Skip to content The Fight for a Godly Family Sep 29 · 25 min ...more
The Fight for a Godly Family
September 29, 2025 · 25 min
Join us as Chip exposes powerful lies that have misled believers for centuries and are undermining the institution of marriage.
Series Uninvited Guests September 29, 2025 · 25 min · Uninvited Guests
Join us as Chip exposes powerful lies that have misled believers for centuries and are undermining the institution of marriage. ...more Show the full description Show less Join us as Chip exposes powerful lies that have misled believers for centuries and are undermining the institution of marriage.
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618K followers
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.
618K followers
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The Fight for a Godly Family 0:01 The late author and Christian psychologist James Dobson once wrote, our society can be no more stable than the foundation of individual family units upon which it rests. Our0:13 government, our institutions, our schools, indeed, our way of life are dependent on healthy marriages and loyalty to the vulnerable little children around our feet. Well, with that in mind, it's clear why we've seen a0:25 shocking rise in divorce, sexual sin, rebellion, and discord within our homes. Satan wants nothing more than to destroy your marriage and sever the connection to your kids by any means0:36 necessary. I'm Dave Drewry. And today on Living on the Edge, we'll begin Chip's newest series, Uninvited Guests, recognizing and resisting the attacks on your family. Over the next month, Chip identifies0:48 the prominent misbeliefs, conflicts, and challenges that threaten to derail your relationship with your spouse and your kids. Stay with us as he provides powerful insights from scripture to help couples1:00 strengthen their marriage and empower them to be the parents their kids need them to be. And let me tell you, this is a series every husband, wife, father, and mother needs to hear. So let me strongly encourage you to1:12 invite a few married friends to listen to, either through livingonthedge dot org, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay. With that set up, here's Chip to kick off this new series with his message, the1:24 fight for a godly family.1:27 I remember sitting in a group in an office. It was fairly late at night. There was about 7 or 8 of us. We're all very, very close. These are men super committed to Christ, and we begin to share about our1:39 families and our journeys. Some were younger, some were older, some had adult children, some of us have grandchildren, and we began to just share the challenges and the pain and the difficulties and1:51 the issues that were happening with some of our adult children or grandchildren. And that struck a chord because these are people that are in God's word on a regular basis. These are people that are committed to doing2:01 life God's way. And all of us know that culture has been hostile to a godly family. And I begin to ponder this level of pain, this level of frustration, these issues2:13 and these families. Lord, what's going on here? But family's big right now. And in the last 6 or 7 months, I've had experiences with people that I'm very, very close2:25 to who, has a son or daughter that I know who has grown up in a very solid Christian home. And it's been everything from mom and dad, I think I'm gay, to mom and dad, I think I'm a2:37 girl, but I'm in a boy's body, to mom and dad, I don't think I believe in God at all anymore. And then we have a conversation with parents feeling overwhelmingly guilty. What did we2:49 do wrong, or what's happened, and how could this happen, and where did it start? I wanna talk to you about family, and I'm not Jim Daly focused on the family. I'm I'm not James Dobson.3:01 I'm not a psychologist. I'm a pastor. I've been a pastor for over 40 years now. I've got 4 grown kids. I've got 12 grandkids, and I've seen the whole gamut. And here's3:13 what I have to tell you. I believe we need to address the family in a new way. I think we've got to address the issues that are happening in a more dynamic way, in a way that I haven't3:25 personally in the past with real focus. Well, Chip, you know, you've got a series on marriage that works and you teach Ephesians 5 about the family and men and women and you have a series called effective parenting3:37 and you have another series on experiencing God's dream for your marriage and all those skills about communication, resolving conflict. And if you want some good teaching from us at Living on the Edge, by God's grace,3:48 has helped a lot of people. But there's something amiss that the heart behind the kind of things that we see, these symptoms, these struggles, I think something has happened that we4:00 haven't recognized. We haven't recognized that we're in a battle. And so often, you know, sometimes I teach something and I've actually said the words, but the light didn't come on for4:11 me. You do a series on marriage, you do a series on children, and you do a series on work and relationships. And you know what I've heard myself say is, now you need to understand that all those relationships happen in4:22 the context of spiritual warfare. I've said that out loud before, but it's just been recently I realized, oh my, that's where the real battle is. And so it doesn't surprise me when the apostle Paul talks about,4:34 if any man is in Christ, if any woman is in Christ, you're a new creation. The old things pass away. Behold, all things become new. You're born again. You're born from above. You've turned from darkness. You're in4:46 a relationship with God through Christ. And then walk in a manner worthy. The verse here is Ephesians 4. Walk means to live out day by day. Walk in a manner worthy of your calling. And then in verse4:58 17, he says, now walk no longer like your former manner of life. We wanna go back to the way we used to live. And so he says, instead, you need to cut off the old, you renew your mind, you put on the new. And then he's5:10 gonna give them practical ways to go into training to do that. And then chapter 5, he says not only walk worthy of your calling, and don't walk in the old ways, walk in love just as Christ also walked in love. And then5:21 he'll later on say, walk as children of the light. In other words, you live in such a way where your life, your relationships, your family is exposing and spreading and5:33 making real what's true. And then finally, verse 15, be very careful how you walk or you live, not as unwise, but as wise. And then he says, making the most of the opportunity. Why?5:45 The days are evil. And if Paul thought the days were evil, then think about what he might say now. The days are evil. God wants us to walk. He wants our relationships to work. So it starts5:57 with what? Don't be drunk with wine, but instead, be filled or controlled by God's spirit. Let your relationship with God, with Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be the central, most important thing. Let that6:09 focus your mind and around the truth and how to live. And then it goes right from there to what? This is how marriage works. Men, love your wives the way Jesus loved the church. Ladies, respond to your6:21 husbands the way the church responds to Christ. And then children, obey your parents. This is a blessing. This will help you. And then finally, we get what? Spiritual warfare. So we6:33 put on the belt of truth. In other words, there's lies about our relationship with God. There's lies that were given in our marriage or our parenting or in our work. And then the breastplate of righteousness is living a6:44 righteous life. Satan wants to condemn us. He he wants to condemn that we're not living up to and God's down on us. And the shield of faith, we need to have God's word and be able to speak God's word in a way in the6:55 midst of our marriages and our home life and identify the truth and the lies. And having our feet shod with the gospel is about being grounded and being stable in the midst of a world where there's doubts bombarding7:08 us. This passage on spiritual warfare is geared around identifying the lies in every aspect of a family and then helping you in your relationship with God.7:20 And if you're married, in your singleness, those that have children, how to do that in a way where you identify the lie, cast it behind you, renew your mind,7:31 understand God's truth, abide in that truth, and what did Jesus promise? You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. I had a very unusual experience in the7:43 last year. I was asked at the local church that I go to, hey, could you help out with the young marriage and maybe they could go through your book and whenever you're in town you could teach the class. And so we did that7:54 in the fall, we did it in the spring. And there's all these young couples, 50, 40 young couples and all kind of backgrounds, some brand new Christians, some from Christian homes, and I got to sit down around the table.8:06 We would teach and have time around the table, and I would hear what's really going on. And some had brand new little babies, others some older kids, some had been married before. And so we went8:17 through and I taught and, we got near the end and the way the book was divided was some of the chapters were very very short and we were trying to do a chapter each week and it just felt a bit redundant. And so I8:29 remember saying, the thing that has helped me the most and helped Teresa the most to break strongholds and cycles in our lives because we came from alcoholic homes and we had big struggles in our marriages,8:41 we we developed these truth cards. And on 1 side of the cards we would write the lies that we believed and we would learn that lots of other people believed, and then we put a stop sign, then we would flip it over, and8:52 then we would tell the truth. I remember at 1 point in time, we would sit down on the couch every morning for a couple years and review these cards and renew our minds and little by little by little we got9:04 God's view. We were learning to recognize lies. And so I took those truth cards, I made them available to the class. The atmosphere changed overnight. They were9:15 open before, but when I would read a lie, it was like, oh my. And then I would give them the truth, and then I gave them a passage to hang on to. And so here's what this whole series9:27 is about. If you're the kind of person that you would say in your heart of hearts, I really want a great family, you're gonna have to fight for it. You're gonna have to fight like never before.9:39 I shared those stories at the beginning because those people are in God's word every day, in community, on mission, living for Christ, and yet, in the midst of all of that, they're9:51 having issues in their family they never dreamed would be a part of their world and their situation. You can be a good Christian, go to church 2 or 3 times a month, read the10:03 bible some, be that nice person, encouraging person, a good, nice neighbor. But if you don't identify these lies and understand where they come10:15 from and what they do, your family will be destroyed because I'm watching it happen over and over again. These lies and false promises10:27 make it impossible for a person called to singleness to have a rich life knowing they're called by God to live in union with them, or to have a deep, rich marriage with ups and10:39 downs, but with real connection, real community, real love, and real sacrifice. And these lies make it impossible for children to grow up in a safe, stable, supportive10:51 environment, where they feel valued, encouraged, supported, where they discover their unique design, and even more importantly, discover the God who made them and come to a vibrant11:02 living relationship with Jesus Christ. These lies are all through the media, academia. They come from novels. They come from music. They come from movies. They are bombarding11:14 us, even coming inside the church. Good lies like your kids need a great education. Your kids should be active and play sport. Your kids should really be successful because that will help them be11:26 happy. There's half truths in all those things. But we have kids and we have parents and we have families that love Jesus with all their heart, that have made education or playing on a sports11:38 team or success or money or pleasure, a higher goal and an idol that has undermined the real relationship. We have to come to grips11:50 with the reality, if 30 percent of our own children in evangelical churches don't want to follow Jesus, something is fundamentally wrong.12:00 This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and Chip will be back to finish today's message in just a minute. But let me first gently ask you, is your marriage in trouble right now? Do you and your mate need a practical12:12 biblical tool to revive and transform your relationship? Well, we've developed a brand new resource designed to do just that. So stick around after the teaching to hear about this practical way we are12:24 encouraging couples. Until then, here again is Chip to continue our series, Uninvited Guests.12:31 I don't mean this as some indictment on those of you that are walking closely with God, but kids are saying, I grew up in a home where Christianity was not much more than a moral code. It wasn't much more than we should12:42 be nice people. And yes, my parents sent me to the youth group, and I even went to a Christian school. But there wasn't life. There wasn't vitality. There wasn't risk. There wasn't life change. I didn't see God's power.12:53 I didn't see this reality of Jesus. And when I went away to school or to trade school or got out on my own, that Jesus that is sort of nice in this moral code, as13:05 people are living completely different lives, and they asked me all kind of questions that I would begin to ask myself, is this true? And my experience began to say, it's not. You see, there are13:17 lies that have undermined our culture, our families. And what I would like to do in our time together is rather than give you a good teaching on marriage, rather than say, here's 7 principles13:29 for parenting, here's some great things you can have, I'd like to start with the lies and help you identify them, and then talk about the truth and how to put that truth into practice. And here's what I13:41 want you to know, this isn't new. Right? This isn't new at all. And God is able and ready to break the strongholds that produce division, divorce, and kids without hope. You know, when you13:52 pastor as long as I have, I've been on the other side of that counseling desk and heard story after story. Stories of infidelity. Stories of I14:04 just fell out of love. Stories like we grew apart. Stories like we did the very best for our kids and I don't understand it. They they don't even believe in God anymore. We we can't even have a conversation. All14:16 we do is argue about politics. I've been on the other side of that, and I'm watching what it does to families. We need a different approach. We need to understand that there is something14:28 very, very sacred to God. It is the most fundamental unit of every society, every culture, every community. As someone wisely said, as the family goes, so goes the nation.14:40 Transformation in the families today need to start, I think, with a surgical knife of truth that cut through the lies of the culture. Help us identify some of these things that some14:52 of us Are you ready? You are actually doing things with the most sincere intentions, thinking you are really helping your kids. You want your kids to get ahead. You want your kids to15:04 prosper. And the very thing that you're doing for your kids is destroying their relationship with God and your family. Let that sink in. See, the most15:16 dangerous lies are the ones that you believe to the point where you think it's good. Just because I have good intentions, just because I have good motives, it doesn't mean that the outcomes won't be just as15:28 devastating. I want to help you to uncover the things that you actually believe that are false, that are undermining that which you hold dear. And by the way, I'm15:40 with you in this. I've believed plenty of lies. I've pushed in early years my kids way too hard thinking that they've gotta be disciplined to be successful and they need to learn this and learn that.15:52 So this isn't about I've got it together and I'm gonna tell you this is how to do it. You're talking to someone that's got 40 years as a pastor and kids that are grown and some grandkids that are grown and is on the16:04 journey with you. Our families are in trouble when some of my closest, most godly friends are having struggles and seeing things happen in their family, I think it's time to stop16:16 and say, god, I really want to have a great family. And I'm willing to pay the price. I'm willing to listen. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to swim16:27 upstream. I'm willing to do whatever God wants me to do because here's the deal. I'm old enough now to realize the people that are happiest, the people who have a real sense of reward, it's16:39 not how big a house they had, not whether they went public, not whether they got famous. Every family relationship flows out of your relationship with God. It's the people that have deep,16:51 deep relationships, that have adult kids that want to be around them, that see a lineage of people that are walking and growing and people of integrity, and they're at peace with themselves.17:04 Every family has issues. I mean, pull back the curtain to my life, your life, anyone that may be a spiritual leader, a pastor, someone you admire, you pull back the curtain. I'm just gonna17:16 tell you, they've got issues just like you and just like me. I'm not talking about developing some cookie cutter perfect families. We're talking about real, authentic love17:28 where it covers a multitude of sins, where we look back on our pain and how we persevere and how we recognize what we have done wrong, apologize to 1 another, forgive 1 another, and experience the mercy and17:40 the grace and the love of God. I'm not sure there's anything that is a greater testimony to the world. Right? Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your17:52 father who is in heaven. I think the greatest good works we could ever have in the world that we're living in is people that have been married 5 years and they're deeply in love. 25 years deeply in love. 4518:04 years and deeply in love. 17 years lost a child, weathered through it deeply in love. 22 years, empty nest, and they realize they need to reconnect and they persevere and they're deeply in love.18:16 Kids that grow up and don't have it all together but honor their parents, want to walk with God, have a sense of responsibility and clear calling, purpose and life and meaning. You talk about good works.18:28 Few things will be more important to show the world the love of Christ than marriages that reflect Jesus and his church. This is not new. Some of you know the bible pretty well, and18:40 others, you'll need to go to Genesis chapter 3, and maybe the first few chapters you may wanna read it. But think about a perfect environment, a loving God who has created the first human beings. The 118:52 test is don't eat from that tree. And then the enemy comes, and where does he start with a lie? The lie is what? If you eat this, you you won't die. Well, had a half truth. You19:04 won't physically die, but you'll be separated from god. He cast out on god's character. God doesn't have your best in mind. If you do life God's way, you're going to miss out. That was the message. And so there's19:15 disobedience. And then after the disobedience, not only is there a break of relationship with God, then we have our very first parents blaming and naming. It was her fault. No. It was his fault. No. It's your fault, god.19:27 You're the 1 that made this place. And then pretty soon, there's not just division, but then there's hostility, and there's envy. And so we have the first murder. Satan lies about our relationship19:39 with god, produces animosity in the relationship, then has siblings who literally 1 kills the other, and then creates a world of violence and death. So much so that by Genesis19:51 chapter 9, God says the violence is so great, I've had enough, and we have the flood. And then we have this new generation and God's promise in the sky, and then this tower20:03 gets built, and the enemy takes technology and the amazing dignity and beauty of mankind, and they build a tower to make our name great into the heavens, and God frustrates their20:14 languages. Here's all I want you to know. The enemy had a lie about God. He had a lie about marriage. He gave a lie about children. He gave a lie about what makes communities20:26 work, and he gave a lie about the work of our hands in technology. And it's been going on ever since. We're gonna spend the next month identifying some lies20:38 in our marriages, in our parenting, and in the culture around us, to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, that we can have the kind of families that we long for, and that Jesus20:50 wants us to have for his glory, and to show the world around us that there is hope. Because they are hurting, and he's the answer. He says, you're my21:01 method. Are you ready? I hope you join me for the whole series.21:09 This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to Chip's message, the fight for a godly family, from our series, uninvited guests, recognizing and resisting the attacks on your family.21:21 Picture this. You're at a lively party or a delightful family reunion when out of nowhere, an uninvited person barges in, creating chaos and dysfunction, spoiling the celebration for everyone.21:34 In the upcoming programs, Chip reveals how we've allowed dangerous misbeliefs and ideologies to trespass into our homes. Learn how since the Garden of Eden, these intruders have fueled conflict21:46 in marriages, damaged relationships, and undermined the very foundation of the family. Join Chip as he exposes the biggest lies couples have believed and challenges us to renew our minds with21:57 the life giving truth of God's word. You won't wanna miss a single message. Well, Chip's here in studio with me now. And Chip, as you sifted through all the research about marriage and parenting for this22:09 series, there was 1 myth that came up a lot. With all of this conflict in our marriage, it's better for our kids if we just get divorced.22:18 Dave, that is 1 of the most believed myths about marriage. That old school thinking of we're staying together just for the kids is actually true. If there's22:29 challenges, struggle, argument, kids will make it through. They're very resilient. Now here's the problem. People don't want to stay together. When it gets really hard, how do you resolve22:41 conflict? How do you learn to communicate? There are so many good Christians who are living like roommates now. Their marriage isn't fulfilling. They want to stay together for their22:53 kids, but they can't imagine living the way they are forever and ever and ever, and so they feel hopeless. Here's what I wanna say. You can work this out, and we have a tool to help you.23:05 Marriage that works truth cards is a beginning step to resolve some big pains in your marriage and create an environment that your kids can thrive in. We really want to help23:17 you learn to communicate, to resolve conflict. That begins with eliminating or addressing lies that you believe, and then you have to have some foundational truths. And if you'll review a few of these every single23:29 day for 30 days, 60 days, your thinking will change, your words will change, and your marriage will change. Don't throw away a good marriage or even a problem marriage23:41 because of your present struggles. If you think that there's a easy divorce and it doesn't impact your kids, you're completely wrong. The impact goes on for decades. Let's stay together.23:53 Let's obey God's commands, and we wanna help you. So, Dave, take a minute and share with people how they can get these cards.23:59 Sure, Chip. It's actually really simple. Throughout this entire series, for anyone who chooses to become a monthly partner with Living on the Edge, we'll send you these new marriage that works truth cards as our way of24:11 saying thanks. So please pray about supporting us. Your gifts have an eternal impact as we fight for marriages and families everywhere. To learn how to become a monthly partner, visit living on the edge dot24:23 org or call us at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3. That's triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 or go to living on the edge dot o r24:35 g. App listeners tap donate. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his newest series, Uninvited Guests, recognizing and resisting the attacks on your family. Until then, I'm Dave Drewey,24:46 thanking you for listening to this edition of Living on the Edge.In this video 0:00 The Fight for a Godly Family
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