I Choose Hope - Experiencing Hope, Part 1

Are you in need of hope today has life beat you down. Does God feel far away very very low will stay with me help some. Thanks for joining us for this Tuesday edition of Living on the Edge Chip Ingram, Living on the Edge features the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram on this daily discipleship program today. Chip continues a series I choose just before we get started, let me encourage you to take a second download Chip's message. These three notes contain chips, billing outline and will help you follow along as you listen. Just go to LivingontheEdge.org and click listen now you have your Bible. Handy open it now to Philippians chapter 3 let's join Chip for his message experiencing hope.

I was thinking about a story that I heard that is a true story is one of those you can't read the paper and it goes on the AP wire because it was so odd and then ends up in Reader's Digest true story of a woman in Florida lived in a in a trailer park and hers is sort of the really beat up in a not so good trailer and just everything about her life and practice just barely making it, in a very, very, very elderly woman and eventually she died and they found her in her trailer and you know they went through all the right processes and found there was a distant relative or something and they came in from out of town and found out at least all, she had a deposit box and so they went to the deposit box at the bank open the deposit box had hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and yet it was like you know she's barely making it, you know walking to the little store and and I thought about that. In other words, I'm sure in her mind something a little bit warped was you know if I'm saving this for a rainy day like I might live to be hundred and 50 coming you know you can ask. So when you think that rainy day, so she had everything she already needed. She had hope for today. She had on the of money for as long as anyone has ever lived. And yet it's one thing to possess something, it's something else to eat appropriate and use it and I got thinking about my own life in in years and thinking you know, I possess all the hope that I need. I know that I have been sealed by God spirit by his grace I have absolute certainty that Christ is coming back have the absolute certainty he's prepared a place for me and for all genuine followers of Christ. I know that every promise is true, he said is going to provide for me can protect me in the midst of all the world. Anything I need anyone I need to get through anything I have that hope, but I don't always appropriated II live at times and I see lots of Christian limit times as though their hopeless, but this relationship went south of the job situation or health situation or one of your kids or you know how long Megan be single or how long do I have to stay married and you know all those gun issues and someone to talk to you about, not just the fact of finding hope. But how do you experience hope is the mental and emotional attitude that life is good but the future is promising and that progress is absolutely certain even in the midst of challenging circumstances and difficult people you wake up in the morning and most parts of the day as you relating to people as you think about work in your responsibilities. There is this blowing up inside that you don't like the targets good.

The future is uncertain, but it's promising because God is in control.

I just saying I don't. I'm not going to trust in any sweetest frame. No other person, God is going to come through. I just don't know how and progress is absolutely certain he made this promise.

He who began a good work in the is going to complete until the day comes back regardless of the difficulty and the challenges that everybody has difficulties. Everybody has challenges, but I have a whole have an anchor to my life.

That's what were talking about and hope three things. One, wherever we put our hope will determine what we worship anywhere but where my hope is if I think it's work it's going to come through. I think it's this person is to come through. I think famous going to come through whatever I put my hope. I will ship second is false hope always ends in pride or despair when I put my hope in something or someone that doesn't have the ability to come through either I get a bit arrogant when I make some success or its despair because life and work week, we found that false hope is almost always focused on external things.

True hope was always about internal things. False hope is what I can accomplish.

True hope is about what's already been accomplished by Christ or me.

And third, we learned that true hope is rooted in relationship and it results in joy and endurance. I think joy is way underrated CS Lewis said joy is a serious business of heaven.

Jesus, on the very last night after they had gone through everything and he's in this vineyard and is talking about a deep connection with him by abiding in him, and the kind of rich relationship. Regardless, he's already told him it's gonna be tough and he says these things are written to you that my joy might be in you. The joy of Christ, and that your joy might be for literally overflowing to real hope produces a joy when external circumstances are going no way.

So here's what I want to ask this okay.

A lot of what I'm gonna say for many of you. They've been around for a while like you know these things.

Okay, the issue isn't do you know them. The issue is, are you experiencing and so I'm gonna ask it to do a little something. This is very private.

