This broadcaster has 1366 podcast archives available on-demand.
Keep up-to-date with this broadcaster on social media and their website.
April 1, 2021 6:00 am
When life comes apart when the dream dies when relationships are broken hatting put it back together.
Simply stated, you have to die for me say that again if you want real life hope it never fades in a deep abiding peace. You gotta die.
Sounds crazy doesn't it will stay with me for the next 20 minutes to discover God's amazing counterintuitive plan of life. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with your finger tips are Bible teacher of this international discipleship program. Christians live like Christian. As we headed to this Easter weekend chip shares a talk that sure to spark some thoughtful consideration, maybe even cause you to question what you've always believed about God, Jesus and the significance of these points of the leave you hanging help you find answers so chip will be with us here in studio elaborating on the teaching you're about to hear.
I hope you'll stay with us for that. If you get though you'll find it online that LivingontheEdge.org or on the chip and remap any time.
Caleb storage of metaphors message. You gotta die the counterintuitive path to life, hope and peace will as most of you know, Easter is kind of the high day. The pinnacle of the Christianity. The message that you've heard you song. It's about life, hope is about peace. And if there's ever a time out and about in your personal life and in the world that we need life and hope and peace. I would say it's about now I'm mean it's easy to come to get focused and on your your world and my world and my email and you know my little kind of relationships, but the world is a is a messed up place right now.
We were living in prehistoric days. I mean, did you ever ever dreamed that there would be a group of people. A small group, a minority who would think that you they get an a from the God that they worship by killing people they never met. That's the world were currently living in. And we had to get our heads out of the sand to realize if there is a message that's real about life and hope and peace. The world needs now, but it can't just be some religious little experience. It's gotta make sense. The flipside of that is sometimes you don't even have to watch CNN or Fox or the network news to see what's happening in the world I have to do is, look in your own home. I don't know a lot of you very well, but if you not go get a cup of coffee somewhere and say you know tell me how you really doing and I promise not to tell anyone.
Just what's really one of the biggest hurts in your life in last 9 to 12 months. I will guarantee you I would hear about the divorce or separation. You recently went through the baby that you lost or someone who found out that your wife or husband is having an affair. Wonder how many people here, you'd say, well, honestly, I'm told anybody that have an addiction in a mother's prescription drugs or whether it's porn or cocaine. I mean, I can just tell you all know that's not it is my aging parents.
No no no no no it's much I lost my job before close to my home or business when under that's the world that were living in, and here's what I want to do in our time together. Is this really important. I grew up in experience for people had what I called God talk talk of hope in life than peace but it was like spiritual religious mumbo-jumbo over here and I would go back into the real world and and I never saw the correlation and it didn't seem to make sense in their life and someone to talk today about how do you really find life and hope and peace in a world that's really messed up. There was a a man many years ago named Frank and Frank had everything that we would think would bring life and hope and peace. He lived a carefree life. He inherited a great amount of wealth. His house would be nestled up into the hills. You have a couple luxury cars as kids had high SAT scores. I mean his life would just be amazingly wonderful by all our standards and he lived that highlife, but he found there was an emptiness about what really brings life and what's really gives purpose and so he did something crazy.
He heard the words and the teachings of an itinerant preacher that had lived roughly 1200 years before he was born a man named Jesus and is he read the words he thought this is so radical that I've got money I've got well I got it all and I'm empty inside. So I'm going to take this person and he follows these words of Christ in a very literal way and left everything and he found a small little band of people who would say, will you leave everything with me. Why don't we try this out as an experiment. Let's radically love people. Let's not worry about material stuff let's just go after it and they did that was almost a thousand years ago and that his little group is still going on and they live by Amato's a prayer that he wrote I think his name was Frank when he started off later when he got to be more famous people started calling him Francis and his prayer in his model of how to live for life and hope and peace was Lord, make me an instrument of your peace and where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon where there is doubt, faith where there is despair, hope, and where there is sadness, joy. All divine master grant that I may not so much. Listen to the counterintuitive grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that we receive that's counterintuitive is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. The Franciscans almost a thousand years later are doing what helping the poor, living out his prayer. You may not agree with all they're doing, but I will tell you what they have experienced a life that's impacted millions upon millions upon millions of people in the things that money can't buy. As I read that I thought to myself where to get those crazy ideas. Now I know we got them from Jesus. But how does it really work secular scholars say that the apostle Paul was probably the greatest mind. The first century. He was from Tarsus was a nice town. He was a Roman citizen which was a big deal. He had wealth in his life would make an cents and he tried so hard so hard so hard so hard to be good and then he encountered the living Christ, and he realized that he had to die. He needed to stop trying. Stop working, stop attempting something to prove pose any met the living Christ in the midst of a world. Here's what you can understand sometimes we think it's really really bad now got a study church history. I majored in history in college you want to study what what Rome was like and what was like to grow up there. Got a study and look at that, the culture, what the Greeks taught and there was gods on every corner and there was an immorality that makes our triple X porn look mild.
