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With Pastor Jack Hibbs at the helm, today's episode of Real Life Radio delves into the crucial questions that believers must ask themselves to validate their faith in Christ. By examining the scriptures, Pastor Jack illustrates the importance of living a life that reflects Christian teachings. By internalizing the Word of Truth, we open ourselves to becoming new creations in Christ, armed with the courage to face life's obstacles with spiritual fortitude.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
So this morning we should all ask ourselves the question, am I truly a Christian? Does my secretary or does my boss or do my clients or do my patients or do my co-workers, do they view me as one who follows God? They're the ones who know.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Have you ever stopped and thought, boy, what if Jesus were to come back today? In a world that feels more uncertain by the minute, it's easy to lose sight of eternity. But what if we lived each and every day with the hope and anticipation that Christ is coming back? Now, that's the powerful perspective offered in One Day Nearer, written by Steve Millard. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack Hibbs, One Day Nearer. Through biblical insight and practical encouragement, this book's going to help you face life's challenges with faith and purpose, reminding you that with each sunrise, get this, we are one step closer to being with Jesus. If you're ready to realign your focus and rediscover the joy of living for eternity one day nearer, it's really a must read. The point is this, friend. Every day that you get up, you are one day nearer. This book is available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Book of James with a message titled Receiving the Word of Truth. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter that was sent to the Jews who chose to follow Christ. And as new believers, James asks them to examine themselves as to whether or not they're true Christians. You see, Jesus warns us of spectator Christianity. We can say we're believers in God and that we follow Christ, but until we take our belief, our faith, and put it into action in our day-to-day living, well, we really can't call ourselves a Christian. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that when we receive the word of truth, it produces new life, a life where we are swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. When we listen twice as much to the truth as we speak, we can't help become more like Jesus Christ. Now with his message called Receiving the Word of Truth, Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
He wants us to be believers that are truly Christian. Now listen, you can be a believer in the fact that God exists and that Jesus really lived and that Jesus in fact died and rose again from the dead. You can come to that understanding intellectually But if you don't have the reality of what all that means and the power that it brings in the Bible, if you don't have it working in your life, then listen, you're a believer, but you're not in fact a Christian. In fact, what you call somebody who follows Christ and his belief by how they live, the definition was given to the church at Antioch, they called them Christians. What you believe and you put into action is then you are called a Christian. But see, according to a recent Gallup poll, as I mentioned to you a week or so ago, that George Gallup said that over 80% of Americans polled said that they're Christians. Well, I'd like to know where they're at. And if that's true, then why isn't our nation turning around? You see, people say that they're Christian, but let me ask you, what is a Christian? What is the definition? See, we can easily speak words, but what is the definition of what you're talking about? Being a Christian is one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ in a day-to-day living called the disciple. And James is asking us this morning, is that who you are? Is that who I am? Are we Christians in our conduct? Are we Christians in how we live? Or do we just say? And you know, depending upon the group we're in, it's advantageous or not to say that you're a Christian. Some people are quick to say that they're Christians in church, but when they're at work or when they're out on the field or when they're somewhere else, they won't readily say that they're a Christian because maybe their life is in fact doing something or a lifestyle itself that is against the teachings of Christ. These are serious things. And so that's why we're looking at this morning, receiving the word of truth. But if we're receiving the word of truth, and he's gonna challenge us to do this this morning, what should be the result in our lives? Well, one of the things is that there should be a visible change in our lives that really attests to the fact that we're new creations. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning at verse 17, that we are in fact now new creations in Christ Jesus, for all the old stuff has been now passed away, and behold, all things have become new really in Him, that we are really a creation. Technically, we are a recreation. God has taken who you are, and he has taken your past and has forgiven you. But you and I bring our baggage from the past into our current relationship with God, and that is why you and I struggle with Christian victory. Because so many times our old life will come up and try to pull us down. And so James is encouraging us to depart from the things of what we once did and walk in the newness of life that's in Christ. And it all is based upon letting the word of God take root so that we might become the new creations that he is intending for us to be. So in verse 19, chapter 1, James says this. to us, down to verse 21. Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore... lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Jesus warned us in another place in Luke 6.44. Jesus says you'll know a tree by the fruit that it produces. He says, a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So he warns us. Now listen, the word is used in your Bible to judge. We are to discern. The word is to investigate and to determine. When we look at a tree... We want to pick its fruit. Well, is it an apple tree or is it an avocado tree? And of course, in California, it's an avocado tree, right? I mean, you got to love guacamole and avocados. Our state fruit, I guess. Is it a fruit? What is it? It just tastes awesome. I don't know. I love it. And yes, you can mail your shipments of avocados right here. But... you look at the tree and you look at the leaves and you say, those are long, waxy-shaped leaves and I bet you this is an avocado tree. But you won't know until those blossoms produce the avocado. And then, even then, what you want to do eventually at harvest time is to pick that avocado and you let it get just ripe to the point where it's soft enough and then you just eat that thing with a spoon, you know. So good. And you say, this is a great avocado. You don't say, this doesn't taste like an apple. It's because it's not an apple. It's not even from an apple tree. It's an avocado from an avocado tree. And God says, listen, Jesus says, listen, when you look at people, you'll know what kind of tree they are by the fruit that's hanging around in their life. What's hanging around in our lives? That's the fruit of who we are. If we hang with Jesus, we're going to be producing Jesus fruits, the fruit of the Spirit. If we're hanging out with friends that are not Christ-like or worldly, then we're going to start producing worldly fruit. It's the way that it works. Can't get around. That being the case. And so Jesus warns us, you'll know them by their fruits. Jude tells us concerning being a spectator type Christian. He says, listen, be careful in Jude chapter 1 verse 12. Jude says, people who are pretenders or who are not truly the fruit that they claim to be. He says, they're like spots in your potlucks. The Bible uses the word feast, but for us it's potlucks. They're spots at your potlucks. They feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They're like clouds without water. They're carried about by the winds. They're like late autumn trees without fruit. And they're twice dead. They have no life in their root. They have no life because they have no life-giving fruit whatsoever. They're in fact dead. It's very important we understand this. And so in our first point concerning receiving the word of truth, jot it down if you would. The Word of God will produce in us a new life. That's what it's going to do. The Word of God will produce in us a new life. So you want to ask yourself the private question, do I have a new life since I've claimed the name of Jesus? Or am I a Sunday Christian? Or am I an Easter Christian? Or a Christmas Christian? Am I a day-to-day Christian? Am I going, in fact, to heaven? And by the way, while we're mentioning that, spiritual deception... It's the key thing that has led more people to the grave and to being lost than I think any other thing. So James is telling us, don't be deceived. So this morning we should all ask ourselves the question, am I truly a Christian? Does my secretary or does my boss or do my clients or do my patients or do my co-workers, do they view me as one who follows God? They're the ones who know. And so he says in verse 19, therefore, my beloved brethren. Again, he says this in verse 21. He said it last week. Therefore, my beloved brethren. And can you circle the word therefore and then drop down to verse 21? You'll see it again. Therefore, you want to circle it. Remember J. Vernon McGee? How can you forget J. Vernon McGee? The guy's been in heaven for 10 years and he's still on every radio program talking. It's amazing. And what does he say with his... With his accent, he says, get on the Bible bus, ladies and gentlemen. You know, and only he can get away with a voice like that. And he'll say, when you come to the word therefore, you need to ask what it's there for. And that's really true. The therefore, you circle it because it means everything that I just got done telling you. Therefore, this is what you do. You have that? It's so simple. The reason why it's therefore is to stress the fact that it's therefore a reason. And James is going, everything I've just said, okay, with that in mind, therefore, this is what you do. Who is he talking to? Look at your Bible. Verse 19, who is he speaking to? Christian brethren, us. So there's no mistake who he's speaking to. He says this. Let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak and slow to wrath. Isn't that great? Wouldn't you like to take that and cut it out and put it right on the introduction to like Jerry Springer's program? What a sick show. I know nobody in this room would ever watch that program. That is so sickening. That is so antichrist. Horrible. People sit down, you know they must go out and find people and say, will you just act like you know this person and beat them up on stage while the camera's rolling? And can you be an absolute... morally void human being and have no intellect whatsoever and act like a lunatic? Where do they get these people? I hope it's all staged. If this is America, let's go somewhere, you know. It's amazing. He says, listen, brothers. Everything I've just told you, in light of everything I've just been telling you, and these 18 verses, therefore, be very, very swift to hear. The word swift to hear means to position your ears and your heart in a sweet spot. A sweet spot. You know what a sweet spot is. If you go to a concert, if you go to a theater or a play, you pay big money for the sweet spot. The sweet spot is where the view is just perfect. The sweet spot is where the sound at the concert hall is just right. That's why the tickets are more expensive in that spot. People pay big money. Why? To position their ears to hear the concert. The word here to position your hearing, to be swift to do this, is to put your ears that are attached to your heart. That's how we hear. Our heart listens. with spiritual ears. He says to position our heart in such a way that it is very, very in tune with the sweet spot, the message that's being delivered. James is saying, everything I've talked about, trials and tribulations and temptations and difficulty and getting wisdom from God, everything that I've talked about, he says, therefore, put your heart in the sweet spot. Hey, listen, is that where you're at right now? Think about this for a minute. Why did you come here today? Well, I want to hear the word of God. That's good. Are you prepared to hear the word of God? You might be saying, well, I came here because I had to come here. My parents drugged me in here. Well, listen, be that as it may, position your heart right now, young person. Well, I came here because my neighbor's been asking me to come. I just came to shut him up. Hey, that's okay. I don't care what the reason is. Position your heart in the sweet spot. Yesterday, there were some people over and I could hear, I was studying, but I could hear that the music was going on outside and there was a little bit of, I can't hear it, turn it up. And I didn't want it turned up any louder because I'm trying to study. And so I had told my daughter, I said, if you move your chair right over here, you'll hear a lot better. And it sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Just move 10 feet and you'll hear better. And it was true. What about you right now? Who are you? How are you listening? Jesus says in Matthew's gospel, be careful how you hear. Luke's gospel, that is. Be careful how you hear. So right now, position your heart. Just say, I'm here now. I am deciding to put my heart in the sweet spot. That is to be very swift to hear what the word of God has to say. I want to hear from God. So you position your heart. That takes discipline, people.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
Our culture, we live in the amusement culture of the world. Did you know that? We have more amusement parks. We spend an estimated $9 billion a year on amusement. As a nation, we want to be amused. You know what the word amused means? You know, the word muse is a wonderful word. It even appears in the Bible. I will muse on these things. The word muse means I will become engulfed in what I'm concentrating on or what I'm beholding concerning God. You know, maybe a naturalist will go out into the woods and they'll say, I want to eat it all up. I want to be just like... The environment, and they'll muse upon the environment. To amuse, what do you think that means? It means to cut your thinking off, to cut your head off. It means to take your contemplative position and cast it to the wind, and you're just going to take it all upon you without taking anything in. That's why they're amusement parks. They're places to forget life. God says, you don't have to do that. I want you to muse upon what is true. So be careful how you think. Position your heart. I want to hear from God. What is God going to speak to me from his word? That's why we worship before we get into the word. Now, I know as a Christian, it sometimes is hard. And you might get up in the morning with the great intentions of going to church. And you say, come on, let's get in the car. And if you're like our house, I'm saying it's late. It's late. We're late. And, you know, depending upon the mood of the rest of the family, that may or may not go over well. Are you always saying we're late? Well, we're always late. Now, where are we going? We're going to church. What are we doing? Arguing. Driving to church. Pull up in the parking lot. It's funny how just, you know, there's such a power that resides in a church parking lot. Yes. Well, it's the last time. Just forget. It's so weird. You pull in the parking lot. Praise the Lord, brother. How y'all doing? Great. The kids are going, forget this. Now, look, we get up with good intentions. I think the Christian's most difficult day is Sunday. It's got to be tough. You know, because you don't feel like getting dressed, do you? Sunday. You just feel like rolling around, crashing, sleeping in until noon, you know. It's Sunday. We're going to go worship God. Hey, and the enemy goes, oh yeah? You think? over, you know, my cloven-footed body, and he pulls out arrows to try to get you all disrupted so that you just keep driving by the church and wind up going out to dinner instead or breakfast instead thinking we're not even fit to go to church. Oh, no, no, you come to church. You just pull right in and park. You position your heart to here, no matter what the day's been like, even though it's only an hour old. You position your heart. I'm going to hear from the Lord. That's why you are to worship before the word. You listen to the words that you're singing and you say, yes, Lord. And you know, some people will raise their hands. They're not going to be rolling on the floor next. That's not why they're raising their hands. The Bible is calling us to lift up holy hands of prayer. And what they're doing is saying, Lord, I'm making this a prayer of my life. Lord, I lift your name on high. Why? Because I've been doing nothing but lifting up my own self on high, and I'm sick of it. And Lord, I'm here right now to lift you up on high. You see? That positions your heart to receive the Word of God. So be swift to hear. He says slow to speak. Be swift to hear, but be slow to speak. Jesus tells us in the book of Revelation, seven times to the seven words. letters written to the churches he says there he who has ears to hear let him hear what the spirit says to the church well you got to be able to hear so we're to be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath it begins with hearing not only hearing but the word is actually listening we hear all kinds of stuff don't we don't we hear all kinds of stuff all kinds of junk even But what are you listening to? You see, to put your heart in the sweet spot is to be listening, not just hearing. You'll hear all kinds of trash. You might hear good stuff. You might hear garbage. But what are you listening to? It's amazing to think that through this sanctuary right now, there are frequencies of radio stations. You know, there's classical music going through here right now. There's metal. There's acid rock, there's disco. That's a scary thought to think, but there's praise music, there's satanic music, there's all kinds of stuff just going through on the sound waves. You'll never get them, you'll never hear them, or I should say you'll never be able to listen to them, but you could get an oscilloscope set up in here and it can detect them. But what you do is you dial into a frequency if you have a receiver and you can listen to 107.9. and hear Christian teaching and worshipful music. But what happens if you move it over? If you move it just to the right, you'll hear a broadcast out of Tijuana. I can't figure out what they're saying. And me, I don't understand it. Why? You've changed frequencies. To position your heart to be swift to hear is to listen, not only with hearing, but to listen with the intent to ingest what is being given. That's how God wants us to hear right now. To hear with listening. The apostle Paul encourages us to listen with our ears. Jesus says, listen. to what the Spirit is saying. So it's very important that if the Word of God is going to produce within us in a new life, that we be listening and we be careful about it. Zeno, the ancient Greek philosopher, said something that you all know, and you might have heard it in different ways, but he said, we have two ears and we have one mouth. And that is the God's, they believed in multiple gods, that is the God's way of telling us that we should be listening twice as much as we speak. I like what one of the ancient writers also said. He said, you notice that our ears are two. They have holes that are open always to receive all that is spoken. Our mouth, we have but one. And behind it is caged the tongue. And he says, it is God who has placed in front of the tongue an ivory gate to keep it from going wild. The teeth. Isn't that great? Think about it. The teeth. What's it for? Well, this philosopher says it's to keep your mouth, your tongue, back where it belongs. You don't have teeth on your ears. Isn't that great? Well, listen, you've never been talking to somebody and bite your ear. But you have been talking to somebody and you've bitten your tongue. The teeth, I like what he says, are like gates. Maybe we need to look at it like that. Boy, I need to gate up my mouth. One guy said, you know, I have never, I have never at all been saddened or been in trouble for what I didn't say. I have never been brought into question or brought into trouble for what I didn't say. We get in trouble for what we do say because we're so often swift to speak, swift to wrath, slow to hear.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Receiving the Word of Truth. We're glad you could spend some time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. I don't know if I'd call it a bribe, but I make a deal with my eight-year-old grandson. And we pick out a Bible verse that I haven't memorized it and he hasn't memorized it. And the next week, I'll call him to do the next one. And if he has the one from the week before memorized, I put $5 into a bank account for him. And I'm kind of bribing him, but that's all right.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, listen, that's not bribery.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think it's fun.
SPEAKER 02 :
Listen, well, you think it's fun because it's a biblical thing to do. And let me explain. The scripture commands the grandparents to be laying up money for the children. In our culture, we've so abandoned God that now when people grow older, they lean on their children to take care of them. The reverse is biblical. the parent, the grandparent is to labor in such a way that they save up resources for the grandchildren. In this case, it's beautiful because you're teaching your child that good behavior can be rewarded. It doesn't have to be, but in your case, you're doing that. There is a relationship established where you guys are exchanging the word of God together. And the fact that you are putting it in a bank account is actually brilliant because it's teaching him a plethora of things. The Bible, Papa loves the Bible. I want to be like my Papa. We memorize this together. The legacy, let's be honest, the legacy is when you pass into the arms of Jesus, he's going to miss that like crazy. That's a legacy. And that's what you want to experience. But the cool thing is this little account that will build up over time, he will have a great respect I predict a great respect. He's not going to spend that money on bubble gum or some plastic piece of junk because I got that with my papa.
SPEAKER 01 :
This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Pastor Jack's desire is to see your relationship with Christ deepen and your effectiveness for His purposes maximized. His bold preaching will encourage and challenge you to walk with Jesus.
With Pastor Jack Hibbs at the helm, today's episode of Real Life Radio delves into the crucial questions that believers must ask themselves to validate their faith in Christ. By examining the scriptures, Pastor Jack illustrates the importance of living a life that reflects Christian teachings. By internalizing the Word of Truth, we open ourselves to becoming new creations in Christ, armed with the courage to face life's obstacles with spiritual fortitude.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
So this morning we should all ask ourselves the question, am I truly a Christian? Does my secretary or does my boss or do my clients or do my patients or do my co-workers, do they view me as one who follows God? They're the ones who know.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Have you ever stopped and thought, boy, what if Jesus were to come back today? In a world that feels more uncertain by the minute, it's easy to lose sight of eternity. But what if we lived each and every day with the hope and anticipation that Christ is coming back? Now, that's the powerful perspective offered in One Day Nearer, written by Steve Millard. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack Hibbs, One Day Nearer. Through biblical insight and practical encouragement, this book's going to help you face life's challenges with faith and purpose, reminding you that with each sunrise, get this, we are one step closer to being with Jesus. If you're ready to realign your focus and rediscover the joy of living for eternity one day nearer, it's really a must read. The point is this, friend. Every day that you get up, you are one day nearer. This book is available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Book of James with a message titled Receiving the Word of Truth. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter that was sent to the Jews who chose to follow Christ. And as new believers, James asks them to examine themselves as to whether or not they're true Christians. You see, Jesus warns us of spectator Christianity. We can say we're believers in God and that we follow Christ, but until we take our belief, our faith, and put it into action in our day-to-day living, well, we really can't call ourselves a Christian. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that when we receive the word of truth, it produces new life, a life where we are swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. When we listen twice as much to the truth as we speak, we can't help become more like Jesus Christ. Now with his message called Receiving the Word of Truth, Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
He wants us to be believers that are truly Christian. Now listen, you can be a believer in the fact that God exists and that Jesus really lived and that Jesus in fact died and rose again from the dead. You can come to that understanding intellectually But if you don't have the reality of what all that means and the power that it brings in the Bible, if you don't have it working in your life, then listen, you're a believer, but you're not in fact a Christian. In fact, what you call somebody who follows Christ and his belief by how they live, the definition was given to the church at Antioch, they called them Christians. What you believe and you put into action is then you are called a Christian. But see, according to a recent Gallup poll, as I mentioned to you a week or so ago, that George Gallup said that over 80% of Americans polled said that they're Christians. Well, I'd like to know where they're at. And if that's true, then why isn't our nation turning around? You see, people say that they're Christian, but let me ask you, what is a Christian? What is the definition? See, we can easily speak words, but what is the definition of what you're talking about? Being a Christian is one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ in a day-to-day living called the disciple. And James is asking us this morning, is that who you are? Is that who I am? Are we Christians in our conduct? Are we Christians in how we live? Or do we just say? And you know, depending upon the group we're in, it's advantageous or not to say that you're a Christian. Some people are quick to say that they're Christians in church, but when they're at work or when they're out on the field or when they're somewhere else, they won't readily say that they're a Christian because maybe their life is in fact doing something or a lifestyle itself that is against the teachings of Christ. These are serious things. And so that's why we're looking at this morning, receiving the word of truth. But if we're receiving the word of truth, and he's gonna challenge us to do this this morning, what should be the result in our lives? Well, one of the things is that there should be a visible change in our lives that really attests to the fact that we're new creations. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning at verse 17, that we are in fact now new creations in Christ Jesus, for all the old stuff has been now passed away, and behold, all things have become new really in Him, that we are really a creation. Technically, we are a recreation. God has taken who you are, and he has taken your past and has forgiven you. But you and I bring our baggage from the past into our current relationship with God, and that is why you and I struggle with Christian victory. Because so many times our old life will come up and try to pull us down. And so James is encouraging us to depart from the things of what we once did and walk in the newness of life that's in Christ. And it all is based upon letting the word of God take root so that we might become the new creations that he is intending for us to be. So in verse 19, chapter 1, James says this. to us, down to verse 21. Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore... lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Jesus warned us in another place in Luke 6.44. Jesus says you'll know a tree by the fruit that it produces. He says, a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So he warns us. Now listen, the word is used in your Bible to judge. We are to discern. The word is to investigate and to determine. When we look at a tree... We want to pick its fruit. Well, is it an apple tree or is it an avocado tree? And of course, in California, it's an avocado tree, right? I mean, you got to love guacamole and avocados. Our state fruit, I guess. Is it a fruit? What is it? It just tastes awesome. I don't know. I love it. And yes, you can mail your shipments of avocados right here. But... you look at the tree and you look at the leaves and you say, those are long, waxy-shaped leaves and I bet you this is an avocado tree. But you won't know until those blossoms produce the avocado. And then, even then, what you want to do eventually at harvest time is to pick that avocado and you let it get just ripe to the point where it's soft enough and then you just eat that thing with a spoon, you know. So good. And you say, this is a great avocado. You don't say, this doesn't taste like an apple. It's because it's not an apple. It's not even from an apple tree. It's an avocado from an avocado tree. And God says, listen, Jesus says, listen, when you look at people, you'll know what kind of tree they are by the fruit that's hanging around in their life. What's hanging around in our lives? That's the fruit of who we are. If we hang with Jesus, we're going to be producing Jesus fruits, the fruit of the Spirit. If we're hanging out with friends that are not Christ-like or worldly, then we're going to start producing worldly fruit. It's the way that it works. Can't get around. That being the case. And so Jesus warns us, you'll know them by their fruits. Jude tells us concerning being a spectator type Christian. He says, listen, be careful in Jude chapter 1 verse 12. Jude says, people who are pretenders or who are not truly the fruit that they claim to be. He says, they're like spots in your potlucks. The Bible uses the word feast, but for us it's potlucks. They're spots at your potlucks. They feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They're like clouds without water. They're carried about by the winds. They're like late autumn trees without fruit. And they're twice dead. They have no life in their root. They have no life because they have no life-giving fruit whatsoever. They're in fact dead. It's very important we understand this. And so in our first point concerning receiving the word of truth, jot it down if you would. The Word of God will produce in us a new life. That's what it's going to do. The Word of God will produce in us a new life. So you want to ask yourself the private question, do I have a new life since I've claimed the name of Jesus? Or am I a Sunday Christian? Or am I an Easter Christian? Or a Christmas Christian? Am I a day-to-day Christian? Am I going, in fact, to heaven? And by the way, while we're mentioning that, spiritual deception... It's the key thing that has led more people to the grave and to being lost than I think any other thing. So James is telling us, don't be deceived. So this morning we should all ask ourselves the question, am I truly a Christian? Does my secretary or does my boss or do my clients or do my patients or do my co-workers, do they view me as one who follows God? They're the ones who know. And so he says in verse 19, therefore, my beloved brethren. Again, he says this in verse 21. He said it last week. Therefore, my beloved brethren. And can you circle the word therefore and then drop down to verse 21? You'll see it again. Therefore, you want to circle it. Remember J. Vernon McGee? How can you forget J. Vernon McGee? The guy's been in heaven for 10 years and he's still on every radio program talking. It's amazing. And what does he say with his... With his accent, he says, get on the Bible bus, ladies and gentlemen. You know, and only he can get away with a voice like that. And he'll say, when you come to the word therefore, you need to ask what it's there for. And that's really true. The therefore, you circle it because it means everything that I just got done telling you. Therefore, this is what you do. You have that? It's so simple. The reason why it's therefore is to stress the fact that it's therefore a reason. And James is going, everything I've just said, okay, with that in mind, therefore, this is what you do. Who is he talking to? Look at your Bible. Verse 19, who is he speaking to? Christian brethren, us. So there's no mistake who he's speaking to. He says this. Let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak and slow to wrath. Isn't that great? Wouldn't you like to take that and cut it out and put it right on the introduction to like Jerry Springer's program? What a sick show. I know nobody in this room would ever watch that program. That is so sickening. That is so antichrist. Horrible. People sit down, you know they must go out and find people and say, will you just act like you know this person and beat them up on stage while the camera's rolling? And can you be an absolute... morally void human being and have no intellect whatsoever and act like a lunatic? Where do they get these people? I hope it's all staged. If this is America, let's go somewhere, you know. It's amazing. He says, listen, brothers. Everything I've just told you, in light of everything I've just been telling you, and these 18 verses, therefore, be very, very swift to hear. The word swift to hear means to position your ears and your heart in a sweet spot. A sweet spot. You know what a sweet spot is. If you go to a concert, if you go to a theater or a play, you pay big money for the sweet spot. The sweet spot is where the view is just perfect. The sweet spot is where the sound at the concert hall is just right. That's why the tickets are more expensive in that spot. People pay big money. Why? To position their ears to hear the concert. The word here to position your hearing, to be swift to do this, is to put your ears that are attached to your heart. That's how we hear. Our heart listens. with spiritual ears. He says to position our heart in such a way that it is very, very in tune with the sweet spot, the message that's being delivered. James is saying, everything I've talked about, trials and tribulations and temptations and difficulty and getting wisdom from God, everything that I've talked about, he says, therefore, put your heart in the sweet spot. Hey, listen, is that where you're at right now? Think about this for a minute. Why did you come here today? Well, I want to hear the word of God. That's good. Are you prepared to hear the word of God? You might be saying, well, I came here because I had to come here. My parents drugged me in here. Well, listen, be that as it may, position your heart right now, young person. Well, I came here because my neighbor's been asking me to come. I just came to shut him up. Hey, that's okay. I don't care what the reason is. Position your heart in the sweet spot. Yesterday, there were some people over and I could hear, I was studying, but I could hear that the music was going on outside and there was a little bit of, I can't hear it, turn it up. And I didn't want it turned up any louder because I'm trying to study. And so I had told my daughter, I said, if you move your chair right over here, you'll hear a lot better. And it sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Just move 10 feet and you'll hear better. And it was true. What about you right now? Who are you? How are you listening? Jesus says in Matthew's gospel, be careful how you hear. Luke's gospel, that is. Be careful how you hear. So right now, position your heart. Just say, I'm here now. I am deciding to put my heart in the sweet spot. That is to be very swift to hear what the word of God has to say. I want to hear from God. So you position your heart. That takes discipline, people.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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Our culture, we live in the amusement culture of the world. Did you know that? We have more amusement parks. We spend an estimated $9 billion a year on amusement. As a nation, we want to be amused. You know what the word amused means? You know, the word muse is a wonderful word. It even appears in the Bible. I will muse on these things. The word muse means I will become engulfed in what I'm concentrating on or what I'm beholding concerning God. You know, maybe a naturalist will go out into the woods and they'll say, I want to eat it all up. I want to be just like... The environment, and they'll muse upon the environment. To amuse, what do you think that means? It means to cut your thinking off, to cut your head off. It means to take your contemplative position and cast it to the wind, and you're just going to take it all upon you without taking anything in. That's why they're amusement parks. They're places to forget life. God says, you don't have to do that. I want you to muse upon what is true. So be careful how you think. Position your heart. I want to hear from God. What is God going to speak to me from his word? That's why we worship before we get into the word. Now, I know as a Christian, it sometimes is hard. And you might get up in the morning with the great intentions of going to church. And you say, come on, let's get in the car. And if you're like our house, I'm saying it's late. It's late. We're late. And, you know, depending upon the mood of the rest of the family, that may or may not go over well. Are you always saying we're late? Well, we're always late. Now, where are we going? We're going to church. What are we doing? Arguing. Driving to church. Pull up in the parking lot. It's funny how just, you know, there's such a power that resides in a church parking lot. Yes. Well, it's the last time. Just forget. It's so weird. You pull in the parking lot. Praise the Lord, brother. How y'all doing? Great. The kids are going, forget this. Now, look, we get up with good intentions. I think the Christian's most difficult day is Sunday. It's got to be tough. You know, because you don't feel like getting dressed, do you? Sunday. You just feel like rolling around, crashing, sleeping in until noon, you know. It's Sunday. We're going to go worship God. Hey, and the enemy goes, oh yeah? You think? over, you know, my cloven-footed body, and he pulls out arrows to try to get you all disrupted so that you just keep driving by the church and wind up going out to dinner instead or breakfast instead thinking we're not even fit to go to church. Oh, no, no, you come to church. You just pull right in and park. You position your heart to here, no matter what the day's been like, even though it's only an hour old. You position your heart. I'm going to hear from the Lord. That's why you are to worship before the word. You listen to the words that you're singing and you say, yes, Lord. And you know, some people will raise their hands. They're not going to be rolling on the floor next. That's not why they're raising their hands. The Bible is calling us to lift up holy hands of prayer. And what they're doing is saying, Lord, I'm making this a prayer of my life. Lord, I lift your name on high. Why? Because I've been doing nothing but lifting up my own self on high, and I'm sick of it. And Lord, I'm here right now to lift you up on high. You see? That positions your heart to receive the Word of God. So be swift to hear. He says slow to speak. Be swift to hear, but be slow to speak. Jesus tells us in the book of Revelation, seven times to the seven words. letters written to the churches he says there he who has ears to hear let him hear what the spirit says to the church well you got to be able to hear so we're to be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath it begins with hearing not only hearing but the word is actually listening we hear all kinds of stuff don't we don't we hear all kinds of stuff all kinds of junk even But what are you listening to? You see, to put your heart in the sweet spot is to be listening, not just hearing. You'll hear all kinds of trash. You might hear good stuff. You might hear garbage. But what are you listening to? It's amazing to think that through this sanctuary right now, there are frequencies of radio stations. You know, there's classical music going through here right now. There's metal. There's acid rock, there's disco. That's a scary thought to think, but there's praise music, there's satanic music, there's all kinds of stuff just going through on the sound waves. You'll never get them, you'll never hear them, or I should say you'll never be able to listen to them, but you could get an oscilloscope set up in here and it can detect them. But what you do is you dial into a frequency if you have a receiver and you can listen to 107.9. and hear Christian teaching and worshipful music. But what happens if you move it over? If you move it just to the right, you'll hear a broadcast out of Tijuana. I can't figure out what they're saying. And me, I don't understand it. Why? You've changed frequencies. To position your heart to be swift to hear is to listen, not only with hearing, but to listen with the intent to ingest what is being given. That's how God wants us to hear right now. To hear with listening. The apostle Paul encourages us to listen with our ears. Jesus says, listen. to what the Spirit is saying. So it's very important that if the Word of God is going to produce within us in a new life, that we be listening and we be careful about it. Zeno, the ancient Greek philosopher, said something that you all know, and you might have heard it in different ways, but he said, we have two ears and we have one mouth. And that is the God's, they believed in multiple gods, that is the God's way of telling us that we should be listening twice as much as we speak. I like what one of the ancient writers also said. He said, you notice that our ears are two. They have holes that are open always to receive all that is spoken. Our mouth, we have but one. And behind it is caged the tongue. And he says, it is God who has placed in front of the tongue an ivory gate to keep it from going wild. The teeth. Isn't that great? Think about it. The teeth. What's it for? Well, this philosopher says it's to keep your mouth, your tongue, back where it belongs. You don't have teeth on your ears. Isn't that great? Well, listen, you've never been talking to somebody and bite your ear. But you have been talking to somebody and you've bitten your tongue. The teeth, I like what he says, are like gates. Maybe we need to look at it like that. Boy, I need to gate up my mouth. One guy said, you know, I have never, I have never at all been saddened or been in trouble for what I didn't say. I have never been brought into question or brought into trouble for what I didn't say. We get in trouble for what we do say because we're so often swift to speak, swift to wrath, slow to hear.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Receiving the Word of Truth. We're glad you could spend some time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. I don't know if I'd call it a bribe, but I make a deal with my eight-year-old grandson. And we pick out a Bible verse that I haven't memorized it and he hasn't memorized it. And the next week, I'll call him to do the next one. And if he has the one from the week before memorized, I put $5 into a bank account for him. And I'm kind of bribing him, but that's all right.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, listen, that's not bribery.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think it's fun.
SPEAKER 02 :
Listen, well, you think it's fun because it's a biblical thing to do. And let me explain. The scripture commands the grandparents to be laying up money for the children. In our culture, we've so abandoned God that now when people grow older, they lean on their children to take care of them. The reverse is biblical. the parent, the grandparent is to labor in such a way that they save up resources for the grandchildren. In this case, it's beautiful because you're teaching your child that good behavior can be rewarded. It doesn't have to be, but in your case, you're doing that. There is a relationship established where you guys are exchanging the word of God together. And the fact that you are putting it in a bank account is actually brilliant because it's teaching him a plethora of things. The Bible, Papa loves the Bible. I want to be like my Papa. We memorize this together. The legacy, let's be honest, the legacy is when you pass into the arms of Jesus, he's going to miss that like crazy. That's a legacy. And that's what you want to experience. But the cool thing is this little account that will build up over time, he will have a great respect I predict a great respect. He's not going to spend that money on bubble gum or some plastic piece of junk because I got that with my papa.
