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Teach Them to Make Wise Choices, Part 1
December 17, 2025 · 42 min
When your kids are faced with a big decision, do they know how to evaluate their options? Helping your children make wise choices can save them, and you, years of heartache and pain.
Series Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever December 17, 2025 · 42 min · Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever
When your kids are faced with a big decision, do they know how to evaluate their options? Helping your children make wise choices can save them, and you, years of heartache and pain. ...more Show the full description Show less When your kids are faced with a big decision, do they know how to evaluate their options? Helping your children make wise choices can save them, and you, years of heartache and pain.
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Chip Ingram is an American Christian pastor, author, and teacher. He is the founder, teaching pastor and CEO of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry.
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In this video 0:00 The Power of Choices and Leaving a Wise Legacy6:07 Understanding Holiness: God's Standard for Wholeness28:20 Embracing Holiness: Transformation and Practical LegacyComments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
The Power of Choices and Leaving a Wise Legacy 0:01 Today on living on the edge0:03 with Chip Ingram. Are you facing a big decision? Maybe a big decision about money, maybe about work or career, or more importantly, maybe a very big decision about a0:15 relationship. How do you make wise choices? That's today.0:22 We're living in upside down times where our culture brazenly calls evil good and godly behavior evil. This moral chaos is rooted in faulty thinking that's been absorbed0:33 drop by drop, screen by screen, choice by choice. Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram continues his teaching series called leaving a legacy that lasts forever. In this study, he'll explain0:45 why exposing the cultural chaos is the greatest legacy we might leave our offspring. And then just after Chip's message, we'll explain how you can leverage your year end giving through the match that's0:57 active right now. Until December 30 first, every dollar given to support Living on the Edge is automatically matched and therefore doubled in size and impact because of this match.1:09 More later, but right now, the message from Chip Ingram.1:12 We make our choices, and then our choices make us. Some of our good choices have resulted in a happy marriage, a great job, and deep personal satisfaction.1:25 Some of our poor choices have resulted in destroying a marriage, losing a job, and suffering shame and reproach. Few things will
1:37 determine the quality and the fulfillment of your life more than the choices you make, for better or for worse. I've heard
1:49 someone say that when it you boil it all down, you will probably make a half a dozen very major important choices about God, about future, about
2:01 relationships, and about how to deal with some difficult things in your life that will determine all of your life. You just basically play out the rest. In fact, let me let me give you some time with
2:12 yourself. I'd like you to think as fast as you can about the 2 best choices you've ever made. 2 choices that you say, some of the richest, deepest blessing. When I look at my
2:24 life from where I am now backwards, I think about, I made a couple choices. These were good choices. And and some of you think back to a window of time, and you chose to make a decision that was kind of
2:36 counterculture. And you ended up in a world and in a job that you were made for, and you look back, I can't believe I got to do that. Right? So just I just want you to mentally think about what are maybe the
2:48 top 2 or 3 choices you've made. But and some of you just need to remember, you have made some good choices. Okay. Now, I wanna go to the other side. Just what's 1 choice
3:00 that you've made that if you could take this 1 back, you'd take it back? 1 choice you made in the past that you just thought, oh my. I mean, that was dumb. In fact, that was worse than dumb. That was biblically unwise.
3:12 In fact, that that choice cost me a lot. And it could be a choice that cost you a lot of money, it could be a choice that cost you a relationship, it could be a choice that in a just quick moment of time, and
3:24 it was like, it's, you know, it it promised a lot of pleasure, but it really delivered a lot of pain. Can you think of any? Now here's here's why I want you to get your emotions around that instead of just your head and
3:35 your heart. In like manner, there are few gifts that you will give to those that are coming behind you. Okay? This
3:46 whole series is about passing on the things that matter most. And when you think about that person you're wanting to help grow spiritually, or that child of yours, or that grandchild,
3:58 or someone in church, or someone who's looking to you, and you wanna pass on what matters most, few things could be a greater gift than you giving them the
4:10 skill and the ability to make wise choices. In fact, I'd go out on the limb and say, to give people wealth without wisdom is to
4:22 sentence them to a life of folly and failure in their future. And yet, I mean, the research is in. Almost all followers of Christ have
4:33 spent much more time thinking very carefully about how to transfer their wealth to their kids and grandkids than they have their wisdom. And so, you know,
4:45 it's not too late, but I mean, if if it's if you take time to make an estate plan and to make a will, to think about how important it is to give them your stuff, What you wanna do is translate your soul.
4:57 What are your values? Teach them how to make great, great decisions. Great decisions about God. Great decisions about relationships. Great decisions about money. Great
5:09 decisions about how to respond to adversity. Great decisions about how to resolve conflict. Make wise, wise decisions about opportunities that seem too good to be true, because they are.
5:22 Wise, wise decisions about how to discover who God made them to be. Wise decisions about, if their parents, how to parent well. Wise decisions about how to take care of their body. You
5:34 know, the 1 of the greatest gifts you could ever impart to those that you care about the most is the skill and the knowledge and the ability to make excellent, wise decisions.
5:45 And so our transferable concept is teach them to make wise choices. And what I like to do now is say, I believe there's a place to start. And
5:57 if I was gonna just open the bible in the middle here and it opened to Proverbs like it did, let me read 1 verse sort of as a launching point. It's not in your notes. Here's the wisest man in the
Understanding Holiness: God's Standard for Wholeness
6:09 world. Past, present, future. And he says, verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
6:21 Only fools despise wisdom and discipline. The fear of the Lord. And the fear of the Lord is reverential awe for sure. The fear of the Lord is a emotional,
6:33 he is awesome and powerful and all knowing and pure, and you are actually afraid. You're afraid not to do life his way. The fear of the Lord, both positively and
6:45 negatively, part out of admiration and part out of just actual fear, is to say to God, I want to do life your way because you have designed it in a
6:57 way for my good. And by the way, you're God, whether it's for my good or not, you are God and you created me, and you say these things. And I am afraid to do anything other than what the
7:08 1 who created me and deserves to have rightfully. Anything he wants, he can have. He made me. And so the fear of the Lord and what I would like to suggest is if we're gonna learn to make wise decisions, we
7:20 need to walk through a theology of holiness. And I've, you know, summarized, I didn't put all the verses there, but I've kinda summarized the theology of holiness. Now when you hear this word, please
7:32 do not go to black robes, lit candles, prune face people chanting in the dark, or people who don't wear makeup ever, or don't play cards. Okay?
7:45 I'm not talking about external holiness. Write next to this in your notes, a theology of holiness, put a dash, and write the word wholeness, w h o l e n e s s. The root
7:57 word of holiness comes from wholeness. It comes from health. The prerequisite for the universe that a perfect holy God has made is for it to
8:09 be whole and to be healthy, it must be holy. And the fall is like cancer. And it's like eating away at the environment, at the world, at the structure that God created.
8:21 And so his holiness is his standard that provides health. When we live a holy life, when we follow God's holiness, it not only is what he expects because of who
8:33 he is, but it's also his way of helping us get health in our relationships with him and with others, and what makes us whole and complete. And you know, they didn't know all the scientific
8:45 stuff that we know. And when he gave multiple commands and it looked like just ceremonial holiness, and they didn't know about bacteria and they're washing their hands all the time. They didn't know that the platelets
8:54 clot at, what is it? The, when you circumcise a child. Purdue did a study that, you know, the platelets clot the most on that very day. But all these standards and all
9:06 these laws that God gave his people to be this holy nation were for their health and for their good, and so they would reflect him. And so what does it mean? What is holiness? Let's walk through it. First, God is
9:18 high and holy, and the idea of holy means he's totally other. He's not a a bigger, better category. He's completely different. We
9:30 are creation, and he is creator. When we look at this our little Milky Way with a couple billion stars, and then try to imagine behind it, maybe 200000000000 other
9:42 galaxies, we are speaking of 1 who spoke a word and it came into existence. He is a God that when people ever get even near his presence, they fall on their face. He's a God who's
9:53 unapproachable light. He is absolute purity, absolute holiness. He's the source of all life, and so he's other.
10:06 He's not, you know, the old man with the beard who, you know, nods at his children, and he's not a divine Santa Claus, or he's not a cosmic vending machine. He is holy. God is absolute
10:18 truth. John 14 6, Jesus came, he said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No 1 comes to the father except by me. God is
10:30 truth. God's word defines absolute truth. Mike John 17 17, the last prayer of Jesus, sanctify them
10:41 by your truth. Your word is truth. And sanctify, that's our same root word for holiness. Set them apart is the idea. Something special, not something regular. Theology of
10:53 holiness includes, God's law or morals is for our protection. When God lays out these commands, these guardrails, this this is not from
11:05 a a prudish God that is against sex or someone that has all these rules to frustrate us and anything that we like to do. You know, he comes up with a command to say, don't do that. They're for our protection.
