Doing Good - Doing Good - Where it All Begins, Part 2

Let's face it we all admire people who do good for others. When you see stories about little children saving up money to help a cancer patient coming there something in your heart is so awesome. We all know that doing good changes the but did you know you doing good can really change your today. Thanks for listening to this edition of living all the Scripture Living on the Edges of international discipleship Bible teaching just a minute will continue our series doing the second half of chips message on where our drive to good our noble intentions to but a quick reminder before we get started support catch-up through the chipping government way to listen to Living on the Edge anytime. Okay, let's join Chip now for part two of his talk as he continues answering the question, is the idea to do good come from what you see is a Christianity across America and parts of all over the world where most Christians don't live like Christians and those of us that never open the Bible. Growing up, and those of us that didn't know anything about God when you meet lots of Christians to say one thing and live a different way.

Here's what we do, not for me. There's a lot on the line.

There's a lot at stake.

So let's walk through how do you become who first of all the qualifications for a leader of the people to do good.

First and foremost it's character and the word is blameless, blameless, the word blameless means above reproach. It says it just means having a good reputation. When your name comes up on the screen of people's mind, both inside or outside of the church as a church leader or as a person, for the greatest Christian someone ever knows your above reproach, but can't say oh yeah, he says, is a Christian that my lands the way he treats people well yeah she says she's a Christian but man she's a ruthless supervisor you know they say they're a Christian but my land I can. I can hear them screaming at their kids across the later house doesn't mean you're perfect. It means give a good reputation and the rest of this passage. What can it do it's easy to describe what blameless looks like in different areas and so he goes for the jugular because you can fake it out there so he goes right to the home at the home. He says blameless.

Looks like being devoted and discipling being devoted in your marriage and discipling. Notice the text. He says the husband but of one wife, literally the Greek says a one woman husband and for some of us we read that. What's that mean he's not talking about your history, the average Roman man, especially an affluent Roman man had three women in his life woman number one was a slave girl who helped around the house and was available for sex at any time. Woman number two was a temple prostitute that is a man will go to work and worship at the various temples part of the temple worship. In that time was temple prostitutes either giving glory for God and having sex outside the temple prostitute woman number three was a wife who bore children carried on the family name and women lives. What this is reality. This is why life is in that world see Jesus liberated women. Jesus said a woman matters. He says you want to be a leader in the church you need to be a one woman man, and that your wife and in our day, he would say you need to be a one woman man. That means your mind and your heart doesn't float, not just in your behavior. Jesus said when a man less in his heart for another woman. He commits adultery with her already so severe a one woman man with eyes for your woman not on the Internet, not other places not being flirtatious. He says that's how you blameless at home. Second, he says you need to be a engaged parent knows he says of his children believe literally that there faithful, the word for children is it's from smaller children probably up into maybe the middle teen years and basically says that you know your children. They're not cookie cutters. They don't have it all together. They don't ever not mess up, but there learn discipline.

There's a sense of propriety. There's order of the respectful. Basically what he says it's it if you're not investing your kids in loving your kids and discipling your kids. Not that they're perfect, but they're following you. If you can't lead your home, you can't leave the church as a first and foremost, a blameless leader or a blameless Christian. If who we are is a prerequisite for what we do starts in her home noticing moves from the home and he moves from there to our relationships and relationally he says you need to be emotionally mature when you look at the next four phrases. It's not not not not afford things are not to do and when you dig a little bit behind what you realizes what is really look at his someone in their relationships who have emotional maturity, and so the first one he says is that you're not addicted to power literally.

He says you're not self will you're not over bearing the word means to be selfish, arrogant, disregarding the interest or opinions of others. This is people that are intolerant. These are people that when you talk to me right they glaze over there. Look, it's my way or the highway, and by the way, it's my way says that's that's emotional immaturity that's insecurity that's being threatened. You can't be overbearing need to listen to people need to be gentle would be the opposite of that. Second, you can't be addicted to anger. He says he can't be quick tempered and this is a very interesting word in Greek. There's two words for anger one has the idea of something happens and you blow up like a flame and others like a smoldering coal that you hang on to in any sense when something is always crises in anger is an emotion.

It's neither bad nor good, but we have anger. He says it needs to be controlled, but this isn't the quick blowup anger. He said that's pretty obvious. This is the kind of anger that gets down in people's sole ever been around people that something to sort and negative. I mean the most wonderful thing the coming negative sarcastic you know matter what's happening to have a little sarcastic barbs not only negative and sarcastic but there was critical doesn't measure up doesn't measure up down behind that is an angry person through your angry God, or angry at himself or angry with others in says that's not emotional maturity is not healthy.

It's not how leaders in the church doing good doesn't flow out of anger. The third, emotionally mature response. It's not dependent on substances. He says literally. It's not given to much wine. The literal phrasing is not sitting long over, why, and that was the kind of drug of choice in that day in the Bible's very very clear I mean Jesus when they took the Lord's supper, used wind, the Bible does not teach abstinence from alcohol the Bible teaches, drunkenness is wrong, but the core behind this is any substance that controls you in OT in our day. He could say prescription drugs he could say the Internet he could say TV he could say food, but this issue of alcohol, both then and now is it's it's it's a big one and you know you have some people that have freedom to drink moderately and wisely and and other people.

We were in South America and we were actually took the Lord's supper in one of the leaders from our church was there and his background is alcoholism is coming out. Alcoholism and he said when I drink alcohol.

I'm alive, never heard this, he said I'm allergic to it better to have a response to alcohol, like few other people. It makes my mind do certain things takes me into places and behaviors that are destructive, I can't. I must abstain and so all of us need understand you need to be wise about whether you be a leader not how you view and how to use alcohol as a becomes a wisdom issue.

What we know from the research is that if there's alcoholism in your family like in my or like in my wife's you are four times more likely to be an alcoholic and then you have this this teaching of Scripture where you know it's not about my rights and I can do whatever I want pulses. The kingdom of God are loving people isn't not eating or drinking, it's about love and joy in the power of the Holy Spirit and and so different.

People come to different conclusions.

And so for some like me I have any alcohol in her home. I mean I spend as little kid I was porn out bottles of liquor and beer when my dad would get up to go to the bathroom. I have an addictive personality. I can't. I can't do certain things for other people. I know they said you know I don't have any problem with that at a business meeting or at the dinner. I may have a glass of wine but we don't have it in her home for other people. They say this is this is a part of our history and our culture and we never had a problem and we may have a glass of wine at home, but do not get educate my children. You need to understand that you need to figure out it's it's easy to have rules never, never, never, or all all all God says I am not to cause anyone to stumble on to be very sober.

No pun intended. About my ability to handle this because it's dangerous and then I want to do things in a way that are wise with regard to my family and those around me exercise my freedom before God, but exercise it in a way where it communicates loved other people's faces as a leader. He says being addicted to any substance is disqualification mean how many people have you known or I've known that they claim the name of Christ, but some addiction to some substance just makes you go, what I just went when people are addicted to things. By the way it usually has very little to do with the alcohol right.

There's a reason to put emotional maturity, whether people take pills or go to the refrigerator and eat too much about unresolved issues in their heart about filling gaps and holes in God says I want you to be leading from a healthy soul.

The final one is not not violent and not pursuing dishonest gain and so it's not leading with coercion, but the phrase here not buying it literally means don't strike a person physically it came to me and even broader sort of like verbal intimidation, loud, angry, like coercing people. If there's a an old, old book written in the early centuries, Colby apostolic Commons and in it, it gives a word it says if a bishop strikes a person an effort to sort of redirect a fellow believer's life. He should be dismissed from his role will the only reason you put rules like that in apostolic Commons is because apparently was happening and I've actually been in African places where in the name of church discipline. I have literally seen someone on the floor and in an leaders kicking someone trying to deal with demonic spirits or behavior. Whatever bizarre but God says you can't coerce people you lead from love and gentleness. There may be boundaries and discipline and then the other way you coerce people by dishonest gain matter about you but when I watch TV, sometimes on the I can't stay there very long, but to me they manipulate people and try to get people's behavior in this dishonest gain comes up twice to give her watch TV him and get sometimes you just like amazement I really hearing this and some guy comes on I want you to know if you are intact. Send all your bills to me. Bring all your bills and put them in the mail and I will burn them on the stage and God will make them go away. I'm thinking like are you not stupid or to the people who send their bills to you crazy or the other one that I just got I just want to scream at the TV.

If you're struggling. If you if you have debt. If you have difficulty, you need to plant a seed send me $1000, and God will send you 10,000 but one of the hardest things for us as followers of Christ. A lot of people that you work with their view of Christianity is those handful of channels up near the top and they shake their head and they laugh out loud. We make a difference. We live differently. We live above reproach.

We live it out in our families, we have emotional maturity.

Notice he goes on from emotional maturity to a ministry mindset is not enough about not doing certain things are having certain maturity. There's an outward focus here. He says be hospitable and it's one who loves what is good, hospitable, literally means a lover of strangers, a lover of strangers that has the idea of a concern for others built into it is generosity.

It's seeing needs and meeting the needs and upwards. They think of the word, shows hospitality.

Can anyone think of like a word that we might've got from this give give you just a minute here hospitable.

What what we do hospital hurting sick, injured people go to a hospital where skilled, loving, caring people feel them.

That's what we do.

Being a Christian lives like a Christian is about some little moral code inside my little bubble. It's about caring and flowing out of that relationship literally devoted to kindness. The word devoted here and good has to do with being devoted to not just what's good for people, but for good things. It's very similar to what Paul said when he talks to believers in such minor things that are that are good that are noble to write their wins and their beautiful daughter, praiseworthy coming. Set your mind on that which is beautiful and new creation in sunsets and in love and intimacy and Karen and when you fill your mind with those kind of things your soul then you have this reaction. Positive it's not you making a list am going to try and be good and in turn because it's the Christ in you, allowing your eyes to see the way he sees and he sees needs and is not only seeing and loving what is good. The opposite of loving what is good is not loving what is bad about a year ago I was in another city and I was invited over to a leaders home and Christian leaders home and could have dinner and had a flexible family room and decide really really like movies are so great you know. Had you like the TV with all that you like 15,000 speakers exaggerating of course that is really nice and I thought this is really neat.

And so he went up to get ready or something like that and he had one of the stands are two or three of them, but swirled it had like two or 300 movies not in knowing but you not nosy what would you start looking at the movies and their good good good good good hidden level. It was good. He loved was violent. He put things in his mind that I'm sure was entertaining and probably he was on just disengaging on the seat your product in your thought life and we we need to love.

There's something that happens in your soul that produces this ease, and makes you want to eat things or make much you want to take the third or fourth glass of wine when you have disease when you know these things are true, but you puts these kind of things in your mind you can understand something evil isn't neutral evil comes an angel like e.g. evil is allure and and and somehow we think if I'm not doing bad things. My question is are you a lover of good, because when you're a lover of good, and you focus on what is good. I will tell you good will come out of your life and if you're a lover of bad privately or secretly. I will tell you people come out of your mouth and out of your thoughts about relationships try things are bad because as a man or woman thinks in your heart so you become the final aspect that he talks about here is he talks about not just her mindset that her private world and our motives and or methods in our private world. He gives us for very specific words, talking about what no one else sees. He says, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined in your private world integrity. All those things have to do with not just honesty but integrity means an integration. There is an alignment of what people see is what they get.

Who you are alone before God, who you are alone, and from it from a screen who you are when you're out of town who you are with one of your kids, there's an alignment of the self with others and with God. And so he gives us these four very clear words. The first of self-controlled means to be a master of your mind and your emotions very key word in the New Testament has the idea that you're not driven by your passions there under control, but in the next word upright. We get our word righteousness for means. It means to be fair needs to be right it means to do what's right.

The word holy means reverence for God has a new personal piety. It the opposite of being conformed to the world is to be separate from the world to be set apart.

It's not is not holy like and weird like you gotta put a fish on your card and appraisal Lord here in the big black Bible and act weird that's not holy that's weird really is having loving when some godlike thoughts. Holy is fearing what God thinks more than what anybody else thinks. And so you live according to the Scriptures and holy. The roots of it, or bring wholeness or in Hebrew the shalom of God is not just emotional peace. It's the peace and the well-being of a life well lived of relationships in place of living with open and sincere conscience, and to be free is what is talking about in his private.

It's who you really are in the final word here is that discipline is the inner strength to control it's a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 it just it's just it's the discipline that when you don't feel like getting up that discipline allows you to get up and you don't always feel like praying you don't always feel it coming to church and always would like reading the Bible and is not trying to gain God's favor, but it is choosing to do what you know will position you to allow God to work in through your life and then finally he says all those things are very, very important, but he then contrasted with the bad leaders if you will. And he talks about motives and methods. The bad leaders were rebellious. The opposite of the submissive their mere talkers and they were deceivers and they were for dishonest gain and so he says the motives and the methods need to be pure and teachable but courageous doing good flows out of being courageous. I think if we could hear sort of the mind and the spirit of pauses writing this letter to a very young man into a very godless culture and and look at verses 10 through 16, glance because this is who these guys are that they they claim to know God taken people down. Bad pass. Look at some of the words he says silence them be rebuke them be able to stand and teach sound doctrine. Encourage them and so part of being who the good workflow out of his being above reproach and that starts in your home, it means there's emotional maturity and issues that probably all the struggle with one or two or maybe more of those that it has to do with sort of the mindset we have that's outwardly focused. It means that there's an inner world of of control in spirit led not a legalism, but but control in a spirit led of doing the right thing at the right time in the right way with integrity and the motive isn't to impress people in the motive isn't to get rich and it's a humility in a teachability and encourage that when everyone in the officer everyone at the jobsite and everything is flowing this way and God is looking for a Christian to live like a Christian and step up lovingly, kindly without malice and without their voice raised without defending to step up and say you know I'm not really so sure that that is good and I really respect you all we know for a couple thousand years the track record on that particular issue because this direction and and you not done a little reading and the consequences of those kind of behaviors in those situations. This is what it does to women. This is what it does and creates poverty. This is what it does and hurts kids so you not. I know it's not politically correct but I just would say to you because I know you all want to be tolerant. I think there's another opinion that we consider and when people meet Christians like that doing good by your words by your thoughts and by your deeds, the poor get fed, the destitute get rescued but orphan gets loved the single mom with a single dad gets encourage and your workplaces can transform.

That's why doing good matters, but it begins not with what you do begins with who you are, live like Christians, the Bible teaches that were saved by God's grace by your faith in.

So where does that leave doing good works and why does it matter how we interact with one another through chips teaching in the book of Titus will learn how our decision to do good for another person is more than just a simple gesture. It's an opportunity to impact their life.

Don't miss the easy ways you can practice doing good every day and that we can dramatically change our world for the better. For more information about our resources for this series go to LivingontheEdge.org or call AAA 333-6003 or go to the tripping roadmap will chips in studio with me now can ship through this series with the learning just how important it is for Christians to really live like Christians in one of the best ways we can learn with that truly means is through deep, meaningful connections with other believers. Now take a minute and talk about how you've experienced that I'd be glad today when I look back on the moments in the investments of people throughout my life. My sister punky who model Jesus to me as a young teenager you know Dave, the bricklayer who sat with me in his kitchen table and invested his life in me as a young adult, or Decca, a man who came to me and said hey Chip, we need to put this teaching that of yours on the air and he started Living on the Edge wherever we are in our journey were never beyond the need for discipleship might come through a listening ear and Encouraging Word over a couple coffee or it might be one of those side-by-side doing Bible study together, but it's always born in the relationship and it's deliberate. It's an investment into the life of another person Living on the Edge were committed to making that investment in helping people grow deeper in the relationship with Christ.

And so, whether it's teaching on the radio or podcasts or ab or tools such as daily discipleship. Our resources are geared to help people in every season of life. And here's my question. If God has used the ministry of Living on the Edge to guide her deep in your life or the life of someone that you love would you be willing to pray about investing in a few ways.

Number one would you pass on what you know to someone else. Second, would you share ministry resources with others.

We have all kind of free ministry resources on the web it on the chip anger map and third would you pray about giving financially to the ministry so that we can continue to make disciples at a time when it's more needed than ever before.

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Thanks to some very generous friends of the ministry to send a gift or to become a monthly partner. Just give us a call at AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003, or if you prefer to donate online, go to LivingontheEdge.org hapless nurse. Just Donate. Thank you in advance for your support. Will Chip. Let's get to that application. You promised. As we close today's program I want to emphasize something that you might've missed it was the major major point and then after it you know we got all those very specific, you know qualifications of what a good person is from God's perspective and here's the point when seeking to do good if it doesn't flow from who you are, it will lock you into some level of legalism and a performance orientation, where what you do and how you do it and how much of the you do will become a new baseline for you earning righteousness with God or thinking that you do. That's a dead-end street, what you need to hear. This is the part that we've missed who you are. It's the Christ living in you. It's the Holy Spirit. Taking the word of God in the context of genuine community where life is birthed in you and the overflow of that life is kindness and goodness and gentleness and generosity and concern. Yes it begins with the choice in your will is definitely involved, but please don't fall into the trap of now I've got to do all these things for God to love me now with that being said here some characteristics of from from God's perspective, what good is because all of us as human beings we get into such denial. We honestly think were pretty good, because what I do is I find some people that are not quite as good as me and I compare myself with them and I think you have murdered anybody lately and I don't have any major addictions. Only a few minor ones right you know we can we play this game so I'd like it if you would to listen quietly. I just just lean back that's possible and I'm to give a quick review of what God says real goodness is in his eyes.

First, it's a person whose character is blameless. It's a person at home that is devoted and discipline to caring for their family.

Relationally there's an emotional maturity where they're not addicted to power, anger or substances or powering up with people with regard to to ministry at someone who is a lover of strangers and and devoted to being kind in your private world, it means there's integrity and there's alignment with what you say and what you think and how you live in. With regard to your motives in your methods. There's purity, there's a teachability and there's a courage and so I don't know where you're at in your life, but it would do you much good to go to the website LivingontheEdge.org go to the message notes download this and everything that I've outlined here is there and then quietly say Lord is there an area there that you would like to address in my heart and my life. And then, by the way, Lord, would you like me to put some checkmarks on those notes where you have been working in the and there's real progress that I need to give you thanks for doing good must flow from being good and that flows from relationship, not performance. God loves you. He cares about you enjoy him deeply today. Thanks, Chip. Well, you can find the message notes trip just mentioned in a couple places go to LivingontheEdge.org and click the broadcasts tab hapless nurse will find them by tapping fill in notes, you will get his outline all of the Scripture references. Lots of fillings to help you remember what your learning they really help you get the most out of every program so I hope you'll take advantage of this resource.

The next time you listen well for Chip and the entire team. This is Dave Gurley saying thanks for listening. this Edition of Living on the Edge