The poor had unbelievable injustice, greed and power ruled people got crushed, women had nothing and in the midst of all that this brilliant intellect said I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not, but Christ lives inside of me, and now this life that I live day by day in this physical body I live by faith in the son of God who gave himself for me and what he was saying was listen that word.
I'm crucified with Christ. He said I had to die. I had to die to my agenda.
My selfishness my greed my demands. I had to die and Francis picked that up and he put it in that prayer that he prayed and that prayer that he lived the gateway to the deepest relationships peace that won't go away and hope that you can have when you find out someone you love has cancer or when you find out someone you love has hooked up with someone else begins with the death because when there is no death can't be resurrection in one sentence. The apostle Paul said of his letter to the Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 says this is how it works. The here's what I want to do. I want to step back and ask how's that really play out in soaking. Ask very basic questions. Question number one, it will get here.
How did the world get this messed up. There is chaos out there and there's chaos and here I want to tell you is the world this world that we live in now is not the world God created the world that God created the eternal creator of all that is who spoke the world into existence created an absolutely perfect world and he created human beings that he placed in a perfect world the ecosystem was perfect weather was perfect, no hurricanes, no soon armies. There was no death there is no pain. There was no sorrow. There is no conflict, there was no wars, there was God and the human beings that he made in perfect fellowship. But God in this perfect world, he made wanted to have a very real relationship with us and there is a price for freedom.
See, you can make robots and have them bow down to you or say words to you, but robots don't have the freedom to say yes or no. There programmed God wanted people would have a real authentic relationship with him because they had to be able to do what free moral agents can say yes to him or say no to him and so what we find is the great price of freedom was that we meant mankind to God.
I don't want you, I'm going to do my own thing. I think I know what's best for me. The world into the God created revolved around him and his son. Then there was this coup this rebellion in each one of us trying get the world to revolve around us. It's me and it's mine anymore and got half as devastating consequences.
The theologians call it the fall or when sin entered the world and the impact was a separate us from God.
It separates us from each other and it separates us even from ourselves. You cannot imagine how many people deeply, deeply, do not like themselves because they see who they are and who they pose, and pretend to be in. And the Scripture says that even the globe. The actual earth. The fall impacted it groans. It's like the crew happen in the entire planet got this cancer.
This deteriorating disease as others earthquakes and their tsunamis, and nothing will be made right until the Savior came want to come back as a judge and make everything right, but that's how we got here and so there was there was a need.
There's a tremendous need.
If God cares what you can do about this. See if God made the world the way as it is. He's not a very good God is not a good God is not a kind God. He's a cruel God, but the world that you live in is messed up.
God didn't mess it up. We did, but he cares and so the question number two is where is God in the chaos not just in the suffering, it's happening places around the world. Where is God in your chaos in the relationship.
It isn't going well and the anger and the bitterness and the people and talked about you and all the junk where is God in the chaos. Here's the message of Easter get this down. Easter is about a divine intervention. Anybody here know what intervention is.
Anybody had a friend or relative. I have with either a crack addict, a sex addict and alcoholic, the prescription drug or cocaine.
I think why have I been involved in intervention when my mother did it with my dad with us kids you what interventions are interventions are. People are living in destructive ways that are killing them and ruining everything and everyone around them and we watch the devastation. We watch the pain and and someone gets the courage to say I'm not playing in the system any longer to get all the friends you get all the family and usually find a pros done this before, you need to know what you're doing and you all create this place and then usually have to trick him to get him there and he walks in and goes all what's going on and they say we love you and you have a big problem and whether it's your alcoholism, or whether it your drug addiction or whether it's your logging on habit we care so much. We refuse to play the game were intervening. Now and we want you know there is hope.
And there's a path that you can take but we won't support this any longer. And I'll never forget the day my mom did that with our family after my dad was an alcoholic for about 25 years and she said you can have this bottle. You can have me and the kids.
You can't have both. You 24 hours to figure it out.
That was before we had all the technical stuff that we have now in counseling. My dad is a Marine is a smart Marine 24 hours later that I choose you now. I wish you would got some counseling got some help at say what radical change in his life came to Christ after that. But you know what Easter is God looking down from heaven, the father the son and the Holy Spirit, of seeing all people of all times simultaneously in all of our needs and seeing the chaos and the destruction both personally and globally in the sun saying all go. Let's do an intervention. Let's help them see that they are messed up and they are selfish and I need to die and receive life so they can be resurrected is so Jesus came and he did the intervention to rescue us his life mission, he said was I came to seek and to save those which were lost as of the first thing he offered was life as were on death patterns for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever underline the word believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life circle the word have have present tense. The moment you believe in the very next verse was probably as life-changing for me as the first one.
For God did not send his son into the world to judge the world, but he sent his son to save us. God's not down on you. God's not down on me. He's not this angry God's arms are crossed with a big club with a lot of rules just waiting for you to mess up the bag over your head or knock you on the knuckles is his invitation is not get religious get more moral try harder. Pull up your bootstraps. That's not at it's an intervention where you say how you're living your life doesn't work. It's bringing death to you and death to others. I want to give you life. There is a gift and will learn as he went to the cross and he died on the cross for you. He intervened and said what you can't do for yourself. I'm going to do and he literally paid. That's what the word redemption means he paid for your sin and paid for mine and then he rose from the grave and says luck free gift, but he says not just life him and give you hope the very last night. He looked into his disciples eyes and he could see the fear in their eyes, and they seen him feed the poor and raise people from the dead and they knew he was the Messiah but was like, how is this going to work as you keep talking about your checking out and he said do not let your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me.
In my father's house are many dwelling places and if it were not so, I would not have told you, and then listen carefully for I go and prepare a place for you if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will receive you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. You get.
It's my relationship not about morality when the relationship is right. Morality always changes.
But he says you need help. You need hope in your marriage is falling apart. You need hope. When you find out someone you love has cancer. You need hope when your parents are totally messed up.
You need hope when your biggest dreams were to get to that school and you didn't get in. You need hope we laced all your life on the athletic career than bullets ACL nobody wants you. You need hope when life doesn't work because what this can accommodate in the research is in 100% of the population at some point in time dies, Stroop so you know when you need help. You need hope that there is someone whose personal and real and who is the God of the universe who made you who is preparing a place and once you with him. Once you with him as he loves you and then knowing that in a fallen world.
You need peace I mean you get anxious when you don't have enough money get anxious when you know what used to have a house you have a house you get anxious when you don't have a job you get anxious in you. What he says don't let your heart be troubled, and then goes on to say, look, I want to give you peace in the world you will have tribulation, but be courageous. I want you to know I've overcome the world. And the peace that I have. I'm in control. Hey, it's awful at times it's difficult at times. I'm in control of the big tsunamis and the little tsunamis. I'm sovereignly in control of all that there is and I will take even all the evil and all the people in all the bad stuff and for those who turn from their sin and say I want a relationship with you. I will do an intervention and will do life together and I want to.
That's the message of Easter listening to part chips talk you got a guy the counterintuitive path of life and peace is good to be back in a minute with a great application quickly though, if you know someone who would be encouraged by the message you just heard the chipping roadmap is a great way to share your favorite talks.
You know the significance of Easter is oftentimes lost in the commercial obscurity of new clothes, baskets and bunnies and special treats. But the reality of Jesus resurrection confounds those distractions. If you really did rise from the dead.
We have sobering reasons to grapple with the implications for us personally and for those we love to hear this message again. Just go to LivingontheEdge.org. Listen online or download the MP3 which is always free for additional help for more information just give us a call at 8883336003 that's AAA 333-6003 chip we have a brand-new resource designed to help people get into scripture and process the kinds of things you shared in your teaching. It's a journal, but I think the idea of journaling means different things to different people. So what's your approach to journaling Dave.
It's interesting that you would say that because I think this is something we need to clear up about journaling or not journaling my wife uses her journal completely different than me okay and so her journal is primarily writing down specific prayer request. It's very brief and it's very focused.
Mine is there's lots of words there is. This is what I'm thinking this is what I'm feeling. Here's five concerns that have come to my mind that I'm distracted by night right.
Each of those down and turn it to a prayer list.
My point is this. Journals are a tool, it doesn't make you spiritual to write in the journal they need to be a unique tool to help you connect with God.
So it's it's used in a way, by way of our personality and what God is doing in our life but what I do know whether you write a little or a lot whether it's more of just a prayer journal or whether it's a life journal is there's something to be said for using a tool that is tracking your journey with Christ and I believe that that is really the role of the journal so if even for those who've never kept a journal.
I would encourage you give it a try and don't feel like you have to write every single day but begin a rhythm or a track record. Maybe it's true three times a week or you do it when you're compelled or becomes your prayer journal, but were just encouraging people.
We want you to be connected to God and you just can't say little prayer and read a little something fast and expect to have a deep, powerful, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ our hearts desire is to help you to be connected deeply with the living God, and we believe this journal could be one small part of that journey for you.
Really helpful. Thanks. Trip will it's easy to be excited about our new prayer journal chips given you a few of his journaling tips inside the cover.
And while there are a few scriptures" here and there. There's plenty of room for you to write out passages or prayers, or just whatever's on your heart. Between you and God become a couple of different colors with embossed gold or silver trimmings and the whole thing is beautifully finished and bound for a limited time. These new prayer journals are discounted so we hope you'll check them out today.
You'll find all the details of LivingontheEdge.org helpless nurse just Special offers for more information. Give us a call at AAA 83336003 that's AAA 333-6003 as we wrap up today. First I want to invite you to join me for the rest of this message. In our next program. I mean, this is really really important were in the middle of this message and there's so much hope that God has for you and I don't want you to miss it. But just for today I want to ask you that question I asked in the teaching where is God in your chaos.
He's closer to you than you could ever imagine. But he's a prayer away.
He's a leaning in a way he is a I really need your help Lord away. God wants to help you this is that time of year words. It's so easy.
Depending on your background, the oats Easter and we kinda go through the motions and you know you go to a service here or there and oh yeah you know Jesus hung on the cross he died, he rose the third day and there's five or six songs you like and that's not what it's about. That's the story, but it's about hope it's about hope for you. It's about hope and the things that you struggle with hope for your fears, your family, your singleness, your divorce that you're going through your heart ache your lack of work because of all that's happened your financial pressure. Hope that you need to have because some people that you love died in the last year. This is a message for Jesus want you to know it's not Lily's. It's not dressing up, it's me. It's what he said to Martha Martha, do you believe I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies he will live. There is hope for today and there's hope for ever and you once you know I want to give you peace. He doesn't promise he's going away the little blonde in all your problems go away.
Everything's going to be wonderful.
But what he promises is that I'll be with you what he promised was I prepared a place for you what he promised is that my spirit will dwell inside if you if you will turn from your sin asked me to forgive you and I will come into your life and I will take you out of the kingdom of darkness, and I will place you in the kingdom of light and you will become born from above or born again child of God. If you are already a child of God, then just in your heart of hearts he Lord, I need you and then get into his word and if you're not a child of God or don't know for sure how this day on this moment, cry out, Lord, I need you, I fall short.
I know I've done things wrong but I believe today you died in my place on the cross. I believe today you rose from the dead to prove it's true and you promised. If I believe in my heart and I confess with my mouth that you would save me, deliver me share that with your heavenly father at this moment, and he will forgive you and he will give you a spiritual birth right now in your life and his promise is eternal life, beginning now forever and ever.
And if you have just prayed that with me. Make sure to contact us at Living on the Edge.
We have a resource that's helpful, and is free and make sure you call or text the greatest Christian you know and say hey I don't have it all figured out, but I prayed to receive Christ and I need help and I know Gotto meet you. Great to be with you today. If you prayed with Chip. I hope you'll take a minute and call us at AAA 83336003. We love to hear your story and get a free resource in your hands that'll help you understand the significance of your decision and then give you a couple of next steps on your journey that same resources available if you tap special offers only up or go to the new believers tab on our website LivingontheEdge.org. We just want help you get started and say welcome to the family will be sure to join us again next time. When she brings us part of his message. You got a guy until then for everyone here.
This is the saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge