Discover Your True Self - You are Wanted, Part 2

Did you ever wonder how you came to see yourself the way that you do you realize that every relationship decision and choice that you make is rooted in your self-image. Would you like to have an encouraging positive self and well stay with that's working to talk about. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge Chip Ingram trips are Bible teacher on this international discipleship program and I'm very friendship series discover your true self. In this program explains how it's possible to know for sure that your what that you belong is a promise from God. Little never made or change your tired of performing playing religious games to please others. This message is going to speak after the teaching chips always with us in studio to bring a final thought is application, so be sure to stay with us for this one. It's especially powerful if you. You can pick it up later on the chipping roadmap. Now let's get going and join Chip for part two of his message. You are wanted from Ephesians chapter 1. Let's ask ourselves what it means to get an accurate view of God by understanding that I'm chosen number one that I'm adopted what does God say about those who are in Christ number one were chosen by him literally, we are picked out personally for himself. Notice it's unearned is not based on what you do. It's eternal from the foundations of the earth. But here's the core truth.

You are wanted by God you think of all the things we do to be wanted.

We want to be attractive. We all got up and we dressed I'm guessing at least most of the women put on makeup. You thought about what you aware we we we want to be wanted our lives, often are just filled with if I can do this or if I can achieve this, or if I look like this, or if I could have better if I achieve that. Then I would be more acceptable and then I would be wanted. Can I just ask you something. What if that got solved. What if, in your heart of hearts, instead of needing and having and wanting to be wanted, you know, I don't really think this is right but I don't think you love me if we don't go to bed you know what, I don't think this is really right but you know what if I don't let him on the traveling team from the traveling team. I know it's messing up our family but you know how I want to really feel accepted by his friends. Yeah, I don't think that's a really good group for my daughter.

I don't think that's really the right place, but you want to be too hard because you might feel rejected and miss out because her what what if we taught our kids and what if all of us said in what we all desire to be in. We all desire to belong.

We all desire to be wanted, what if we didn't need it anymore. What if you were so wanted and so loved and so secure by the one who made you and the one who died for you and the one who you will spend eternity with forever and ever and ever that you have freedom to say you know I don't have to work 72 hours. I don't have to keep up with everybody at work. My kids don't have to all get into these schools are those schools if they do, it's great.

I don't have to put pressure on them because my value my okay inside my soul. It's not what other people think it really isn't.

And yet I mean is it that this disease is in all of us correct. So the question is how do you break I think he goes on and tells us he says you not only chosen but your adopted by him. It means complete in all the rights and privileges of being a part of his family. It's in your revocable. Once your adopted his family. Your part of his family and the core truth is you are accepted by God and you are his child not let me let me give you a picture that will that will help you with this because right now your body language in your eyes are telling you I'm I'm leaning forward on, like to get this but I don't have it yet.

I have a friend grew up in an orphanage. His name is Billy was in the orphanage and toys eight years old and everybody that he grew up in this orphanage is people would come in and what this went on with this one. Billy Is left out left out left out left out by the time your eight. Most all you cute little friends are gone and finally one day the family walked in and looked at him since we want you so Billy was adopted. His name was legally changed.

They didn't have any children, so he had a bedroom all by himself. The family came in he tells a story that they came in the first few nights and he was sleeping on the floor and I said what are you doing we have this nice bed.

We got all these new things for you and I never slept in a bed, I'm unworthy to and then I looked in the closet. There was food stuffed in the closet Billy when they weren't looking. Went to the refrigerator. He got food and he hoarded it and he stuck it, why because that's what is always done. He didn't feel love he didn't feel worthy.

He couldn't receive love and so his greedy and his fear of rejection or not having even though he was legally adopted and had a mom and dad who loved him, and his name was officially changed and he was deeply love he Living like can I ask you a really penetrating question and if you can sort let the denial sort of drift off just for a moment. How many of you are living spiritual orphans. You are loved by God, you're looking for it everywhere else. You are loved by God and he has a great plan and you're putting him on hold and your whole life and your energy is about gaining approval and acceptance and love, somewhere else.

Will Billy grew up, he became one of my professors and he's been dealing with this issue is whole life, even to adulthood, to the point that all the sayings about pleasing people. All those things about fearing rejection until God did a great work in his life and then at one point he decided God called him to plant a church, and even take a risk used to be called South Hills and village name is Bill Lawrence Bill Lawrence taught me to preach Bill Lawrence figured out his adopted he's loved by a father he's cared for deeply heat.

He didn't have to when he went to school. He got this degree.

That degree that degree that degree he just kept running after what will make me acceptable into even after being a pastor for 10 years. He had a breaking moment, and he began to understand what it means to be adopted by a loving, caring father. That's a reality in your heart. What does it really mean to be adopted when we hear the words that I just shared they make some sense to us, but they make a lot more sense to the people who got this that word adopted to us is you know I means a lot to me. I adopted two boys. If you've adopted kids or if you are adopted I will tell you, this passage means a lot more to you but if you are in Ephesus and you are hearing this red adoption.

You would think the Roman law. The only people to get adopted are adults they didn't adopt children and and the people he got adopted, would be if my wife and I couldn't have children and we don't have any errors we would find the smartest, best, most wonderful person who is an adult and there probably mid 20s or 30s and we would adopt them, and according to Roman law, their past life vanished. Even that any if they had a that's it banished their name was changed and I became officially part of our family number to Connor earned it.

There such a wonderful person they would be adopted and these Christians are reading this and saying I mean, that's what. What a wealthy person wrong would do God of the universe adopted us unworthy people he he did for us, but we couldn't do for ourselves. Can you imagine the sense of I must be able I must be really important.

I must be lovable.

And that's what happened to them.

I think JR Packard is right.

Classic book knowing God, but he has a section on adoption and I love it. He says that at the end of this chapter 19.

He says it's a strange fact that the truth of adoption is been little regarded in Christian history apart from two 19th-century books now scarcely known. There's no evangelical writing on it.

Nor was there any writing on it before the time of the Reformation and has not been any more before or after. So I think this is something we haven't talked think this is something that down deep in your heart the deepest emotional needs.

The deepest relational needs.

This sense of belonging that supposed to come from God.

We have so emphasized come to Christ. Turn from your sin. It's a gift, it's all about grace. We have these stunted people that I think many or most are genuine believers living like orphans and trying to find love and acceptance in everywhere but where they already have.

So let me give you a little journey thanks to G.I. Packard. I took a section of his chapter and here's five things that are true of us right of us orphans have now been adopted number one when your adopted your love see how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God and such. We are literally the phrases see what manner of love and that phrase manner of love. Literally it is true, it's a general translation but it's basically how foreign sort of how different, how illogical that God would love us, makes no sense is the idea. The two greatest evidences of love in all the New Testament are first the cross while we were yet sinners Christ died in our place and second son ship and daughter ship. It's not just that he made us right with him.

It's that he wants to be intimately involved in her life. He's a father wants to take care of us when Jesus is teaching on the sermon on the mount. How we supposed to pray father what what what he was risen from the dead, wouldn't he say to Mary Mary, go tell my brothers he's our elder brother. Now go tell my brothers, my God and my father, and your God and your father when he talks about the spiritual life. He says when you give.

And when you pray when you're fast, do it secretly. So who you are there.

God want you know I'm your father and I love you perfectly. Like father your adopted you're really a part of my family. This is in theology. This is reality. The second thing is that there's hope the spirit Romans eight himself testifies with our spirit that were children of God and of children errors also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.

No words when you're a child of someone truly your father you're an air at my oldest boys I had the privilege of adopting when they were about 4 1/2 or five. I recently revise my whole estate plan.

I have four kids and any everything I have is is being passed on to all for my kids. My biological kids in my adopting his wife because after so many years. It never entered my mind. They're not mine, and God wants you to know you know hope hope is that the economy hope is it you know, if you meet someone someday hope this and if you go public hope is not about your kids getting to the score that school peers hope hope is that you're now a child of God.

If your child here in air and what you what you know is you get a resurrected body. You can go to heaven for sure. There can be a family reunion God to be with you for ever and ever. Hope is in the midst of your hardest times he may not snap his fingers and make everything go wonderful tomorrow he will go through with you because he's your father.

Some of you are really good dads. Some of you had really good dads and really good moms and you think back when you were a kid in the hardest times in your first breakup and the broken bone. And you didn't make the first payment all the rest, and your mom or your dad they loved you. God says that's me for you not out there someway somehow.

But now the third thing is true of us that are adopted there's intimacy real not receive the spirit of slavery leading into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, father's most intimate sensitive term Aramaic for poppet. This isn't this God that's far off that okay I guess I need to read about his future after day keeps the devil away and you know is is a very God's giving boy, that's a big one and I guess you go on a missions trip and you realize so much of today's evangelical Christianity is just transactional. What do I have to do to somehow earn or gain God's favor. If I do these things. Elyse according to TV preachers. He's has to do all these things for me at the end of the day it's really not about intimacy and love. It's really about getting what you want and using Jesus: idolatry, God says I want to give you the most intimate relationship. I want to love you I want you to know that you can share with me.

Everything and I'm involved and I want to bless you. Not if for because you do this or that I already am for you.

I already love you. I want you to open the Scriptures to say pump the house it going today and I need your help and to hear his voice through the word and hear his voice through God's people and you would be in love with God not simply trying to earn his favor or be a good person. My son when my older sons with her really big time of rebellion and not by God's grace.

He did a 180 members sitting in the car and tears streaming down my face that we just couldn't keep doing life and he was end of high school and said you got a couple days to decide whether you can keep living in her home or just the behavior and all the rest. If you're old enough to do whatever you want and maybe need to do that somewhere else and it was after three or four years of very painful times and just just crying. I would break our heart. But we love you.

I don't know what else to do and when is two-bedroom for couple days and think he reengaged with the God that he wondered whether existed or not. Went to the very genuine doubts that all of our teens and young people do came out later and did a 180 and begin to really walk with God, a member St. somewhat what happened. I don't get it. What the change was so dramatic.

And you know as a pastor in her thinking maybe I was on my servants the and in a moment of intimacy and tenderness.

He said you know dad, I doubted everything. I'm sure it was part of being a kid in a big church where people set all the stuff about you and feeling pressure, but I knew it was just outright rebellion that you know I just begins his for two days.

Think Jesus is so real to you patients so real to you and you know you got lots issues, most of which had been pointing out the last three or four years but you're no different at home than your church and he said you never made me feel like I needed to shape up so you would look better church. I see you and mom talk and praying in, I realize I'm not sure what I'm doubting, but he sure is real to you, and I ask you help me like never before.

We you be real to me. The reason were losing our youth.

By and large it is not simply what they're hearing in college and universities. Of course that's difficult, not simply just the culture of the cultures always been hard for you. I think what they need to see is the reality of the intimacy in your life and your love with your heavenly father that is not.

We brought you to church. We dropped you off the youth group. We put you in a good Christian school or whatever your plan is and somehow it's become moralism in their heart. Haven't seen a heart that beats for God, haven't seen you cry over your stand. They haven't dammit seen that what really matters is not success and not education and not how you appear why it's in our weakness in our brokenness, the God pours forth the Spirit. This adoption is transformational. Leads also to holiness, for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom receives it's for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as a sons for what son is there that he doesn't discipline and then he tells us why they disciplined us for a short time it seemed best to them, but God he disciplines us for a good so that we may share in his holiness.

We are so loved and so part of the family that anything we would do that would jeopardize us getting the best God actually rings consequences. Some of the hardest times you're going through. It's not. He's down on you. It's he loves you so much. He's trying to get your attention away from the idols and away from the media and away from all the different stuff that you're bombarded by because he wants to draw you near you do that with your kids and he's doing it with you and me and finally I love this is when you understand adoption. There is assurance not would you know that you know that you know the apostle Paul would say in Romans eight from convinced that neither death or life, their angels, or principalities, or things present, or things to come, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord and and here's what you get is that you are loved and you are wanted. That's who you are.

You are wanted. You can wanted and desired from other people, but you don't need it, and nothing can separate you from his love. You can declare that someone breaks up with you. You lose a job, your goals, your frustrations, all those things are going to go up and down many times over the decades God saying I want you and I'll be there for you and all the things that really matter. I will never let go of you. Now here's the question, how do you get that in that great 18 inch journey from your head into your hearts return to the back your notes and I'll show you these are the actual cards that my wife use. We wrote them on old 3 x 5 cards and they became so helpful that Living on the Edge printed them so the they would be prettier for people I suppose and thousands and thousands of people are doing what we did early in the morning.

First, the Prince was replaced the work mirrors in this police but the truth of God's word. Second, identify your lies you believe and write them on the side of a 3 x 5 card not you know you guys are high-tech, but you dudes I am a car guy.

Okay example for this one. I must be approved or accepted by certain people to be happy or another lie. I need other people's approval to make me happy. I'm telling you, you believe that with all your heart, you do stop and you're making decisions about your family, your life, your career, your relationships that are simply rooted in this live, you have to have their approval and I will tell you what that's that's the miss belief that I turn the card over I want people's approval of me, but I don't need it.

I'm as insecure as any and everyone in this room or whoever watches this wherever I want you all to like me, you, we all do, but I don't need with God's approval. I'm no longer compelled to earn love and acceptance. I'm free to be me and you know what read that over in the morning read that over in the night read that over in the morning read that over in the night because the core is this belonging so the next card is I'm wanted appreciated and loved by God.

Most important person in my life. I watch my wife go for three or four years with my daughter going through a series. These cars that she just read and she just read and she just read you know what I have a daughter that actually believes she's wanted appreciated and loved by God. The most important person in her life and made some very hard decisions under peer pressure because that got put into here. That made it down to hear. She knew that she belonged. And when you really belong to him and you have a passage it says that I will just tell you, you get free. Now here's the deal.

This is not like what I read this cards. Two weeks later everything is great. These are take 1° and you change it. I would encourage you to read this over to write those on cards and to sail due this morning and night, and if you were for 60 or 90 or hundred and 20 days, you will begin to incrementally begin to believe that you're a daughter of the living God in your you'll have desires that will change that you won't know like I don't have to read the Bible and I want to I don't have to pray so long.

It's just an invitation. I don't have to do this or do that. I have to respond this way and work. I don't have to make my kids happy every day, every moment because you will understand the long will be set free chips could be brought just a quick reminder this message, you are wanted from his series discover your true self. At some point in our lives. Most of us cut through all of the clutter to ask a very important question, where my in this series chip opens the book of Ephesians to explain that the answer to that question changes when you become a son or daughter of the most high God issues of worth and belonging take on a completely different meaning when we give our lives to his son Jesus, but we don't know that we tend to get bogged down in the doubts and struggles of our past. If you longer break free and truly live in the power of Christ. This series will help you do that you check out your resource options for discover your true self. Just go to LivingontheEdge.org or Special offers, discounts are available for a limited time. For more information just give us a call at triple late. 333-6003 will trip at the end of the teaching today. You were talking about how Teresa used the content of the series. I would cards with your daughter and how much it helped her with confidence and security. Is there way for someone to study with a young person nor sure with a friend when listening is the best option will Dave absolutely in fact this is a book that I wrote I've studied Ephesians for a lot of years and if you asked me one of the most important things you could ever learn in terms of being a follower of Christ.

I would say first and foremost, who is God.

Second, what does it really mean to be a disciple and probably third what is it mean to be in Christ. How does God see you in this book, discovering your true self is how to put the lives of your past behind you and see yourself the way God sees you. And so the teaching that people are hearing on the broadcast is really in book form.

I've got to tell you story this is so exciting.

It was a dad who has a daughter that he thinks the world of.

She's a good student.

She's very pretty little you know father bias but don't we all.

And she's very successful and yet she doesn't like herself and she feels like she never measures up and this is I mean this is a pandemic.

All of its own among young women in their late teens and early 20s, especially he gave her the book discover your true self. Well she started to dig in.

And then all he said was she devoured it and he said I have never seen such a change in my daughter and all my life.

It's just like something came over her and she actually learned she's loved, wanted valued and safe because of who she is in Christ and that she got so excited she shared with her boyfriend and another going through it together. I would encourage people, especially for readers. Those of you that have someone that you know put a book in their hands. This is the key, and maybe even read it with them and see if God won't help them see themselves the way he actually sees them perfect banks over those of you who know a book is the best option.

I hope you'll take advantage of the current discount on trips book discover your true self.

All the details are on our website LivingontheEdge.org Listeners just Special offers for more information you give us a call at triple late. 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003 as I close today's program with you and I shared those cards and I shared a bit of the journey of learning that I really belong to God and how that freed me from not having to please people, and I want you to hear. This is a journey, it didn't happen overnight but I want you also to understand that to be wanted to be valued so deeply ingrained and how God made you and you are human, and you want other people to approve of you and love you and we do all kind of things to get people to like us. We perform and how we look and what we wear, and all kinds of ways and yet they all fall short, and I have no idea where you're at today, except for what I know is in the depth of your heart.

You long to belong.

You long to have another human being. Look at you in the eyes and say you belong here. You are wanted, you are valued you matter and yet every human being will let you down because they're just like you and the just like me but I do want you to know that Jesus promises when he says I want you I love you. You matter to me. I want you to be with me now and I want you to be with me forever. It's a promise and that'll never change, and as you listen to these programs I don't. There's so many people that grow probably very similar to me that being a Christian was a lot about the moral person in trying to be nice and even going to church and and reading the Bible a bit here and there but never really realize the depth and the intimacy and that it's a relationship and as you're listening to my voice right now God is saying to many of you I want you not perform for me not be a good person. It's I want you I want to forgive you and I want to bring you into my family so the I can experience life with you now and life with you forever if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. No matter your background matter what you've done. I want to tell you right now at this moment he's inviting you come to me just right now where ever you are, whatever you're doing just pause and stop and turn to him and say Lord Jesus, I need you, I believe you died in my place. I believe you rose from the dead. I want to belong. Please come into my life right now I'm putting my trust in you and then let me encourage you, as you pray. That just from your heart, text or call the greatest Christian you know let them know what you just did and then go to our website and we have some free information to help you grow in your new relationship in Christ. God bless you and welcome to the family. If you prayed with Chip. I hope you'll take a minute and call us at AAA 333-6003. We love to talk with you and get a free resource in your hands that will help you understand what you just did and where to go from here if you'd rather go to the new believers tab on our website LivingontheEdge.org or Special offers on the app we'll find that same resource. We just want to help you get started on your new journey of faith what's been great to be together for Chip and everyone here is this is Dave really saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge