Skip to content Teach Them to Live Grace Filled Lives, Part 1 Dec 19 · 39 min ...more
Teach Them to Live Grace Filled Lives, Part 1
December 19, 2025 · 39 min
Have you ever messed up big time? Chip shares how you can begin again - how you can be restored and discover the joy God has ready for you.
Series Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever December 19, 2025 · 39 min · Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever
Have you ever messed up big time? Chip shares how you can begin again - how you can be restored and discover the joy God has ready for you. ...more Show the full description Show less Have you ever messed up big time? Chip shares how you can begin again - how you can be restored and discover the joy God has ready for you.
Series Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
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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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A Good Man's Fall: The Story of David 0:01 Today on Living on the Edge0:03 with Chip Ingram. Have you ever messed up big time? I mean, the kind of sin that years later you still cringe when you think about it? If that's where you are today, I want you to know you can begin0:15 again. You can be restored. The joy that you once knew can be yours. God wants to give it to you. Stay with me and find out how.0:26 As Christians, our strongest testimony to the world is rarely about our success. It's often our recovery from failure. Today on Living on the Edge, Chipping Room elevates this scandalous truth.0:38 You see, God's dream team includes liars, adulterers, and betrayers, yet they became his most beloved servants. But here's the challenge, how do we pass this liberating truth to the next0:50 generation? If our kids have ever felt disqualified by their past or trapped by secret shame, God's grace will set them free. And then later in the program, we'll explain how you can take1:01 advantage of the December match, empowering you to double the size and impact of your donation to Living on the Edge. But right now, let's resume our study about leaving a legacy that lasts forever.1:14 Sometimes stories, have a tremendous power. I mean, people give us stories in movies, and if you're a child, sometimes a parent will, at nighttime, read a story. And1:26 rather than me tell you what a story says, I'd like to do something a little different. I'd like to tell an accurate historical story of a fellow who is the most powerful man in the1:38 world. He had very, very humble beginnings. He was of a tribe that was sort of of the lower class, and he was the youngest, and he went from being a1:49 shepherd boy to being the most powerful king in the world. He had everything any man's heart could ever desire. He had wealth, he had fame,2:02 he was an artist, he was a warrior, he had beautiful women, everything that God could ever give a person in terms of heart's desire. Probably2:14 more than 1 beautiful woman is part of his downfall that we'll talk about later. But I want to tell you a story of how a very good man, who was passionate and loved God, and who never2:26 planned to make a mistake, in a weak moment, destroyed major portions of his life. It says in 2 Samuel chapter 11, It happened in the spring of the year at the2:37 time when kings go out to battle. That David sent Joab the servant and all of Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon, and they besieged Rehoboam, but2:49 David remained in Jerusalem. Every other year, he went out to battle. Lot of success. Things are going great. I probably don't need to go this year. And then it happened.3:01 Notice it's not planned. And then it happened 1 evening that David arose from his bed, walked out on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful to3:13 behold. And so David sent and he inquired about the woman. And someone said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And then David sent3:25 messengers, and he took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity, and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, so she sent and told David and3:36 said, I am with child. God's man in a weak moment. Then David sent to Joab saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David from the battlefield. And when Uriah had3:48 come to him, David asked him how it was going and how were the people doing and how's the war prospered. And David said to Uriah, well go down to your house and wash your feet. And so Uriah departed from the king's house4:00 and he got a gift of food from the king that followed him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and he did not go down to his house. So when they told David, saying,4:12 Uriah didn't go down to his house, David said to Uriah, did you not come home from a journey? And why didn't you go down to your house? And he confronts a man with great integrity and loyalty. And Uriah4:24 said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I4:36 go down to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. The contrast. Commitment, loyalty,4:48 integrity. What's fair? What's right? As I read this passage, I notice the phrases, then it happened, he saw, he inquired, he sent,5:01 he lay, she conceived. And then begins the cover up. And Uriah said to David, can't do it. So David tries plan b.5:13 In verse 12, he gets him drunk, sends him down, even in a drunken stupor, his loyalties intact. And then cover up plan b emerges in verse 14. In the morning it5:25 happened that David wrote a letter to Joab, that was the head of his army, and he sent it by the hand of Uriah. What irony. And he wrote in the letter saying, Uriah, put him in the forefront of the hottest battle and5:36 retreat from him that he may be struck down and die. And so it was that Joab besieged the city, and he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew valiant men were. And the men of the5:48 city came out and they fought, And some of the servants of David fell, and Uriah the Hittite died also. Cover up complete. Skip down to the very bottom, verse6:00 26. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house,6:12 and she became his wife and bore him a son. Commentary. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. A great portion6:24 of this book that I hold in my hands is called the Psalms of the Psalter. It was the hymnal of the Jewish people. And the great6:35 majority of these words from God to believers then and now were written by this man. He's a man that's passionate for God, loved God, humble.6:48 God exalted him. He was the deliverer of the people from the Philistines, and later in greater and greater and greater battles. And the trajectory of his entire life7:00 changes because 1 night he can't sleep. He's not where he's supposed to be, but it's not planned, it's not malicious. He just can't sleep. And he's made to do7:12 something, but he's not doing what he's called to do in this window. And as he can't sleep and he walks out and he looks over, and he's a man like any man on a business trip or away from home in a different7:23 environment, and something catches his eye, and there's something very normal and natural about the magnetic attraction to a very very beautiful woman. And then he takes the next step. He probably didn't plan on doing7:34 anything. He inquired, I wonder who that is. I mean, not that I do anything. I just wonder who it is. And then he gets the feedback. And during that time, the seeds begin to grow, and then he calls for7:46 her. And still, maybe, you know, and then he lies with her, and then there's consequences. And then instead of owning his stuff and realizing this is a grievous7:58 sin I mean, by the way, you know, we read this in our 20 first century eyes. The, the penalty for adultery was to be stoned. This is serious. And so he, you8:10 know, kind of like, the many cover ups we've seen in the last 20 years, so he'd I'll I'll cover it up. I'll just get the husband to come home, and he'll sleep with his wife. He'll think the baby's his. But he chose the8:22 wrong guy. The guy's got too much integrity. And then in the way sin creeps in is that seed of sin, it was just seeing, then inquiring, then taking a step,8:34 then there's an action, there's a consequence, then there's a cover up, and all I wanna do is get this under the you know, I just wanna put this under the rug, and it's a mistake. God, I'm really, really sorry. I'll8:43 never do anything like that again. And he'll think it's his baby, and it'll be over, and it doesn't work. And so he he's this is how sin works. It's like a cancer that multiplies rapidly, and the cells multiply8:55 and multiply and multiply. And he starts thinking things that he would never do, and then pretty soon he comes up with a plan to kill her husband. And he actually allows other people to go to the front where it's too9:07 dangerous, and this man dies, and they play the game, and she mourns. He marries her and thinks. Wow. And then that9:18 famous, famous passage in the New Testament, Do not be deceived, your sin will find you out. And I want to make a couple observations. I don't know how you've heard this talk before,Embracing Grace: God's Unconditional Love 9:30 but my first observation is he is a good man. A very good man. Sometimes we hear about people who make a big mistake, and they commit adultery or embezzlement, or they do9:42 something really horrendous that is so counter to everything we know about them. And we're so quick to say, well, everything they ever taught was wrong, and, you know, must have had this super dark heart. You know, the9:52 fact of the matter, David was a very, very good man in a weak moment. And according to scripture, there's not a person in this room,10:04 given the right circumstances, at a window of time when you are vulnerable, that you couldn't do the same or worse. And by the way, until you come to that conviction that that could actually happen, you're even10:16 more vulnerable. Second, he's described as a mighty warrior, a righteous king, and a man after God's own heart. And by the way, that is after this event. That's a New Testament quotation.10:28 Book of Acts. The Spirit of God describing King David, king, righteous warrior, man after God's own heart. We get that10:41 after this event. Third, the words murderer and adulterer are added to the biography of this amazing, godly man who was used by God in10:53 ways beyond anything probably we can imagine. And here's the point I'd like to make. We all make big mistakes sometime in our11:05 life. Some of them get found out, some of them don't, but we know them. The question is, how do we recover? We've talked about a number of things, and some of you, when we11:17 talked about teaching them to suffer well or work into the Lord, some of you, when it's, you know, teaching to make wise decisions, some of you have extremely deep regrets of that picture of11:28 kinda water that's gone over the falls, and this feeling that there's certain things I didn't do, or there's certain things I did do that I so deeply11:40 regret when confronted with that truth. And the temptation and the enemy's desire is to cover you with condemnation. It's too late. You blew it. There is no hope. And the11:52 transferable concept you wanna teach those you disciple, the transferable concept we must pass on to our kids and to our grandkids and to people that are in our local bodies of fellowship12:04 is this. Teach them to live grace filled lives. I wanna go over, a theology of grace, and it's it's from the beginning to the end of12:16 scripture. So I wanna give you the high marks very, briefly and quickly, and then explain maybe grace that we really get our arms around. What's it mean to receive grace? What is grace?12:28 Grace is the unmerited and unconditional love of God toward us. Underline the word unmerited unconditional. We don't understand either and you'll never get it anywhere else from anyone else at12:40 all like this. Unmerited means you can't earn it. Unconditional means you have it when you're bad, you have it when you're good, you have it when you're up, you have it when you're down. Grace is the disposition12:53 in the eternal God of wanting to give you what you do not deserve on the basis of his character alone, not on your performance or your activity. Second, grace is13:05 free to us, but it's costly to God. It's absolutely free. Completely removed from our performance, but it's very costly to God.13:16 Third, the cross is God's greatest act of grace. We'll develop that. But the greatest act of grace is the cross where he allowed his son,13:28 fully God, fully man, to die in your place and my place to pay for, to atone, to be the substitute for all13:40 the things that you have ever done, or ever thought, or ever said that violated a holy God. You are responsible for every 1 of those. I'm responsible for every 1 of13:52 mine. And God said, since you could never live up to that, I will allow my son who is absolutely perfect to hang between heaven and earth on a wooden cross. And I will take my just14:04 wrath and my judgment for sin, and I will pour it on my son who is an absolutely perfect sacrifice because He is God, and He is able to die because He is man. And in this moment of14:15 time, I will cover or atone for the sins of all men of all times. And whoever would choose to, with the empty hands of faith, ask for this gift of14:27 substitution and grace, I will give it to them on the basis of them believing. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe14:41 might receive eternal life.14:45 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 be14:56 matched dollar for dollar in the month of December.14:59 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 they15:10 are. Will you give to the next generation?15:13 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.15:25 4, salvation is a free gift from God. It's not of works. 5, grace must be received by faith. You might jot15:37 Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace, we are saved through faith. And that's not of yourselves. The idea is not of your religious15:48 or moral attempts of good works. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And I I would like if you would just to stop for a second because16:01 something that I think has at least I grew up this way and I've rarely talked without people going, oh, and it's so deeply embedded in your psyche. We kind of theologically get to the point where we understand it. We16:12 invite Christ to come into our life. His spirit enters us. We begin this new life. But what's so deeply embedded in our minds is a concept that goes something like this. God has a big chalkboard in the16:24 sky, and there's a line down the middle. And on 1 side it says good deeds, and there's a line, and on the other side it says bad deeds. And for many of us, all of our lives implied16:37 or actually taught to us, If your good deeds you know, every good deed, you get a little mark. And every bad deed, you get a little mark. And the way I grew up thinking was, you know,16:49 when you get to the end of the game called life, if your bad deeds are more than your good deeds, you go to the bad place. And if your good deeds are better than your bad deeds, you go to the good place.17:00 Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you had 999099 good deeds and 1 bad deed, you would violate17:12 the holy, perfect perfection of God, who can live with absolutely no sin. If you put it in a scorecard, it would be something like this. In order to have a relationship with God the Father, you need17:24 your test score in every aspect of life to be a perfect hundred. You either have 100 or you fail. Now maybe the the Billy Grahams of the world, although I'm sure he wouldn't say this, or the Mother the Theresas or some17:36 famous missionaries, maybe they get 92 or 94, and maybe ax murderers get like threes and fours, and serial killers are a minus 5. And most of us see ourselves as, like, maybe 75 or eighties.17:48 But unless you're 100, you can't have a relationship with God. So being a good guy, being moral, intellectually believing in God is not what it means to be, quote, saved or have a relationship18:00 or be prepared or allowed to go into heaven. It's by grace you're saved through faith. Grace, number 6, produces gratitude toward God and love toward others. When you18:12 experience grace, it activates something. Philippians chapter 2 says, for it is it's the grace of God, it's God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Grace does18:24 something where when you turn in the empty hands of faith and ask Christ to come into your life, the spirit of God enters your physical body. You're literally taken out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of18:35 light. You're placed into this supernatural community called the body of Christ or the church. You're deposited a spiritual gift to fulfill your Ephesians 2 10 purpose. Your mind begins to be18:46 renewed. You are sealed with the spirit so that no 1 can take you out of his hands. You have a now power. The penalty of sin has been broken. The power of sin has been broken. The spirit of God lives in18:58 you to manifest the presence and the power of the very life of Christ. And the Christian life, far from trying to be a good person, is about abiding in Christ so that this new life can be lived out19:10 through your personality as you depend and walk by faith in him. And he transforms you from grace to grace. It is Titus, you might jot this down, Titus19:22 chapter 2 11 and 12. When people think of grace, 1 of the fallacies is they they think the opposite of grace is effort. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Ephesians 4 2 says, we are19:34 to make every effort to become the kind of followers Christ wants us to become. It takes effort. It takes energy. Paul say, I beat my body. I focus. I discipline myself. It takes19:46 great effort to be a follower of Christ, to allow the grace of God to manifest itself in every area of your thought, your speech, and your relationships. The opposite of grace is not effort. The opposite of19:57 grace is merit. Merit has to do with earning something. Put it this way, a better way. The opposite of grace is a performance mentality. The20:09 opposite of grace is when I read my Bible and pray, God loves me. When I don't read my Bible and pray, he doesn't love me. The opposite of grace is when I give financially off the top, and when I'm doing good and I don't20:19 have any moral slips, God really loves me. And boy, I blew it. I watched something last night, or I had a bad thought, or I lusted after that, or my money's a mess, or now I'm in debt, and I made a no. God doesn't love20:28 me anymore. And when you think that way, then then I can't really talk to God right now. I can't be close to God right now, but I'm gonna get my finances in order, and I'm gonna kinda try and work my way back to being a20:40 good boy or a good girl, and then God will accept me again. And that's bad, bad theology, but many of you and me think that way and don't live by faith through20:52 grace, even though we're saved that way. And we live this performance orientation where we live with condemnation and guilt and are not tapping into the power of God. The theme of the book21:04 of Colossians is very simple. However you get in relationship with God or saved is exactly the same way you grow or are sanctified. Does that21:16 make sense? You're saved by faith through grace. The way you grow is by faith through grace. So grace produces this gratitude toward God. It21:27 produces a love and a lifestyle and a set of good works. Verse 10, right? You're saved not by works, but you are His workmanship. You are created and there's this new power in life, thisShow more In this video 0:00 A Good Man's Fall: The Story of David9:28 Embracing Grace: God's Unconditional Love21:34 Failure Never Final: Passing Grace to the Next Generation
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