Don't write anything down but I want to ask you what relationship or what circumstance just right now just where you're seated today doesn't have to be a huge big thing but it feels hopeless. I'm just in your life just feels hopeless might be just an area of your marriage. It feels hopeless, might be something at work in a supervisor or frustration or project, but might be one your kids that you tried tried tried tried out. I don't know what it is but what I want you get your arms around were going to talk about how the spirit of God was to take the truth of God's word and help you not know about hope and experience it. One of the best ways is to start with where do I feel little hopeless if you got it done done done done done done done done done lead indigos get on the data okay you need to get that in your mind and I'm not saying it's true, but it's how you feel and your feelings influence how you respond. The big question I want to ask and answer with you today is this how do we experience true hope in everyday life.

Monday morning Saturday night Tuesday in the midst of a meeting Thursday when a project not going well. Friday one your kids sick Howdy experience hope in everyday life.

The answer is Philippians chapter 3 verses 1011 and is an important context if if I would read what I'm going to read to you and if I knew historically like Paul, this hater of the church. This persecutor this murder. The super religious guy totally out of touch with God just came to Christ and he'd been a Christian like six months and was all fired up. I would read this one way but what I'm going to write read to you is the apostle Paul former Saul 30 years after his conversion.

This is what he says after he's been beat up more than a few times where he's been left in the ocean. He's been left once for dead already in his life. This is the guy that was the rising Star of Judaism. So he's a Roman citizen city of Tarsus. He has wealth, reputation, education from the Stanford, MIT elephant schools.

He has got it all and this is how he's doing life together now 30 years later. Here's the passion it's pumping through this guy spiritual veins. He says what's more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing value of what knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. We underline that this is his hope, prestige, the power of the wealth and influence. All of that, I consider a loss now in comparison to a deep personal, intimate relationship with Christ, for whose sake I lost all things and theirs are. Here's our accounting term. I consider them garbage are literally done that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes to the law, but that which is through faith in Christ circle faith in Christ. Memo to people who like to skip ahead faith is going to be the key to moving from hope that actually possess hope that I experience. It's the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith that hears verses nine and 10, where he now just coming zooms in about as consuming passion and the source of his hope. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. I want you to understand exactly what he means. And I don't talk about what it really means to us what he's saying is I don't want to intellectual knowledge about God.

I do want facts. I do want data I want a deep personal, intimate relationship with God the father through the person of Christ. In fact, the Hebrew word when it when it's translated, and in this passage of the keeper was translating this he would use the word young and the word young was when God is speaking about Adam and Eve and it says Adam yet.Eve she gave birth to a son, he takes the most intimate moment in the relationship between a man and a woman.

The culmination of communication with spirit, mind and body, and he says I want to have the kind of intimacy with the living God, that a man and a woman who are unashamed and come together physically. He says that's the damn that's the level and then grammatically basically, it would be.

I want to know Christ, namely noun to give you three phrases that identify how you experience this kind of intimacy. First, namely the power of his resurrection is not talking about some day, some way after he's resurrected with Christ is talking about the operational power the supernatural power in daily life. Life changing power over guilt, life-changing power over addictions like changing power over the way he used to think life changing power to forgive the people and receive God's forgiveness and to experience the very living Christ inside of him.

He says that's how I want to know and I want to know them so that every day is different than any other day because the living Christ lives in me.

The same power that rose him from the dead dwells in me. I want to experience that second. I also want to know him intimately through something that most of us don't want and we would never welcome but it's a reality in the fellowship of his suffering. The word coin anyway of a coin in the class a means to participate in to associate with to share oneness communion is this idea of a a connection with someone that as you're going through something there with you there with you all the way and the ups and the downs and the struggles and what you know the people that your closest to all the world are the people that you have been through some huge, difficult, painful thing and you supported each other on the journey that he's saying in my life. If the suffering comes from without the comes from persecution. If it even comes from within.

I want to experience the very presence and the comfort and the enabling of Christ in the midst of that.

And third, he uses this word, becoming like him in his death, morphing you at the word morphing means and means to change intrinsically from the inside out what he saying is I want an intermittent deep relationship. I don't want to know about God. I want to experience him and I want to experience him with a level of power and energy and impact that transforms me and I see things happen that have no human explanation and I want to experience him in the and the lowest in the heart of most painful things of life so that I am actually morphed or transformed from the inside out how into the likeness of his death is to belittle what we mean by that will what was the likeness of his death. Jesus came to the point.

Father, I do nothing unless you say he comes to the very end of his life and he prays Lord of theirs a different way. Rather than going to the cross. Let's go with that plan. Nevertheless, not my will but yours. Paul's praying. I want to be so transformed in an intimate relationship with Jesus that when my Gethsemane's come and I have to make a crossroads decision about I so want to do it this way Christ will want to cheat just a little Christ so want to. I will say, not my will but yours be done because he would come to the point where he be so change that you actually believe that it could kind, loving, all-powerful sovereign God that would be for his best regardless of the front and cost. And so, somehow hear the somehow is not. He's not doubting weathers can be resurrected.

So, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from a circle around from and write the little word out of the little Greek preposition he saying I know that all people of all time can be resurrected. The good or the righteous and the unrighteous will be resurrected.

He said out of that general resurrection. He says I want I want to be reminded whether you come back or whether I die because member he thinks is going to get executed or might be is out of that resurrection to the final end. My faith in knowing you return to the site and would be forever.

That's what he's teaching.

I want to come to flesh out how do we experience this intimate relationship with Jesus in everyday life for you and me and I'm going to suggest that Paul has said this is what I want. Namely, that there's three things that we must know and progressively underlined progressively. This is an overnight.

This is like go this morning early, I was in my study, reviewing everything in.

I was reading a song that talks about your descendents and then walking in righteousness and three. My grandkids really really just that they just came to my mind and I just it was like to go out of town tomorrow. I just have to see them. So I got up and ran doughnuts and grandfathering is a big plus. So I went to the little doughnut shop and and you know I drove over to my daughter's house and knocked on the door and came in and I had a little bag for them to go back to them and coffee for my daughter and her husband and just just 1520. That's but it was this, I just I just want to be with them.

I just want to experience life with them and I long for them to experience what God has for them. And so it's but but when I was there. Might my little one grandson.

He just learned to walk about two and half weeks ago we went from, you know like as he can make it. And I mean it was like you know he did give me this I know he knows doughnut already and all you health, food, people, i.e. very healthy. Normally when your grandparent, you get to do the stuff my daughter can feed him healthy stuff all the time I'm bribing them sort of. Here's what I want you to get as you listen, I ask you to plant in the back of your mind where you feel hopeless. I want you to begin now to take that thought as I walk through how can you progressively experience the power of his resurrection.

How can you progressively in the midst of this experience him in your suffering and how can in the process, you can come to even before we walk out of this room a sense of morphing and changing that even if you can't see it. By the way, hope you can never see it's a certainty of things unseen that you would say Lord, not my will but your will, because I'm going to trust in what I can't see you your power, your love for me. So with that, he says what's the power of his resurrection, how exactly do you experience that what the apostle Paul did in verses 10 and 11 is he gave you the overarching kind of big issues of how to have an intimate personal relationship with God through Jesus, but his teaching through all the epistles is just filled with explaining these phrases. So what I thought I would do it each time. I'm going to give you his theology of resurrection power and then a given his experience that I give you his theology of suffering and that is experience because as you see both those things.

Guess what you can do you go I got it. It's his power in our weakness the way the apostle Paul is going to teach us that we experience the resurrected power is out of our weakness. Romans eight verse 11 says, but if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in other words, the same power that raised Christ from the dead. When you turn from your sin asked Christ to forgive you come into your life. The same power the same spirit lives inside so you should expect supernatural things to happen and then what is going to say is, but the way the supernatural things happen is a recognition that what you need is his strength. We need his power in the midst of your weakness. Most of us start our mental human fleshly bent is that I'm going to make it by what I do and this is what I can accomplish he's going to say the flip with God is it's when you come in humility and in that you can't the 12 steppers have a lot to teach us on that one, Bill Wilson, by the way, with the believer. Anybody know what the first step is. I'm absolutely powerless.

I can't do this I can overcome this addiction will guess what you can overcome forgiving someone either you can overcome your fear of failure you can overcome your family.

Family of origin you can overcome your fear about the economy you can overcome what can happen your kids. You can write can you really do look apostle Paul is he has this difficult situation.

Three times he prays God says no no no and then in second printing chapter 12. Notice what he says God you have said no to me when I've asked you to remove this difficulty, this tribulation some physical issue. Therefore, I'm well content with weakness with insults with distresses with persecutions, with difficulty, did you notice they're all plural for Christ.

Why when I am weak, then I am strong with some additional thoughts about his teaching today, but if you're just joining us your listing to living on the judge with Chip Ingram chips message today is from a series I choose hope how to phrase your future with confidence. If you long to choose. Hope this is a series you may want to listen to from time to time because none of us Masters this kind of maturity after just one hearing it's a lifelong pursuit in order to make it easier for you to get the series for yourself or someone you love. We've temporarily discovered the CDs and right now the MP3s are absolutely free to order just give us a call at 1-888-333-6003 or visit us online at http://livingontheedge.org which are but a lot of people probably think of Living on the Edge is just a broadcast ministry. But you and the team of been presented with some amazing opportunities. Could you give us a picture what God is doing beyond broadcasting. Yes, thanks Dave, I'd love to. In fact, what he's done and probably the last 6 to 8 years is something that I mean if you would have given me a million years to dream that we would begin to develop small-group material and have 25 different small-group resources to launch 400,000 small groups in the US, then we would help pastors across America and then God opened the door in the last few years to go to China been there five times in the last 22 months into CS legally teach God's word and see a response in a country where the doors are closing so rapidly to be in the Middle East in and take the real God. In Romans 12 true spirituality and take these core discipleship materials and have it broadcast nine times over satellites and books translated. But what I can tell you is, is that God is choosing to use us beyond what we ever thought, and much of that is been because I believe we are committed to the Scriptures, regardless what happens in the culture. We believe in the Bible.

We believe in the God of the Bible.

We believe that the great commission is the mandate from the living God that he's an all-knowing, all-powerful, loving God, that once his truth and his salvation and discipleship to go across the world and we have literally just followed the breadcrumbs of his Holy Spirit's leading. And so thank you for those of you that have partnered with us in prayer and finances. We're stepping out like never before. Here in America. In our broadcast in China in the Middle East. And right now there's never a better time to give because every dollar that you give during this season up to July 7 will be doubled. So Dave yeah it's been an amazing amazing journey. We give God 100% of the credit and we are committed to stepping forward like never before. Thanks to all of you that join us at this time could be a better time to give. So thank you for whatever God leads you to do. Thanks to what you'd like to partner with Living on the Edge, we'd love to have you join us to send a gift and have it doubled. Just give us a call at 1-888-333-6003 or you can donate online by going to LivingontheEdge.org. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated will now here's chip as we close today's program leaned back where you what relationship, what circumstance what's going on in your life that's nagging at you, or literally makes you feel hopeless I mean were setting. Philippians chapter 3 and I'm gonna be honest with you, the apostle Paul's perspective is pretty revolutionary heat. He counts all the success all this education. All this career. These achieved as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus is Lord and I'm going to just tell you right off the bat that doesn't come naturally to me and I'm guessing it doesn't come naturally to you, but this is what he says. He says hope is rooted in the person of Christ. And it's interesting to me that the first step to get there is to recognize there's power in our weakness. You know for some of us we've tried really really hard to be good Christians right you know read the Bible, pray good church give go on a missions trip for others. You know we've been taught that there's some miraculous emotional experience and we can have bad and everything's going to be perfect, but the reality is we live with this world of tension and struggle and it's a journey in the apostle Paul says that what he learned is that in his weakness when the got to the point where it's not just hard not just difficult but when he got to where it was impossible. That's in his desperate dependency said God I can't do it. Are you ready for this. That's when God meet you. That's when you'll experience his power. Do I understand it, of course not. Is it true absolutely. So what I want you to know is that stop fighting the difficulty in the challenges. What if you just said okay God, I'm I'm putting up the white flag, I surrender. I recognize I can't make this marriage work. I can't make my relationship with you work. I can't be this perfect person that I will be your son.

I will be your daughter and now I'm asking you today fill me afresh with your spirit. Help me to depend on you to walk in step with your spirit as you open his word. He'll speak to you as you talk honestly from your heart, who whisper to your soul as you get connected with other believers. He'll encourage you through them and you will encourage them as well. If you've been blessed by the ministry of Living on the Edge and would like to bless others. There's never been a better time because thanks to some very generous friends of the ministry.

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Just give us a call at 1-888-333-6003 or visit us@livingontheedge.org and click the donate button on our homepage on behalf of Chip and all of us here. Thank you in advance for your generosity will until tomorrow. This is Dave Drewry saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge