Now do you love me?" I do that, are you ready for this? I like her. I just want to be with her. She loves and accepts me. The Christian life is knowing, believing, and feeling that you are so loved and accepted that now you can be a giver in relationships. And no relationship works if ultimately your desire is to get something from it. If you pretend to give affection or give it, but the string is, "I will be affectionate if you do this," if you give gifts so that this will happen, if you play little games to manipulate one another, what happens is as soon as the other person isn't coming through, then what? You're hurt, you're rejected, you're angry. See, God's not asking you to be nice to your mate or nice to your kids or nice to your parents or be a good old Joe out there in the marketplace. He's asking you to mimic God, treat them the way Jesus would treat them if He was walking around inside your body. And you do need to remember He is, right? He dwells in you. How in the world can you do that? You can only do it when you so accept, know, and believe that you are dearly, dearly loved by God. Otherwise, I jot a note in my notes, until I find my significance, security, and value from my relationship with Jesus, every relationship will be a dysfunctional attempt to get love and acceptance from others through my performance, manipulation, looks, barter, or deceit.
Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Just a quick reminder before we get back to today's message: did you know you can take Chip's teaching with you everywhere you go? The Chip Ingram app puts hundreds of messages, reading plans, and daily encouragement right in your pocket anytime you need it. It's free to download wherever you get your apps. And for even more resources, visit us online at livingontheedge.org. Now back to today's lesson.
Chip Ingram: Can I tell you the greatest thing that will ever happen in any of your relationships is for you to really believe, not just with the head but from the heart, that you are so loved by God that you are now secure enough to risk loving and caring and giving even if it doesn't come back? And so here's the practice: loving others demand I learn to know, accept, and feel God's unconditional love for me. You need to know, accept, and feel God's unconditional love for me. And if you feel like you're a little behind on this, I was probably a Christian at least ten years and a pastor before I realized how much of my energy and my service to God was really about trying to gain His approval and people's approval rather than living out of being already loved. Let me give you some specific ways to go to work on this. The first one is how do you know? Knowledge is an intellectual issue. Jot down if you would, Romans 5:8. "Romans 5:8 says while you were yet a sinner, Christ demonstrated His love for you and that He died for you." So before you even joined the family. And those people who choose not to join the family, God loves them. They won't receive the benefits of that love because of their pride and their unwillingness to surrender to His love. But isn't it good to remember to know God loves you apart from your performance? Now, it doesn't mean your performance isn't important, because that's the way I express my love to Him, but you can't earn it. Well, then how do you accept God's love? How do you get where, just being the regular old normal people that we all are, how do you get where you begin to know and accept that you really are loved so you don't have to manipulate and perform and do all this stuff that, by the way, we will all do to some degree until we die, right? Well, first of all, I think jot down if you would in your notes, Psalm 139. Here's what God thinks of you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God doesn't compare you to the person on the front of Cosmo or People. God doesn't compare you to someone on the front of Fortune 500. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. The all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise God of all the universe, and we're just this one little tiny part of it, created you and He loves just what He made. Like we say, "Oh, that's a Rembrandt. What a great work of art." God says He made you and then He steps back and goes, "You want to see greatness? There it is." Try looking in the mirror this week. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I look exactly how God wanted me to look. God's standard of beauty and value and significance is the only one that matters. I tell you what, you begin to renew your mind. I started writing these things on cards and that verse, Psalm 139, I began to pray them back to God. Until you like you, you can't love other people. And by like, I don't mean that you're content with behavior or issues that you know are ungodly. I mean where you say, "You know something? I have these strengths and I have these weaknesses and this is the package that God made." And the strengths are to build confidence and a part of God's glory, and the weaknesses are so that I'm always dependent on other people and realize that I can't make this little world by myself. I can never make it without others. The second way I think you get a grasp of how loved you are is by the price or your value to God. I mean, if we lined up, can you imagine? What if we lined up everyone on this back wall, every single person, and then we brought in a multi-multi-billionaire? And we said you can only choose one person and you have to pay one billion dollars for this one person. And when you pay that, you can have them and they're yours. And what if he looked and looked and looked and did research and did all kind of things and looked at everything that everyone in this whole room brought and then he said, "You! One billion dollars for you!" Or he said, "You!" Or he said, "You!" And then all the rest of us are here and he writes out a check for one billion dollars and you step out, would you not feel pretty good about yourself? Huh? Jot down if you would First Corinthians 6:19 and 20. God didn't pay a billion dollars for you. Do you not know that you are not your own? That you have been purchased with a price. Jesus, all-knowing, all-powerful, looking down all the corridors of all time and eternity, said when your name comes up on the computer screen of the eternal Godhead, "I'll pay the blood of My Son for the person sitting in your seat." That's how much you matter. See, part of us, we just need to begin to grasp how valuable we are because of who made us and how valuable we are because we've been purchased. And then I think we need to practically not just know, not just accept, but my journey has been how do you feel? How do you get that from here to here? And as I read scripture for the last 30 years, I took this little book on the character of God, and there's lots of chapters. It's a book on God's character, The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer. But I've read the goodness of God probably 10 times more, and on the love of God 10 times more than any chapter in this book for 30 years. In some stages, for a decade at a time, I read at least a chapter a week or more. And then I would write on a card a little quote and a passage, and the only way I could learn to get it from my head to my heart was to take that truth and pray it to God and ask Him to make real in my heart what is true and help me to feel it. And then I learned from scripture from David that if I would sing that and share that with God and rejoice over it, I would begin to emotionally experience it. What if you said to yourself as your eyes open in the morning, you could hear the Lord saying Zephaniah 3:17: "I am the Lord your God. I am with you. I will protect you and cover you with My love. I rejoice over you with singing." What if God wasn't down on you? What if He really likes you? What if He has a great plan for you? And what if you are so significant and valuable already that what other people think matters, but it doesn't dictate who you are? You see, you can't impart what you don't possess. And as you listen to the Apostle Paul building the church, what did he pray? Chapter one, "I pray that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened, that they might grasp or understand the strength of Your power, the power of Christ's resurrection dwelling in them." And then in chapter three, he says, "I bow my knee with all the family of God, that you might be strengthened in your inner man so you could comprehend beyond just intellectual aspects what is the height and depth and length and breadth and to know," and the word is by way of experience, "God's love for you." Having been deeply rooted and grounded in faith. See, I'll tell you what, relationships begin with really understanding, hey, it's all about God's way of doing it. Accepting yourself and one another, we're all a bunch of desperately insecure people. That people really do behave in ways that make sense to them, but not usually to us. And that I just can't give away what I don't have. And maybe the greatest thing I could do for every relationship is to know, accept, and believe and to feel that I am loved for who I am apart from any performance today by the eternal God of the universe. And then kind of take the pressure off of trying to impress you all as much as I try to impress you and try and look or do different things that get your affirmation and just kind of say, "You know, Lord, if they like you today, they kind of hate you tomorrow." That was the way with You, right? They're cheering one day, crucifying You three days later. There was something to the heart of Christ who said He didn't entrust Himself to people. We're all a bunch of fallen human beings, but you're valuable. And He wants you to be a giver. And He loves you just the way you are.
Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with a message titled, You Can't Give Away What You Don't Possess. If you ever miss one of these daily messages, just catch up online at livingontheedge.org. We're in a series called, Caring Enough to Connect: Building Bridges to Those We Love. And if you'd like to catch anything you missed, including Chip's special interview with Aaron Pierce, subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast. Real love only flows out of people who already know deep down that they're loved by God. And that's just as true for the hardest relationship in your life as it is for the easiest one. If there's someone in your own life who feels far from God right now, don't let today be the end of it. Aaron Pierce's book, Not Beyond Reach, picks up right where his recent interview with Chip left off, walking you step-by-step from friendship to real spiritual conversation to the Gospel itself. So you know exactly what to say and when to say it. So get your copy of the book, Not Beyond Reach, at a special price today at livingontheedge.org/offer. You know, these powerful, honest teachings only reach people because listeners like you decide again and again that it's worth supporting. Give a gift right now and put your generosity behind a ministry that equips ordinary believers to have the conversations that actually matter. Just give online at livingontheedge.org, or call our team at 888-333-6003. Or send your gift by mail to Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Suwanee, Georgia, 30024. Well, now here's Chip Ingram.
Chip Ingram: As we close today's program, I would just bring your mind back to those prayers that I quoted by the Apostle Paul. Isn't it interesting? These people living in such a difficult time and a difficult place, that what he prays for them is that they would be able to grasp, that they would understand, not just with their mind but with their heart. In fact, he prays that beyond their human comprehension, that we would understand and grasp and feel and experience the love of God. Could I just ask you to just lean back and think of how you would think differently and relate differently if you could hear in your heart God saying, "Hey, today, I'm with you, no matter what. Hey, I'm not down on you. I love you. I'm for you." What if you believed just even as you and I are talking right now that, you know, today is a part of an amazing and a great plan that God has for my life and He literally loves me and just wants me to kind of have my spiritual antenna up and listen to Him and take the next step that He shows me so He could give me the very, very best in life? You see, when you begin to internalize how lavishly God loves you, only then can you begin to pass it on. I can't imitate unconditional kindness and love and forgiveness unless I've experienced that. And so what we're really talking about here is you saying to the Lord, "Lord, will you help me grasp and understand how much you love me?" And then it's not just some ooey-gooey feeling. It's getting into the scriptures. It's trusting the promise that draw near to God and He'll draw near to you. It's arranging your life where you actually experience God's love. Because there are some relationships that are always going to be hard, and you cannot give away what you don't possess. Unconditional love and forgiveness for some people in your life, I call them hard relationships, can only be achieved when you receive that same love. That's Chip Ingram and the end of today's program. Join us next time as we continue our series, Caring Enough to Connect, here on Living on the Edge.