11:17 They're for our boundaries. Imagine, if you will okay. This is a little word picture. For me, sometimes these things are abstract. I have this picture and because I struggled with all of this a lot. And I I didn't grow
11:28 up as a Christian. I never read the Bible growing up. And and all I knew was when even when I was a young Christian, if I like to do it, I could find a command that said it, I'm not supposed to. And I I spent probably
11:39 the first 5 years of my Christian life with, I'm on this side and God's on this side, and there's this big fence. And and all the time he was telling me, Ingram, you can't do that? You can't do that? I thought it was
11:50 against me. And I had a warped view of God. And what I came to understand is actually he's on the same side with me, and this fence or this barrier of some laws that he gives me are that
12:02 he's all wise and all knowing and loving and he cares about me. And I begin to see those as guardrails. And so here's the word picture that I came up to that really helped me want to obey is imagine, if you will, this
12:13 little chalet at the top of a mountain, and there's this windy, windy, windy road to get up to it. But when you get up to it, I mean, the refrigerator is stocked. There's a workout room. The the view the
12:25 view is absolutely glorious. All your closest friends are there, and they can stay forever and ever and ever. I mean, it is life at its very best. And that's the trail, this quote abundant life that God has for
12:37 us. But you need to go on this trail, and it's windy and it's dangerous. And so all along the trail, you know, you get near the edge and there's like 1000 foot drop off, so he puts these guardrails. And the guardrails
12:48 are his laws and his decrees so that when you bump into him, you realize, 0, 0, 0, 0, don't don't do that, or you could go over the edge. But if you stay inside those guardrails of his moral decrees and
13:00 laws, he wants you to get to that chalet. He wants to enjoy you. He wants you to have the very best. He cares about you. You're the object of affection. So they're they're for you. And so, I mean,
13:12 especially in those college years, and those post college years, I mean, I didn't grow up as a Christian, and I learned for 18 years how to relate to girls. And then I become a Christian right before I leave for college,
13:22 and there's 4 girls for every guy. I mean, ugly guys were getting good girls where I went to school. I mean, you didn't even have to try, you can't get a girlfriend. And, you know, this is the early seventies, so, I
13:32 mean, everybody's sleeping with everybody. I mean, I remember, you know, the co ed dorm thing was starting to come in, and I'd walk out of the bathroom, and the girls went, woah. You know? I mean, just this is wild. And
13:41 and now I got this new Bible, and God telling me, now you need to be sexually pure. And I'm thinking, boy, you must be very powerful. You think that can happen?
13:53 And I made a commitment to be. But it was always like, you know, god, I'm missing out. God, I'm missing out. And then, and I've done a lot of research in this area. And I've learned, you know, the most
14:05 sexually fulfilled people in all the planet are highly religious, monogamously married people that have no other partners, that believe in God and that he created marriage, and,
14:18 they have 31 percent how they measure this, don't ask me, but they have 31 percent better sex than all the rest of people. So I'm I I dare not ask how that happens. You know?
14:30 Those people who live together prior to marriage have a 50 percent higher divorce rate. They have about a 75 percent more likelihood of adultery.
14:43 Sexually transmitted diseases can lie dormant for over 10 years before they pop up to let you know that what you did on a fling back then can come back and visit you, or you can
14:55 pass it on to your partner or other people. Now, God knows all that. And so when God says the marriage bed is holy, and when he says don't have sex outside of marriage, I mean, I didn't even get to the
15:07 spiritual implications. I didn't get to any of the issues emotionally. I didn't get to the baggage in the back of your mind when you're making love with your wife, and the pictures of the past can come up, or vice versa.
15:19 And so all I'm saying is, when God says things like, don't have sex before marriage, this isn't a prudish God that doesn't understand that we have hormones. This is an all wise, all loving God
15:31 going, you don't want that second rate stuff with all the baggage emotionally, physically. Right? I got chalet sex for you. Okay? I want you to be completely committed,
15:43 without guilt, free of shame. You'll still have your struggles. But you know what? When he has a command about money, you ought to give here, save here, and do it this way, same reasoning. When he has a command about
15:55 telling the truth and speaking the truth in love rather than gossiping, every 1 of his moral commands, because he's holy, is for your health. And when you can ever get your arms around, His commands are
16:07 for my good. That's why read Psalm 1 19. David, despite his struggles and his failures, his commands are my delight. I rise in the middle of the night. I I like someone, you know, waiting for the
16:19 dawn. I love his word. Why? Because he got it. They weren't prohibitions. They were the pathway. They were the guardrails to get the highest and the
16:30 best. That's what holiness is about. It's about wholeness and it's about health, and reflects God's character. God's ultimate aim is to make us holy. You know, we quote Romans 8
16:42 28 quickly when life's bad. Right? For we know that God works all things together for the good, you know, the car wreck and, you know, the down economy and the struggle with 1 of our kids and the tension in our marriage
16:53 and circumstances. He works it all for the good. And we quote 28. Well, verse 29 is the purpose behind how he takes every situation, every person, every circumstance, every difficulty that you'll ever face.
17:05 And what? Verse 29 says that in order that he might conform us to the image of his son. The game plan is to make you like Jesus. That's what holiness really is, Christlikeness.
17:19 In Ephesians chapter 4, we get the picture of what the church is all about. And in verse 11 through 13, we're told why God gives leaders in the church. He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists,
17:31 some as pastors and teachers. Why? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. And then why is the body of Christ supposed to be built up? Until we all attain to
17:41 the unity of the faith, of the standard of the measure of the fullness of Christ. Maturity. Paul said, my goal in life is to present every man perfect. It's it's the same word, teleos,
17:53 or mature. Do you know what that is? That's called being holy. That's called being Christ like. That's his aim for you. Now a byproduct is, as you walk that way, you'll have great joy.
18:05 But happiness has to do with circumstance. Joy is the byproduct of relationships. And you know what? Your happiness can go up with the stock market, and it can go down with the
18:17 stock market. Up with your in love, down with your heart broken. God's aim is to make us holy and to reflect his son. It's a winsome, pure, not
18:29 weird, religious out there. You people are where are you coming from? Holiness. It is a holiness that is loving and winsome and pure and approachable and Christ
18:40 like. When you're holy, you're like Jesus, And that's God's agenda. The Old Testament roots are we get Exodus chapter 3 verses 5 and 6. Moses sees the
18:52 bush. God says, don't come any closer. Take off your sandals. For the place where you're standing is, remember? Holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of
19:04 Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. We've lost a generation of people that are afraid to look at God. We're casual with God. We think God's gonna
19:16 wink at stuff. I've got a lot of friends in churches all around the country, and as we kinda compare notes, I will tell you the average single person in the average evangelical church, and I'm
19:27 just gonna throw a statistics out, it's probably higher than this, but the average single person in evangelical churches is sleeping around about 80 percent of the time. And people just look you in the
19:39 eye and say, well, I, you know, I don't think God really expects that anymore. I mean, like 8 out of 10 commandments, that's pretty good. Like, isn't that like an 80 on a test? Yeah. And and we've it's we we
19:51 have really lost the sense of the awesome holiness and purity of God. Here we have a situation with Moses. God says, take off your why? Nothing
20:03 artificial, man. Wherever I am, it is holy. You find John meets Jesus. Right? Revelation chapter 1. Bam, he's on his face. Joshua meets the
20:15 angel of the Lord. You know, we we've lost the sense of God's transcendence. He is not our buddy. He is approachable. He's imminent. He's loving. He's kind. But he's unapproachable
20:27 light and purity and holiness.
20:32 We'll hear more from Chip Ingram's message in just a moment. First, we're inviting you to multiply your year end donation through an exciting match that's active right now. Because of the match, your donation will be
20:43 matched dollar for dollar in the month of December.
20:46 And when you support this match, you're not funding yesterday's methods. You're investing in a discipleship strategy that actually reaches the smartphone generation right where they
20:57 are. Will you give to the next generation?
21:00 Double the impact of your gift at living on the edge dot org. From a series called leaving a legacy that lasts forever. Again, our bible teacher, Chip Ingram.
21:12 Isaiah caught it in Isaiah chapter 6. Listen to the verse. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. What was he like? High and exalted, and the train of his
21:24 robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, these special angels, each with 6 wings. 2 they covered their faces and with 2 they covered their feet and with 2 they were flying. And they were calling out to 1 another,
21:35 holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. This is the only time you ever find God addressed as 3 different things. In Hebrew,
21:47 they don't have, I can't remember what you call them in English. Like we say very good or best or better. They don't have that in Hebrew. The way the way you make a stronger statement is holy, or you go holy, holy,
21:59 or if you wanna make it holy, holy, holy, it's a majestic, exponential.
22:05 It's
22:07 and that's what the angels are doing then, and according to the book of Revelation, that's what they're doing now. And there's gonna day come where they're gonna keep doing it, and we're gonna get in on it. But that's
22:17 who God is. And these are perfect angelic beings that are of the higher ups. I don't understand all cherubs and serifs and who knows how all that works, but I'll tell you what, they are in the very presence of God
22:28 night and day. Later, we find out they have eyes all over them, and there's all this wisdom, and they're innocent and they're pure, and yet in the presence of God, they hide their face and they cover their
22:40 feet and they declare who he is. I will tell you, you get a glimpse of who God really is. It changes everything. You know, we everyone throws
22:52 around that, you know, it's not about us. It's not about us. It's not about us. It's not about being in control. It's not about making your little life work out or my little life work out and our plans
23:04 work out and what other people think. When you see God for who he is, it's just like all that stuff goes away. And then at the sound of their voices, the text goes on the doorpost and the thresholds
23:16 they shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. And this is what happens when you see God afresh. Woe is me, I cried, I'm ruined. This is a prophet. This is the statesman of the
23:27 day. This is a man who heard from God. This is a guy that his righteousness, I'm sure compared to most of ours, his is here and we're here. But he sees God, I'm ruined. For I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a
23:39 people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty. And then we get this powerful picture of the seraph who flies with the coal, takes it from the altar, touches his lips,
23:51 and you have this process that I think needs to happen. The old word for it is repentance and renewal. But it's this process where we get into the scriptures and in community and in worship, where we again get a glimpse
24:03 of who God really is, which leads to an accurate view of ourselves, which leads to a realignment of our agenda with his. And that process is over and over and over in scripture, and that has
24:15 to happen with us. And it's painful. Sitting quietly before God, worshiping God for who He is versus just asking and telling and whining and complaining, we
24:26 can do all that. But we need to come before God and worship Him for who He is, and remember who he is, and then ask him to, by
24:38 his searching light, pray the prayer that David prayed. Search me, oh God, into my heart. Test me. Examine me. See if there's anything in me. And you know what? Then sit quietly.
24:51 And unless you're living on a different planet than I am, he'll show you stuff. And for some of you that are very mature and walk with the lord far longer than me, it probably won't be, you know, outward external stuff.
25:03 It'll be that little self righteous attitude. It'll be that little judgmental, you know, thing of how you think about so and so. It'll be about issues like motive, when everyone looks to you, and yet what
25:14 you know is you play into the crowd just a little bit too much. You're liking the praise of men just a little too much. You become a little bit of a people pleaser a little too much. You've allowed your faith and how you
25:25 live to be sort of a a little badge. And, you know, it's you're human. And you just need to get the fiery flame of the holiness of God to purge you and me
25:37 purge me and allow him to do that. And then we we recognize with a new level how unworthy we are. And guess what that does? The work of Jesus then becomes very precious. Because you
25:49 realize without him, you you're in big trouble. And so the cross takes on new meaning. The biblical profiles are Moses and Stephen. I like the Hebrews
26:00 passage where it says Moses chose to be mistreated for a time, then live in a pagan culture, and enjoy the pleasures of Egypt. There's a price tag to be holy. And
26:12 Stephen, you have this you know, when they chose Stephen, remember Acts chapter 6? Choose from you men who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And the very first name is Stephen. He's a holy
26:24 man. He's filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And then chapter 7, what do we have? We have Stephen making this defense, and they they bring these trumped up charges. And as he's looking up, God gives him a vision of
26:36 Jesus next to the throne. And you have courage when you're holy, and you have boldness when you're holy, and you know the word of God because he goes through the entire history of Israel when you're holy, and then he
26:47 gets to the end and you have a forgiving heart. Father, forgive them. Please don't take this into account. That's what a holy life looks like. Not people who dress funny or put praise the lord on
26:59 the back of their cars or have big black bibles. Holiness is a quality of life that is winsome and loving and word centered and deeply caring and morally pure. The
27:11 New Testament command is first Peter 15 and 16. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy. In your notes, will you circle the word all in all you do? For it is written, be
27:23 holy because I'm holy. In all you do, in what you watch, in what you put into your mind, in what comes out of your mouth, in what goes into your mouth,
27:35 in what you say, in what you think. Be holy in all that you do. Holiness is not an option. The scripture says without holiness, no 1 will see the Lord.
27:47 Holiness is not external religious activity. Holiness is a condition of the heart, a purity of the mind that expresses itself in a righteous lifestyle.
28:00 And then notice the great promise, blessed are the pure in heart, because what do they get? They see God. And even at the end of the day, that's that's God's heart's desire, and you'll never get a greater
28:12 reward. Just see God, knowing for who he is. And by the way, that's how transformation occurs. First John will tell us, we don't know exactly what we're gonna be like, but this is what weShow more
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