SPEAKER 01 :
This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
This episode of Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs invites listeners to consider how God’s goodness is evident in every aspect of our lives. By examining verses from Ephesians and James, Pastor Hibbs emphasizes how everything that is not sin comes from God, encouraging believers to resist temptations from Satan and instead focus on heavenly gifts. Listeners will gain insights into the biblical assurance that God’s plan is inherently good, designed for personal growth and spiritual maturity. Dive into a compelling discussion that connects the dots between Scripture and everyday experiences, illustrating how God's declarations guide us toward a fulfilling life. Pastor Hibbs’ talks on how our attitudes and perceptions can transform when we acknowledge the divine goodness around us. This episode serves as a reminder for believers to realign their hearts with God’s intentions and find solace in the path He lays out.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
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Romans chapter 1 verse 18 to verse 23 says that God has created us and that his invisible attributes and his godhood has been clearly revealed to his creation so that we stand before God without an excuse.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Did you know there's an easy way to stay informed on the latest biblical events shaping our world today? Check out the Happening Now section at jackhibbs.com. Now, these live events feature Pastor Jack Hibbs alongside special guests diving into current events, cultural shifts, and how they align with biblical prophecy. It's a unique blend of Bible teaching and real-time analysis that helps you make sense of today's headlines through the lens of Scripture. Happening now is not just about information. It's about equipping you with the truth and encouraging you to stand firm in your faith, no matter what's happening around you. Now, these discussions are eye-opening, they're thought-provoking, and they're a great way to stay spiritually grounded in a rapidly changing world. Whether you watch live or catch up on past events, Happening Now will help keep you connected to God's Word and what's going on in the world today. Visit jackhibbs.com and click on Happening Now. Don't just watch the news. Understand it from a biblical perspective. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Considering the Goodness of God. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. And as new believers, James is direct in telling them the true character of God. You see, we really need to understand that God is good. At this very moment, we are receiving his benefits. Every good and perfect thing, as we know, comes from Him. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that God is the origin of all that is good. This means that everything that exists that is not sinful is from God, and His plan? It's good for our lives. Now, with his message called, Considering the Goodness of God, here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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In Ephesians 4, verse 14, the Bible says to the Christian, you don't need to be like a little child anymore, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the slights of men and their cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait or knock on your door, waiting to deceive you. This is what the Bible says, that there are people who are lying in wait to deceive us. Isn't that bizarre? Why can't we all just hug one another and get along? That would be nice, but it doesn't work this way, God shows us in the Bible. There are people there to deceive. Did anyone by any chance, I happen to have been, I don't even know why I did this. I was in the living room. I grabbed the remote. and I turned on to see if any news was on, and it was just the closing segment of Good Morning America last Friday. Did you happen to see that with a Catholic priest and a rabbi? Did you see that? And they were asking children in New York on the street, they can ask questions about God, and these men would answer. And they're all there, and Good Morning America's there, and this one little girl says, why are there so many religions in the world? And both of them go, great question. That's just a great question. She asked a great question. And I'm sitting there going, I wonder if I'm going to hear a great answer. Both of them agreed together and said, honey, all faiths, all religions lead to God and to heaven. That's what they said. I'll have you know that both of the religions that they represent teach the opposite. Judaism and Catholicism teaches the opposite. They don't agree. I got to tell you that all roads lead to God. Oh, no, it's not what the Bible says. Jesus says, I am the only way. I am the only truth. I'm the only life. And no man goes to heaven but through me. Jesus says that there's robbers, deceivers, and thieves coming in the spiritual realm that will deceive us in the last days. He goes on to verse 17 now. Verse 17. Regarding us in verse 16 having to think with intelligence and not with emotion, now he tells us in verse 17 that we need to consider the goodness of God because all that is good originates from God. All that is good originates from God. And I've got to tell you, I have to keep my eye on the clock on this one because I'm so excited about what verse 17 means that I get lost with it. I get overwhelmed by it. This is awesome stuff. Listen to this, verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Now listen to this. This is incredible. When he says... Every good gift, look in your Bible, every perfect gift. Two different Greek words are used. We use two English words, good gift, and then we use two words again, perfect gift. The meaning is this. In the original language, it's every or all. You know what all means? The word all means all, every bit. Every, all, all good gifts and every perfect gift. The word good gift is the word dosis in Greek, and it means not the gift, even though our English makes it look like it's a gift, huh? The good gift, the word dosis means how you give the gift, how you give it. Have you ever received a gift from somebody and you thought it was a cool gift until they gave it to you or they made the announcement? Well, I hope you like it. I won't be eating for a month after the price I'd pay for that. Here, take it, okay? I don't even want it. Oh, no, go ahead and keep it. God knows I'm broke after I bought this. Hey, I don't want the gift. Have you ever had that happen? Hey, here you go, buddy. There it is. Merry Christmas. Bust me an arm and a leg. Hey, keep your arm and your leg. I don't want the gift then. The word dosis means God knows how to give gifts right. He knows how to do it with a class. He gives it, and there's none of that, well, I hope you like it, you ungrateful twit. No. You know, he gives it. That's how he gives the gift. Every good gift. He gives it good. And the word perfect gift is a totally different word. That word is dorema. And the word dorema is the complete or exactly what is needed gift. And you say, well, that's cool. I like this. I like this a lot. Are you ready? Hang on to your seats. It's in relation and in response to verses 1 through 15. Everything that's good, trials, difficulty, money management, the lack of wisdom and having to cry out to God for it, God says, it's good. It's just exactly what you need to be crying out to me about. Now, right now, okay, decide right now. I don't know if I like this. There you go. You and I are being tempted right now to think emotionally in our experience with God or biblically, aren't you? It's funny, isn't it? God says, that big health crisis you're going through right now could be a life and death situation. I've engineered it for your absolute goodness and perfection as a believer. Our emotions say, you can just keep it. Don't they? See, that's what you and I struggle about. I want, I want, I want. I've got this plan. I think it should go this way. Don't we lecture God all the time? Excuse me, God, I think it should go this way. And if you know what's good for you, you'll listen to what I have to say. Oh, God says, listen, sweetheart, you don't know what's good for you. I know exactly what you need to prepare you for eternal life. And so that's why you have this situation. God says, I'm doing to you exactly the right thing, but it's limited, verse 16 told us, to brethren. Are you this morning a Christian? Are you sure? Do you want Christ? Do you want him? Do you believe he died on the cross for you, that he rose again from the dead? Then stop complaining. Jack, stop complaining. Rick, John, Mike, stop complaining. We need to give up and say, Lord, I believe what your Bible has to say. I feel totally different about it. You see? Can you imagine? You're hungry. So you eat. Your body's telling you to eat. I don't want to eat. Little kids are great for this. I remember being a little guy and ditching my meal so I could play with my friends because the sun was going down. Come in and eat. I don't want to eat. I know I should eat. I'm growing. But I would ditch the meal because I want to be with my friends longer. You got to eat. Your body says you got to eat. But you're choosing not to eat. Think about it. You know, we just went through, right? All of us just went through April 15th. And it says you have to pay the government this much. I don't want to. You see, you laugh because you're going to. Isn't that something? You owe us this much. I owe them. But them are me. I am the government. Thus, we are me. We are us. I am us. I'm not going to pay me nothing. You see? It's like you try to justify it. No, the fact of the matter is, you will pay the IRS. Your emotions say, uh-uh, but the law says, uh-huh, and it will happen. God says regarding this, that His activity to us is good, and it is good in all ways. And this is the wonderful thing, It's the gifts from above. And you can mark this in your Bible. From above, it implies against verse 15, where the flesh, the world, and Satan tempts us, and temptation, and the geographical location of man's mind is where's the devil? Beneath. Where's the earth? Around us. Where's the problem? In me. But the good stuff comes from God above. What good stuff? All of the good things. to the point that it's kind of eye-opening. And this is what's exciting. All things that are not, listen, all things that are not evil temptations come from God. The carpet. See this carpet? I know it's ugly, but it's come from God. You might say, well, that's ridiculous. Oh, no, just wait. I'm just getting started on this. The clothes you're wearing has come from God. The aspirin you're gonna take after I give you a headache today? The aspirin, the aspirin has come from God. I thought man made it. No, they didn't. God gave them the idea. The chemicals and the products that they use to create the aspirin, where do you think they came from? God. When a surgical procedure is created and used to save life, who gave that? God did. All of a sudden, he who looks and cares about one little sparrow falling to the ground which you don't even care about, God does all the time around the world, constantly. He cares so much that it is God in our lives that when we get up in the morning and say, what a beautiful sunrise. You know who did that? God did that. In fact, it is so technical, the terms that are used here, that God knows where you're gonna be at tonight's sunset. He knows what you're gonna be seeing. This is the omniscience of God. He knows. He's all-knowing. And from your vantage point, you're going to see sun rays coming through a cloud, and you're going to say, wow, God did that for you. And listen, here's the tragic part, Christian. You and I are really goofing up if we don't see God in it. If we go, what a nice sunset. Thank you, Mother Nature. Who? Who? That is so stupid. Mother Nature is for people who don't know God. God does it. And we're going to go, praise God. That's awesome. Thanks for the sunset. Hey, man, whatever's going on, no matter how simple it is, no matter how you think God doesn't care about this, He does care. It says right here that everything that is good, which is not sinful temptation, has come from Him. The problem is our mismanagement of what God gives us. He gives a good thing, we pervert it, make it a bad thing. God gave sex, what does the world do? Pervert it, mess it all up. God gives life, what does the world do? Kill it. God gives money, what does the world do? Abuse it. God ordains authority, what does the world do? Crush people with it. You see, everything that comes down outside of evil temptation, is from God, everything. The temperature of the sanctuary. The ladies are saying, not good. Very important.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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The Bible says in Psalm 84, 11, no good thing will I withhold from those who walk with me. Isn't that great? Do you want a good life? Does anybody want a good life in here? Raise your hand. Do you want a good life? Walk with him. God says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, they are what? Good thoughts. You see, you can't believe that verse in Jeremiah 29, 11 unless you believe God is good. The problem is many of us are like the rich young ruler. We acknowledge the fact that he's good, but we're not willing to follow him. That's sad. He loves us and he wants to bless us. It says that these good things come from above in opposition to what comes from beneath. Then it says in verse 17, and comes down from the father of lights. And this is very wonderful. The father of lights. Notice that in your Bible, it is not the father of light. You know, the Bible does say that God is light, right? That he is light. But here it says that he's the father of lights, plural. And the word in the Greek is illuminators or illuminations, plural. We don't say the word illuminations, but that's what it means. All lights, the candlelight has come from God, right? You see now how this is going to dovetail together. Candlelight? Oh, yeah. You see with it. It has come from God. The campfire fire there, it's come from God. The warmth that it gives, the power that it gives, the light that it gives, it's come from God. All of a sudden, I don't know about you, but I see this message as one that you and I have a hard time with. But if I went across the street to the children's sanctuary, they would grab it like this. You know why? That's how they think. You hear them. Don't you hear them? The little kids, thank you God for the aunt. Did you say thank you for auntie, auntie, you know, auntie whoever, auntie Ann? No, I said thank you God for the aunt while you're killing them in your kitchen. That's how kids are. They talk about butterflies. And you ask them, who made the butterfly? Charles Darwin. No, they don't. They don't say, the evolutionary process, which is non-scientific and doesn't apply to any of the known sciences. No, they don't say that. Ask a kid, who made the butterfly? God did. They know this. Romans chapter 1 verse 18 to verse 23 says that God has created us and that his invisible attributes and his godhood has been clearly revealed to his creation so that we stand before God without an excuse. Professing to be wise, we become fools because we have in fact suppressed the righteousness of God. That's the perfect description of evolution and atheism. You want to You want to wig out your professor at school? Try this. It's truth. Just do it after you get your grade. Go to her or go to him and say, based upon Romans 1, verses 18 to 22, I know that every day of your waking life, you struggle with the fear and concept that God is true. Did you know that's a fact? God says, I argue inside of every man's heart my existence. So when that guy is standing there saying, well, you know, this is the evolutionary chain and this is the deal and there is no God. You know, the moment he says that there is no God inside of him, I promise you, and those of you who may be atheists, you know this is true. You know it's true because I remember how it was true in my heart. God does not exist. It's a myth. It's a fairytale. And inside, right when you say that, you're hearing inside your very core being, you're hearing, man, I sure hope this is a myth. I sure hope he doesn't exist. What if he does exist? Man, am I in trouble. Then I'll have to be accountable for all the things I'm doing wrong. How can I think if anything's wrong if God doesn't exist? To know right from wrong is to admit that God is true. There must be absolute truth. See, all this stuff's going on in your teacher's head when he's talking. God exists. No, he can't exist. He can't exist. They struggle with it. Who says the Bible says Romans chapter 1 says it? They're being deceived. Now, the fact of the matter is God does exist. He loves us. Everything good comes from above. All you have to do is get a microscope and look and see what's there proclaiming the goodness of God. It's incredible. It's all there. It comes from the Father of lights. And the word means not only, as in Genesis chapter 1, verses 14 and on, not only the sun and the stars, but all light, fire, things like this. Lightning comes from God, though. Anything that lights comes from God. That's why Satan desires to manifest himself as an angel of... Light. To deceive people because people naturally, internally know that light has come from above. God's written it on our hearts. It makes sense. It's a divine manifestation. And by the way, where hell is, God is not. Where God is not, that's where hell is. Heaven is full of light. In fact, the Bible says in the book of Revelation, there's no need for the sun or the moon because God is the light. But in hell, the Bible says that it is exterios skotos, outer blackness, the deepest of darkness. That's called hell. It is where God is not. Absolute darkness. That's what hell is like. Totally black. You can't see past your eyes. Completely black. That's hell. God says, I'm light. Don't you want to be where there's light? God says, then you come and be on my side. Choose me. And then finally this, verse 18. He is saying, to consider God's goodness is to realize that God's got a plan for our lives. He says, of his own will, he has brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Of his own will. The word is that he has decreed it so. You can just make a mental note. He has decreed it so of his own will. Of his own will what? He's brought us forth by the word of truth. Hey, listen, not only were you born by the will of God, but if you've given your heart to Jesus Christ, you've been born again by the will of God. In 1 Peter, 1 Peter tells us that he has begotten us again. Well, when did he begotten us the first time? When he gave us life. John chapter 1 and 1 John chapter 1 tells us that God has given us light and life. You see, that's why abortion is so wrong. It takes away what God has intended to be. We... Assume the position over God or murder. The Bible says in the Old Testament, thou shalt not murder. Why? It's taking the position of God. He gave it. Man should not take it away. We're out of our realm. We have violated the rule of God. You see? And so his own will, by his will, he has brought us forth into existence. And all of a sudden, this should bring us comfort. Are you going through difficulties and trying times? God gave you life, and not only that, he gave you a new life in Jesus, born again. The trials that you're going through has been brought to you by God. This trial brought to you by God. It's exactly true in your life. Well, that's true for them and him and her and those guys, but not for me. Listen, you're dead wrong, friend. The difficulty you're in right now has been brought to you by God. Remember from last week, don't blame Him for evil temptations. That doesn't come from Him. But the trial you're in, if it's not evil temptation, it is of God. If it is of an evil temptation, it is from Satan and it must be resisted. God is so good.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Considering the Goodness of God. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey, Pastor Jack, there's a pretty cool book that you've actually read. Yeah. I've peeked at it. It's One Day Nearer by Steve Miller.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
You like it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Listen, I love it. I'm encouraging everybody to get their hands on this. That's why it's being featured with us right now, Davey. One Day Nearer. It's a daily devotion. Here's what's cool about it. Anticipating the Lord's return. It's 365 days of worship. scripture verses that walk you through how the believer should be living with the expectation. You know, throughout the theology of the scriptures, the believer is to be waiting constantly. The Bible makes it clear. Jesus even makes a strong argument how in the parable of the ten virgins, they were to endure waiting for His imminent return. They didn't know when He was coming, but they were to be prepared for His coming. And this is actually a great book because it keeps you every day in the mindset that today could be the day, or this year could be the year. And somebody might say, well, nobody knows the day or the hour. Of course that's true. Nobody knows the day or the hour. The point is this, friend. Every day that you get up, you are one day nearer to the return of the Lord. And this is a great book. Steve Miller is a friend. He is a great author, and he has put out a great book. Please get your hands on it, everybody. You will not be disappointed, I promise. Make sure you make it part of your 365-day experience with One Day Near with author Steve Miller.
SPEAKER 01 :
One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he leads us through an enlightening discussion on the Book of James, focusing on the message Considering the Goodness of God. Understand the profound impact that true, actionable faith can hold over deceptive emotions and learn how to anchor your beliefs in the steadfast word of God. Through historical examples and personal reflections, this episode invites you to examine your relationship with God and challenge yourself to live in a way that reflects His goodness to those around you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
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Very important. We are prone to deception. Every one of us, it's in us. And James is saying the Christian can stop being deceived. Why? Because God's on the throne and the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Looking for real answers in real time? JackHibbs.com is your go-to destination for resources on faith, world events, and everything in between. Explore Happening Now, where Pastor Jack Hibbs takes a timely, no-nonsense look at today's biggest issues, blending biblical insight with the latest headlines. Now, whether you're curious about the world around you or you want guidance on a personal level, Pastor Jack has you covered. And, by the way, don't miss the Real Life Network. It's packed with relatable, family-friendly content that really speaks to everyday challenges and triumphs, offering something really valuable for every member of your family. Now, if you're new to the faith, you want to refresh your perspective, start with that tab that says Know God, an accessible, welcoming space to learn and reflect and find your footing. Now, whatever your path, jackhibbs.com has the tools and the insights and the encouragement that you need. Tune in, log on, find something real. Once again, the website jackhibbs.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Considering the Goodness of God. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. And as new believers, James is direct in telling them the true character of God. You see, we really need to understand that God is good. At this very moment, we are receiving his benefits. Every good and perfect thing, as we know, comes from Him. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that we may already understand that God is good, but do we really believe that He is good all the time? Our emotions, if we lean on them, they really can lead us in the wrong direction. But as Christians, we're not led by our feelings, but by our faith in God. Now with his message called, Considering the Goodness of God, here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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Read in our Bibles that God is good. Psalm 73.1, which is a great verse to teach children, their first verse. Psalm 73.1, truly God is good. Why start there? Because you know what? Many of us, being adults, we still haven't caught on to the reality of the fact that God is good. We can mouth it, we can say it all we want, and the fact of the matter is we need to consider God's goodness. That God is in fact good. And we're going to look very, very closely into the fact of why do I, as a Christian, really argue with God and really confront Him about Him being good or not? We actually challenge God regarding this issue. Is He good? Now, in a gathering like this, I mean, we all want a safe face, right? And we all want to be scripturally accurate and say, oh, God is good. But is He really, in our logic and in our thinking? By nature he is, but do we know his nature? What this morning can the world, the flesh, and Satan do to you, do to me, that can cause you and I to say, you know what, God, what are you doing? God, what's up? God, I don't agree. What is it that this world can do to us that can get us to cave in and then begin to accuse God that he is in fact not good? And all of us are prone to this. And it is a very, very dangerous thing because Satan, the world, the flesh will pick up on it. And so the title of the message is Considering the Goodness of God. Verse 16. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. And of his own will... He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures, our creation, considering the goodness of God. In Matthew's gospel, chapter 19, you know the story. Jesus was there ministering and on his way to minister again. And one came to him running up and said, good teacher. What good thing shall I do that I might inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to this man who you know as the rich young ruler, remember him? Jesus turned to him and said, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, and that is God. But if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, keep the commandments. And the man said to Jesus, Which ones? Which ones? Isn't that funny? Which ones? Jesus says, You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus listed six of the lower portion of the ten. He didn't start with the first six. He started with the last six, leaving out the first four. Now look what the man's response was. He says, Lord, our master, our teacher, Jesus, I've done all these things from my youth. What lack I yet? You see, he's still aware of the fact that he lacks something to go to heaven. And Jesus said, go sell everything that you have and come and follow me. Now, do you have to sell everything you have to follow Jesus? No. But if you're this rich young ruler, you do. Why? Because Jesus did not mention the first four of the Ten Commandments. He mentioned the last six. Because the last six have to deal with man and our dealings with one another. And so this rich young ruler said, I do all these things. I honor my mom and dad. I bless everybody around me. I'm a good guy. I'm a very good guy. And Jesus says, that's great. But go and sell all that you have. Immediately, Jesus' challenge took him right to the very first commandment. That shall not have any other God before me. You see, this man had all kinds of gods before Jesus. He was rich. He was young. He was a ruler. He was a yuppie. But you know what? He lacked the things... in his heart to be committed to God because he loved things. He loved things of this world. And so the Bible says that that man went away sad. Now, Jesus is not against you having things. Jesus is dead set against you loving them. Why? Because it breaks your heart. It leads you to ruin. It destroys your life. Jesus is to be number one. But this young man said, good master. And Jesus says, why do you call me good? Here's what he's doing. Why do you call me good? There's only one good and that's God. And I must be? See, he wanted to hear the man confess, you must be God. But this man recognized that Jesus was good. You know, in our day, we say good morning, good afternoon. We say good night. And you know that has been shortened. It originally, the whole concept was that good, in all ancient languages, good referred to God. God does good. The Bible says that God is good. Good is a nature of God. That's why the Bible says that no human being does good. Sounds kind of offensive, doesn't it? But even at our best attempts, God knows our motive, and even our great outward exhibition of benevolence might have a very rotten motive behind it, you know? And God says in the Bible, no man does good, but God does good. And when he called Jesus good, just like in our culture, we say the word good, we're meaning that there is something better. And so when we say good morning, it used to be in all of the known world, God's morning to you. God's morning to you, brother. When we said good afternoon, what we really are doing, we've changed the words to say good afternoon to God's afternoon to you or good. Good evening was God's evening to you. In fact, you know the word goodbye? You know how it's spelled B-Y-E? Because it is an alteration from the original foundation of what it meant. It was God be with ye. That's when you said goodbye to somebody. It was God be with you. God be with you. But what do we do? We change it to goodbye. Goodbye. God be with you is what it means, but is that what we mean when we say it? No, we don't. When somebody says God is good, what do you mean when you say it? God is good, let's be honest. Are we thinking God is good sometimes? Let's be honest. Are we saying that God is good most of the time? Are we saying that God is good nine-tenths out of the time? The fact of the matter is God is good all the time. But do we believe it? Do we hold to it? Do we understand that? This morning we'll see in our message that we really need to cling to the fact that God is in fact not only good, he's very good. Very, very good. And so right now in your mind, let it register. When I ask you this question, what's wrong? What's wrong with you inside? Just hold it in your head. What's wrong in your life right now? I'm bored. Okay, put that right there. I'm broke. Put that there. I'm whatever. Put it right there. And consider the goodness of God in light of it. Okay, now let's watch this. James 1, verse 16. We need to consider the goodness of God and we need to think with intelligence. Verse 16, he says, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Let's look at it this way. My beloved brethren, first of all, beloved is a term that God uses, beloved. It means this, that we are brothers and sisters in the faith. We're Christians. James is talking to the Christian this morning and he is saying, you're beloved by God. God loves you much. Now, you may feel like it or you may not feel like it. That's not the issue. It doesn't matter. You may have come to faith in Jesus Christ, but this morning you don't feel saved. You feel something other. I don't care what you feel. The Bible doesn't care what you feel. The Bible says you are or you are not. You are trusting the Lord and you're his child or you're not. It's not prone to feelings. That's why the Bible says that we are to come to God in what? Feelings? No, in faith. Faith is void of feelings. Why? Listen, faith is founded upon the facts revealed in the Bible. That's our faith. Our faith is not some blind faith. Don't ever let somebody tell you, oh, you stupid Christians. You go to church, you're blind. Oh, I'm not about to have blind faith and believe in God. Hey, none of us have blind faith. The only way that you can have blind faith is if you are ignorant concerning that which you're trusting in. Are you trusting in something outside of God? Then you do have blind faith. But if you're trusting in God, your faith is founded upon the facts of God. Do you know this? You need to know this and I need to know it because our emotions, our feelings will lead us astray. That's why he uses the word, do not be deceived. Those of us who are loved by God, those of us who are Christians, who have come to faith in Christ, he says, don't be deceived. Now listen to this. This is rather alarming. The word do not be is the word may in the Greek, and it's a negative statement. And by the way, it's in the continuous sense. He says here, stop being deceived. Stop it. It's a command by James. And you know, we're not shy in our understanding of James, are we? He's a hard-hitting guy. James says... you know, hard. He says, be a Christian and walk like one. He's going to talk to us pretty soon about having faith in God and having works in God. And James is going to say, those of you who claim to be Christians, I don't want to hear it. That's what James says. He'll say it in a few chapters. I don't want to hear it. That's what he would say. A little cute little guy would come up, a little Jewish guy. Remember, he's the half-brother of Jesus Christ. Matthew 13, 55 tells us this. James would have come up and he would have said, I don't want to hear about you being a Christian. In the grandpa kind of Sergeant Carter format, he would say, I want to see it. And in our culture, we'd go, oh, he's hurting my feelings. Oh, he's judging me. That's exactly what James is doing. He's judging you not with condemnation, but with or for approval. James says, you call yourself a Christian, you have faith in God, let's see it. James is saying, I don't care what you say with your mouth open. James puts his fingers in his ears, and he goes, I don't want to hear it. I want to see it. James says, I want to spend one month with you, four weeks. I want to spend four weeks with you, and I want to hear a word. I want to be convinced at the end of four weeks that you are following Jesus Christ by how you live. Day in, day out. Over the long haul, James says, I want to be convinced. I don't care what you say. Don't put your sticker on your car. A lot of born-again cars driving around town. You notice that? Got the fish on there, got the dove on there just for insurance. And if you're insecure, you slap a rapture sticker on the bumper. This car will be unmanned in the event of a rapture. I hope so. I hope that you're not the one standing on the freeway and your car gets raptured because we had a lot of believing cars. Oh, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I go to church once a week or once every Easter. I go to church. God doesn't care. He wants to know how we are day in, day out, day in, day out. That's how James is. That's why he's going to say, don't tell me you have faith. I want to see your faith by your works. You see, all of a sudden, this is very convicting. If you're not convicted, then you have, in fact, while I've been speaking, have fallen asleep. This is convicting.
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You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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If somebody lived with you, trafficked with you, commuted with you, worked with you, who was deaf, and the only way that... A message could be preached to them as by how you and I lived. At the end of four weeks, would they say, he knows God? They might say, I hate him. They might say, I hate you. They might say, they disagree with you. They might say, you drive them nuts. But the thing is, they would have to confess, they believe in God. If that is not true regarding your life and my life, then we have in fact deceived ourselves and we're not Christians at all. We're pretenders. We have, in fact, become religious, and we don't have a relationship with God at all. And I pray that that's not the situation for our hearts this morning. This is serious stuff. Consider the goodness of God. Don't be deceived. Verse 16 links together verses 1 through 15 and verse 17 to the close of the chapter. James is saying, don't be deceived about trials. Can you jot that down? Don't be deceived about trials. Don't be deceived about the money management. Remember, we studied that a couple weeks ago. Don't be deceived about that. Don't be deceived about wisdom. Don't be deceived about temptation. We covered that last week. He says, stop it. And here's the amazing part of this passage. The word do not be is the word stop being deceived. And it implies that the human nature, all of us, All of us are prone to being deceived. That's what this word teaches us right here, verse 16, that you and I are easily deceived. Now, I don't know about you. I'm a guy, and I find that highly offensive because guys will never admit that we're being deceived. I mean, we'll even lie about it. He tricked you. No, he didn't. I knew what was going on. I just wanted to see where he was. We are something. But this passage tells us that it's human nature to be deceived. And because we're Christians, we don't have to be deceived anymore. You may say, well, I don't even know what you're talking about. Yes, you do. Example? Somebody knocks on your door and they're selling super-duper vacuums. And they're combing the area. And there's this guy, he's standing there and his shirt's unplugged, or unplugged, his shirt's untucked. And you know, he's got a booger hanging out of one nose. His hair's not combed. He's got bad breath. And he says, I'm representing the greatest vacuum known to man. And you're going, okay, I need a vacuum. Okay, you have need of a vacuum. There's a vacuum guy at your door. He's selling the super duper vacuum. You need what he's got. But his partner shows up, and he's got a three-piece suit on. His shoes are so shiny, you can see yourself in them. His breath smells like a forest, evergreen, wonderful. He's got blue eyes, and his hair is perfect, and he's just something. And he's selling super-duper vacuums. Which one will you spend more eye contact with? Which one will you listen to the most? Which one will you probably sign the deal with? Look, if you think you're going to go with a guy with a booger hanging out of his nose with his clothes unplugged, untucked, untucked, you're crazy because it's human nature to gravitate to what looks good. That's why you're wearing what you're wearing right now because you looked in your closet and you said, this looks good. I'm going to put these shoes on because they look good. And, you know, you came here because you, you know, didn't want to come here, you know, in what you look bad in. Why? Because it's important. Appearance is important. How do I look while I'm doing this? Did you get me? Did you get me like this? It's important to us. And we, because that's us, we can easily be deceived. And... Something comes on the scene or someone or some program and it looks like this and we go for it. There may be a great presentation on one side of the auditorium or convention center and a great presentation on the other side. And whichever one has done the advertising better usually gets you. Very important. We are prone to deception. Every one of us. It's in us. And James is saying the Christian can stop being deceived. Why? Because God's on the throne and the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts. And this is true for every aspect of our lives. What people say, what we see, and what we hear. He says stop being deceived. Now listen. All of us struggle with this. James is saying concerning the things of God, don't be deceived. He's telling us to use our heads over our emotions, to be intelligent about what we decide to do. And you might say, well, Jack, what are the... Of course, I've given it a lot of thought and I'm going to make the intelligent decision. Are you sure? Am I sure? I will either be led down a path emotionally, which is void often of logic, or with intelligence. I'm not talking about whoever's got the best IQ in here is going to make the right decisions. What I am saying is whoever runs to the word of God first wins. I know what the Bible says, but I feel... Listen, as a pastor, I die when I hear this. I just cringe. I can't believe what I'm hearing this. I know I'm a Christian. I know the Bible says this, but I feel... What does this thing feel? Emotions will lead us astray. Intelligent, logic, Bible will keep us from being deceived. Well, I feel like I need, be careful. What does God say you need? You see this? Anybody see this? This strikes home. Watch this. And we almost had a riot last night when I said this, so guard the doors. What did Jesus tell Nicodemus? To get to heaven, he must be what? Can you say it? Born again. Does that mean Nicodemus had to be born again to get to heaven? Are you sure? Yeah, because Jesus said it. That's Bible. Will you get to heaven not being born again? No. Does everybody who goes to heaven do or did they have the need to be born again? Yes. What about if you're really good? If you're really good, do you have to be born again? No. If Mother Teresa was not born again, does she go to heaven? But she was good. She was nice. Now, I've read some things about Mother Teresa, and I believe she is in heaven because of what she said about Jesus Christ as being her God, her Lord, her Savior, and that he died on the cross for her sins and rose again for him. Being a Catholic or being a Calvary Chapel person or a Methodist or a Lutheran or whatever doesn't get you to heaven. Do you understand that? It's being what? It has nothing to do with being good. Now, that either offended you, scared you, or you said, amen, exactly. You see? Now, right now, you're dealing with emotions, aren't you, right now? Some of you are dealing with emotions. Your emotional-ism is vying for control over your biblical knowledge and what the Bible has to say. Be careful. You see how easy we can be led astray? Someone knocks on your door with a briefcase. Nice suit. Smells good. Looks good. Dressed nice. Got a briefcase and got the Awake magazine. 49 cents. No, I'm not going to buy your magazine. You're nice. You look good. You may be very good. But the Bible says that the Watchtower organization, Jehovah Witnesses, are pushing a false doctrine and its damnable heresy. But they look good. Yeah, I know they look good. Isn't that sad? Somebody knocks on your door. Looks just as good. Nice suit, nice hair, everything great. And speed parked out front. Very good people. But they don't believe what the Bible teaches. But they'll tell you different at the door. We're very good. I want them to go to heaven. So do I want them to go to heaven. I want them to go too. But what does God say? You see, all of a sudden now our hearts are torn because it is what the Bible says versus what emotions want to dictate. And you see how easily we can be led astray? Don't be deceived.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Considering the Goodness of God. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Pretty good question that changes everything about how we live. In a world filled with distractions and uncertainty, One Day Nearer is the book by Steve Miller. It's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack Hibbs. It invites you to refocus on what truly matters, living with the hope of Christ's return. Now, this powerful book offers biblical insight and practical encouragement Helping you approach every moment with faith and purpose and joy because each day, no matter how ordinary it seems, brings us closer to the extraordinary reality of eternity with Him.
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It's a 365-day devotion, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Don't just get through your days. Live them. with the anticipation of what's to come. One Day Nearer, it's our book of the month. It's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Temptation is an inevitable part of the Christian journey, but understanding its purpose and overcoming it is vital for spiritual growth. Pastor Jack Hibbs shares insights from biblical teachings, emphasizing the role of faith and God's promises in navigating temptation. Through vivid analogies and scriptural references, he provides practical steps for resisting the lure of sin and finding joy in the divine process of overcoming challenges guided by God's love and providence.
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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God is using little wimpy you and me to whip Satan's kingdom now. It seems crazy, doesn't it? We can't even see our enemy. He's invisible. He's been living for eons. We, such a short period of time, but we have the Holy Spirit living in us and God will use us to overthrow the kingdom of darkness.
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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Well, that's the life-changing perspective explored in One Day Nearer by Steve Miller. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack. Now, this inspiring book helps you focus on the hope that Jesus is returning. And this book offers practical encouragement to live each day with faith, purpose, and joy. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Why Am I Being Tempted? See, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. but as new believers they really struggled with temptation you see the devil's desire is to speak lies to us using temptation but it's the lord's desire to help us to overcome temptation and give to us the crown of life which by the way he's promised to those who love him so today pastor jack teaches that god loves us and he's for us he even likes us believe it or not so then why are we being tempted well it's so that we might know the will of god because he knows what's best for us now with his message called why am i being tempted here's pastor and bible teacher jack hibbs psalm 138 verse 8 says the lord will complete that which concerns me
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Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. Isn't that something? God says, I promise to work with you. And he's working on us. And the pot or the vessel speaks back to the potter because God's the potter. He's molding. He's shaping. We're on the thing spinning around. Lord, don't forsake the work of your hands. Well, he comes back and says, no, no. Kidding, I'm not. He's doing it, he created us, he's molding us. It's like we're on the wheel and we're worrying about it. Are you gonna give me a handle and a spout? Are you gonna throw me off the table? Just let him do his work. Well, how does he do it? With trials, difficulty. Why? Because he's gonna put you on display in the end. He's going to have you cross the line. We're going to win. He's promised. 1 Peter 1, verse 5 says, We who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation is ready to be revealed in these last days. In this you greatly rejoice. In what? That we're saved. Though now for a little while, if need be, Isn't that weird? You love somebody you've never seen before. You know how stupid that sounds? Who do you love? Jesus. Have you seen him? No. Have you heard his voice? Not exactly. How do you know he's real? Just do. Isn't that weird? We are a bunch of weirdos, if you think about it. In whom having not seen, we love him. Though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, which is what? The salvation of your souls. All right, that's good. God loves us. God's for us tonight. You may be feeling a little down. This really ministers to me when I think about this. I know God loves me. The Bible says He loves me. I know He's for us. But you know what I like to hear? God likes me. God likes you. Really? Yes. I didn't think anybody liked me. I mean, my mother has to love me. But God likes me? Yeah, He likes you. You know when you're liked? When you're liked, people want to hang out with you. When you're light, somebody will say, well, where are you going? Over here. Can I come? Isn't that a warm feeling? They just want to hang out. Jesus says, well, what are you doing today? Oh, I've got to go to work. Can I come? Oh, yeah, sure. He likes us. If he was walking the earth right now and limited to one spot, do you know what I think his great burden would be? to go visit all of his churches. Hi, you guys. How you doing? He likes us. The second thing we need to see tonight regarding our lives and being tempted is in verse 13, so that we might better know the will of God. Verse 13, so that we might better know the will of God. He says, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. Now listen to this. We have to hurry here. Let no one say that when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God. This is a rebuke. that James is saying. He's saying, by the way, the word, this tempted word is the word that is a verb. It means that when the temptation attacks you, now watch this, when the temptation comes out after you or parades in front of you, watch this, it parades in front of you, you cannot say, oh no, oh, God's the one who's tempting me. I've got to go and sin, God's tempting me. You might say, well, that's stupid. Who would say that? I don't know. I hear it all the time. I hear it all the time from people. Maybe not in that word. Maybe in a different word like, well, why did God let me do this? Have you ever heard that before? That is absolute sin of some of the worst kind. It is to say, God tempts with evil. That's what you're saying. Well, if God is God and he's powerful, why did he let me fall like this? That's horrible. That is to say that God has tempted you with evil and he's pulled you away with evil, which implies that he is unrighteous, that he's a liar, that he's a cheat, that he wants your destruction. When we say, well, if God's God, why didn't he just cause that situation to be remote from me? No, God gave you feet to run with. This is a fallen world we're living in, friend, and God wants us to get away from what is evil. He's warned us. The fact of the matter is when somebody indicts themselves by saying such things, what they're really saying is, I don't know anything about the will of God. I scarcely know God. I don't read my Bible and I'm confused. And they blame God. They begin to blame him for their situation. They don't know the will of God better. They lash out and they say, let no one say, or James is saying, don't say that you're tempted by God because God can't be tempting you. He won't do that. Oh God, somebody knocked on my door and they were pushing drugs. And I just fell right out of my screen door and got hooked on heroin. God, why'd you do that? He doesn't do that. He's not that way. By the way, Abraham was tempted. He was tempted. He panicked. He took his eyes off of God. He panicked and he left Israel. where he was supposed to be and where'd he go? Went to Egypt, got in big trouble. Lot was tempted. He saw the well-watered plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he said, oh man, that looks good. Great place for a golf course in this climate, it's perfect. And he took off down there. He blew it. David, David looked at Bathsheba. It wasn't the first look that was the problem. In fact, David probably went, oh, man. And then when he looked back, it was the second look that killed him. Remember, being tempted is not the sin. Letting it in, entertaining it. is what kills kings and ruins kingdoms. 1 Corinthians 15.33 says, do not be deceived, evil company corrupts good behavior. Very important passage of scripture when you consider the fact that we ought to know the will of God and we cannot say that our particular environment is what's leading us to sin, although it can entice us. The fact is we give in to what is being paraded in front of us. Verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. Again, we talked about the blaming of God. Another thing that manifests itself, when a person is not trusting God and doesn't know the will of God, they'll blame others for their fallen condition. They'll blame God or they'll blame others or they'll blame those that are around them or their environment. It's this country or it's this country. law that's in effect or whatever it might be. They're blaming God, they're blaming others. In fact, we call this self-justification. If at any time somebody has fallen down in sin, Christian or not, doesn't matter. And you speak to them about their condition and they justify how they fell, why they fell and where they have fallen. If they justify it, know this, there's no repentance in their heart. They're in fact blaming God, they're blaming the city, or they're blaming you. And there's no repentance in such a thing. We are to know and understand God's will regarding temptation. Evil company. God doesn't want us in the midst of evil company. We so often fall down because we get into situations that he doesn't want us to be in.
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You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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James chapter 4, verses 1 through 4 says, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your own desires for pleasure? Yeah. that war in your members? You lust and you don't have, you murder and you covet and you don't obtain, you fight and you war, yet you do not have because you do not ask from God. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your own pleasures. James is so subtle, adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is warfare against God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend with the world makes himself an enemy of God. And that's serious. Stop justifying your condition. Repent of it and get back home to God. Know what God's will is, that He doesn't tempt us with evil. God doesn't cause us to stumble. I've gotten away from church. I've gotten away from the Bible. I'm not praying anymore. I'm kind of just, you know, popping some beers every now and then, doing a little coke, you know, just recreational stuff. You know, the Lord just kind of just put me out the pasture a little bit. That's blasphemy. The Lord? By the way, you know what? Well, I'm just tired of hearing that. I hear it all the time. I don't know what Jesus is doing in my life. Well, what's happened? I've been sleeping with this guy, and I got really sick, and I've got this disease, and I don't know what God's doing to me. I hear this. Excuse me, you got a disease because you're sleeping with this guy, and God didn't want this to happen. You see, people blame him. They're not meant to be. It's not new to us, though. We're kind of looking like, there, Remember Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve had sinned? Remember they're in the garden, they're sewing, they got their sewing machine out there, man, sewing all these fig leaves together, branches and palm trees and bark and everything. Look like Al Gore on Earth Day, you know, out there. Genesis 3, 8 says, and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called out to Adam and said, now follow along with me, listen carefully. Where are you, Adam? Okay, the next time God says, where are you, Jack? This is what we learn from this story. Jump out from the bushes and say, I'm right here. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it. You know what God would do if we would do that? He'd say, okay, come here. Come here. It's all right. You're okay. Why? Repentance is already in the heart. I'm so sorry. Okay, come here, come here, come here. It's okay, it's okay. You know, if Adam, if Adam would have said, we're over here, we're over here, we blew it. You know what? I believe with all of my heart. I believe it. I think it's biblically correct that God would have said, come here, come here. You're okay. But no. What do they do?
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Shh, shh.
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Don't say no. And E's probably going, don't say a word. Boy, I love when little kids, man, when they're busted, did you do that? The jaw's flapping, the ears, they're welling up. Oh man, that's when you pick them up and say, it's okay, kiddo, don't do it again, okay? It's when they go, no, I didn't do it. I don't know who did it. That's when you've got to, you know, get out the whatever you use. Where are you? And so he said, finally, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the fruits of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? Of course, God knew this. He's trying to get a confession from him. Then the man said, are you ready? I accept full responsibility. God, lay it on me. The first thing out of Adam's mouth, the first thing, it's that woman you gave me. Can you believe it? It says it right here in your Bible. Did you do something wrong? It was that woman, Lord, I don't know what got into her. So then God says, woman, what did you do? And she says, you know that rotten snake? She goes right to the snake, and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on. Adam, woman. Eve, snake. Snake turns around. Pass the buck. Pass the buck. Don't ever underestimate the human potential to justify their condition. That's why repentance from a life that is away from God is one of the most impossible things to even see happen. But thank God through his divine intervention, it is possible. People turn. So funny. Fact is, Satan can tempt us as he did our mom and dad in the beginning in the garden, but they didn't have to yield to it. In 2 Peter 2, verse 9, the Bible says, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. That's a promise from God. In 1 Corinthians 10, 13, the scripture says, no temptation has come into your life except that which is common to all men. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond that which you are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. The Lord pulls off the mask of the temptation. And then finally this, the final point, is in verses 14 to 15. Why am I being tempted? So that I will overcome Satan here and now, today in our lives. God is using little wimpy you and me to whip Satan's kingdom now. It seems crazy, doesn't it? We can't even see our enemy. He's invisible. He's been living for eons. We, such a short period of time, but we have the Holy Spirit living in us and God will use us to overthrow the kingdom of darkness. Why am I being tempted? Because God will use Satan's attack to overthrow us and wind up taking what he meant for evil and make it out for good. It's incredible. We'll go through this quickly. And this is a fun passage of scripture. Verse 14, "'But each one of us is tempted.'" when we are drawn away by our own desires and enticed. Then, when desire is conceived, it brings birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown up, brings forth death. Real quickly, three key words in the Greek language we need to look at, and they're all fishing terms, by the way. They're words used for fishing. The first one in verse 14 is drawn away. It's one word in the Greek, and it means to drag forth from a spot, to lure out into the open. And again, it's a fishing term. To lure away from the fish's hiding spot where that fish is hanging out. To be drawn away is to lure the fish out into the open. That's how Satan sees you and I, like a fish. And his plan is to lure, draw you out into the open. The next word is own desires. Again, one word. It means our forbidden longings that we have inside. All of us are tempted on the inside. It's our flesh. Our flesh wants things. Our flesh wants to touch, to feel, to whatever. Satan knows this. So when he, listen, takes his little lure, puts it over there, and you're sitting there safe in the rock, and you see this angle right by. Hmm, what is that? Comes by again. Oh, that's nice. It's shiny. I'm like, hmm. Next word is enticed. To hook or to net, to entrap. The word means to beguile by trickery. It's a fishing term. It means to bait the hook. Think about it. You throw a fish hook on the water with your rod and you're reeling it by and that fish sits there and goes, stupid fisherman, that's just a hook. I can see that. Then he throws it out again and he goes by and that fish just laughs, you know. Then the fisherman puts bait on the hook and he throws it out there. And now it appeals to the internal desire of the fish. Oh, what was that? The light's just right coming off the water. The speed of it, the way it wiggles. Hey, if I see that again, no, I have to, no, I'm fine. I'm not even hungry. I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm fighting this. I'm not yielding. I'm staying strong. I'm a good born again fish. I'm hanging in there. And then it goes by again. Well, I better just go out and take a little look at this thing. Oh no, you've been drawn away. Now you're being enticed. Now what happens? Hey, you may not even have to bite the hook. You might get snagged. You ever caught a fish that's been snagged? You just snag them. Now you're out from protection and you're swimming around. Hey, look at that. In fact, all your friends from school, fish school, they could come and they go, hey, look, look, everyone, look, we can tell what this is. It's just a hook until they bait it. And Satan's a master at baiting the hook. Oh yeah, well, I saw that hook coming a long time ago. Yeah, you know what? I know some people see the hook. Some people don't even see the hook. Fish can go into such a frenzy, you can throw a hook into the water and they'll bite it. Can you imagine Satan coming up? Hey, how you doing? I know you. You've got red underwear on and pitchfork and all this. I know who you are. But listen, what happens if somebody comes by and goes, hi, big fella? You know, my name's Bubbles. You can call me Lucy for short. And what are you doing tonight? Hello? It's a hook. There's hardly any bait on it. But what happens? Oh, huh? What? Or somebody comes by and says, hi, you know, I'm autoimmune deficiency syndrome, but you can call me HIV. Come on. One night with me and you'll be condemned to death and you'll die a wretched life. Oh, come on, bite the hook. He's like, you're crazy. No way. Somebody comes up and says, hi, my name's Joe Cocaine. Draw a line of me and snort it up just a little bit. And hey, you're hooked. Satan dresses it all up. He doesn't have some prostitute come out and say, hey, come after me. No, man, you're diseased. You're a mess. You're destroying my life. You're no good. No, no, no. He knows how to come to you. He knows how to bait the hook that you'll bite. The thing is, you don't have to bite. You fight rather than bite. You ward him off because the Bible tells us that we are able to fight against the satanic attacks of the enemy.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Why Am I Being Tempted? You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That's K-N-O-W, God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
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Hey everybody, brand new year. Listen to this. What a promise. Psalm 65, 11, God there announces that his paths drip with abundance and he makes his way prosperous. So listen, draw close to God, enjoy the new year in Christ, celebrate him every day and everything that you do. Listen, let God's work in your life be an incredible witness to other people. Bring them along. Bring them along with you into the kingdom of heaven. Love on them. Listen, the people in your life who are not Christians, start treating them like a Christian. Watch what happens. Share the joy of the Lord because you can. And exalt in his liberty and freedom because he's given it to you. Let's have an awesome new year in Jesus Christ together. Amen.
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This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Join us as we delve into the profound lessons of temptation and endurance with Pastor Jack Hibbs. Drawing from the wisdom of Apostle Peter and James, Pastor Hibbs addresses the believers' struggles with temptations and the importance of perseverance. With practical advice and encouraging biblical insights, he guides Christians on how to stand firm amidst spiritual battles, ensuring victory and receiving the crown of life promised through unwavering love for God. Discover the power within each trial to bring believers closer to Christ and the reward awaiting at the journey's end.
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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Because the Holy Spirit lives in you, he's going to see to it that you endure. You just hang out with Jesus. Have you noticed how much trouble we get in when we don't hang out with Jesus? Man, that's a problem. Things are going great. Take a rise off Jesus. Things aren't going so great anymore. Happens all the time. It's terrible.
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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.
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You know, the Apostle Peter in his letters to the church urged his fellow Christians to keep on learning and growing in the faith, in spite of their suffering and pain. Unlike today, however, resources were scarce. Still, they persevered, and Christ followers were growing in both strength and numbers. Now, there's no limit of ways to access quality materials on Christian living, including Pastor Jack's website. When you go to jackhibbs.com and click the media icon, you'll find not only real-life radio episodes, but real-life podcasts, real-life TV, real-life basics for Christian growth, and even news updates. There's also specific verse-by-verse studies from books of the Bible and so much more. So, head on over to our website at jackhibbs.com and click on the media tab. That's jackhibbs.com.
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on today's edition of real life radio pastor jack now continues his series called the book of james with a message titled why am i being tempted see before it became one of the books of the new testament james was simply a letter sent to those jews who chose to follow christ But as new believers, they really struggled with temptation. You see, the devil's desire is to speak lies to us using temptation, but it's the Lord's desire to help us to overcome temptation and give to us the crown of life, which, by the way, he's promised to those who love him. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that happiness comes to those who endure temptation by keeping their eyes on the Lord. A victorious condition of our hearts, well, that can happen when we remain faithful no matter what. Now with his message called, Why Am I Being Tempted? Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he is approved or when he has been approved, he will receive a crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him. There is a happy condition. Jot these verses down if you would. Concerning verse 12, people, let's rejoice. Let's take the Bible and get our brains washed with its truth. Right now, 1 Corinthians 13 verse 7 says, Love bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, and what? Endures all things. Does God love us? Okay, then because God loves us, will we be able to bear all things? Yes. Will we be able to endure all things? Yes. The Bible's made us that promise. Will we be able to hope through all things? Yes. When a person gives up on hope, when a person gives up on love, even a Christian, what are they doing? They're getting their eyes off of God. And they get swallowed up by the temptation that they have yielded to. And unfortunately, maybe even put a gun to their head and their depression. But that's not necessary because God has given us the love. 1 Corinthians 13, 7, he's given us the endurance. Jude 1, verse 21. The Bible says, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward or have an anticipation for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life. We are to keep ourselves in the love of God. That means we have to work at it. We have to stand firm on this. Matthew 10, verse 22. By the way, when I give you these verses, do you jot them down like in your footnotes or anything like that? Do you? Good, because I'd hate to spend a couple of days putting these verses together and you not write them down there in your little footnote. That's great that you write them down there in your footnote and in your notes. That's good. Matthew 10, 22. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. If that doesn't happen to you, it will soon enough. But he who endures to the end, the same shall be saved. Jack, does that mean if I endure to the end, I shall be saved? Technically in the word, it's because you're saved, you will endure to the end. Doesn't that make you feel better? Because I am saved, it's the nature of the Holy Spirit working within me to make sure I endure to the end. You don't have to leave here tonight saying, oh man, I've got to endure. I'm so stressed out, I've got to endure. No, you don't. Because the Holy Spirit lives in you. He's going to see to it that you endure. You just hang out with Jesus. Have you noticed how much trouble we get in when we don't hang out with Jesus? Man, that's a problem. Things are going great. Take a rise off Jesus. Things aren't going so great anymore. Happens all the time. It's terrible. 1 Peter 4, verse 12. Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trials which are to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you, but rejoice. Hello, honey. I'm home. I've lost my job. Let's put on a praise album and rejoice. Well, that's what we ought to do. Thank you, Jesus. I don't understand what we're going to eat and how we're going to make our house payment, but you told me to rejoice. So I'm going to sing you a happy song, Lord. But rejoice to the extent that you are partakers of Jesus' sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. That's powerful stuff. Temptation, the whole thought of temptation is one of the most confusing things for the Christian to come to grips with. A little technical note here. You want to jot this down if you would. In James 1, verse 2, we came across this word trials. Remember that? My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. The word trials there, and by the way, if you would just make note of it, it appears again... In your Bible, it may have a different English word, but it is the same word. It appears in this verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation. Interesting. Same word. But here's what is very, very unique about those two words in verses 2 and verses 12. In the Greek, it's a noun. You say, well, so what? Well, in verses 13 and 14, they're no longer nouns. It appears again, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away with his own desires and enticed. The word tempted there is not the noun form, but it appears twice as the verb. It is the verb form, totally different. We're all going to be tempted, right? And we all will be tempted by the verb form of temptation. But the interesting thing is the two that appear in verses 2 and 12 are for the refining of our faith, and these latter two in verses 13 and 14 are to draw us away from God. So jot this down if you would. Trials from God draw us closer to Him. Temptations from the world, Satan, or my flesh, What pulls us away from God? And here, if you have been a Christian longer than an hour and a half, you should be asking this question. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between the two. You're exactly right. And that's a tough thing, isn't it? That's hard. Here's the one way to cut to the chase and not worry about the definition or the source. This is so good. I love this. Is what I'm experiencing right now drawing me closer to Jesus Christ? Is it causing you to pick up your Bible? Listen, to pray, to seek counsel, to walk with him, to check your slate, so to speak. Lord, have I sinned against you? Have I done something wrong? Lord, speak to me. That is a trial sent by God to build faith and endurance. It's a good thing. But if something's going on in your life and it's causing you to put your Bible away, are you ready for this? I don't care what it is. But she's so cute, Jack. I don't care who she is. Oh, he's so handsome. He loves the Lord. I don't care what his name is. but I really need it so I can drive faster on the freeway. You don't? No. Is it drawing you further away? Listen, a temptation pulls you from your fellowship with Christ. It's like a leech. It pulls and pulls life out of you. And one of the great things is this. You experience a sense of condemnation. That's not a trial. It's a temptation. From Satan to give up. And we need to remember this because you know what happens to us the moment we get into one of these things. We don't remember this Saturday night, do we? We don't remember. And somebody's got to call you and say, remember? We need to remember this. In Matthew's gospel, chapter six, verses nine through 13, the Bible says, therefore, when you pray, Jesus says, pray this. Our Father in heaven, holy be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. The word is keep us away from the wicked one. That's what appears in verses 13 and 14. We'll look at that later. The next thing I want you to see in verse 12 concerning this victorious condition we have is is that our faith is made genuine. It says here, for when he has been proved, that is us, when we have been proved. Now watch this. The word approved or proved tries the Christian. It tries us with the sense of exalting us. When we are proved, tried by God, we will come out on the other side exalted through the test. This word that appears here is to become more brilliant. The word becomes to shine more or to become more valuable. The word also means to be displayed in such a way that you're very desired. It's what God wants to do. This is powerful. Are you being tried? Are you being tempted? Are then listen, it's God's motive, it's God's will that when you come through the test, that you are approved. So he will test us people, God will, to approve us. He never will launch us out on a course that will destroy us. What will Satan do? He's out there like the roadrunner trying to catch the... Or no, who is it? The coyote trying to catch the roadrunner. He's painting fake signs. He's painting fake landscapes. He's painting fake dots on the road, lines on the road. He's creating all of this havoc to try to catch this poor little roadrunner. Well, that's what Satan does. He alters everything, the way you see things or the way it sounds, or he'll play with the way you hear things. Well, I thought they said this. No, he or she didn't say that. Oh, no, I'm sure they did. He twists things. That's why the Bible says that he's the prince of the power of the air. He loves to control this little domain. And he loves to get people what? Confused. The Bible says he's the author of confusion. Whenever you hear somebody say, I'm so confused, I don't know what to do. You're under attack, friend. Because where God is, confusion is not. He brings clarity. He brings peace. He brings understanding that's of a divine origin. To be approved, God will put us through a test for our betterment. Satan desires to put us through a temptation to destroy us, to have us disapproved. It's important that we remember this. Why am I being tempted? Because it's the only way I can become more like Jesus.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
The final thing that we need to see here in verse 12 is that our course will eventually be rewarded. Why am I being tempted? How can I endure victoriously in the spot that I'm in? Because the course that we're on will eventually be rewarded. Have you ever ran in a long-distance race? I haven't in about 30 years. But I used to really enjoy it. And I had some friends who were really great runners. And there were times when I would beat them, and most of the time they'd beat me, but there was times I'd beat them. And we could really run. And we were kind of insane. We'd run everywhere we'd go. We'd go to the beach, lay out our blanket, put up the radio, and run all day. We just loved to run. But you know what? If you've ever ran in a long-distance race or some sort of marathon of any sorts, one of the things after a while that you begin to long for, yea, even lust for, is the finish line. Your side begins to ache, your shoes are blown out, your feet feel like they're about 150 degrees. And you're beginning at the point where you start to reach this wall that they talk about. And you're wondering, am I insane? Is this even me running? Who am I? You begin to kind of lose it. And it's a strange thing. And you know, maybe you feel like that right now. You're a Christian, you love God, but you don't think you can go another day. Well, you know what? Not only can you go another day, you can go another month. No, I can't. Yes, you can. Your problem, friend, is that you're looking at the race in your own strength. I'm so tired. Yes, you may be tired. I don't think I can go any further. You probably can't. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. Isaiah 40, 31. Great promise. We need to reach the wall. And right when we begin to think, am I me? Who am I anyway? That's where we lose ourselves in Christ and we find out who we really are. He says, hey, the coach, Jesus, he's got his hat on, run alongside, whistle, tons of water all around him. He's got these squirt bottles, Gatorade, this and that. And he's saying, you know what? When you're weak, I'm strong. When you can't run anymore, I'll run for you. Just when you think you're going to kill over, I'll take it from here. It's the way he works. He'll never let you fall, ever. Welcome, I fell down. Because you yielded to the temptation, because I yielded to the temptation. That's why I fell down. Here's the wonderful thing. We have a victorious, joyous position in enduring because we will receive the end of our course. And look what he says. We will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Man, that's great. Listen, the crown of life. This appears several places in Scripture, but one of them is in Revelation 2, verse 8. You want to jot it down? It's a great thing to realize. It's a promise made by God. God says, you love me? You know when God says, do you love me? Do you ever feel like a real goober when you say, yes, I do? Don't you feel so unworthy to say that you love him? Or is it just me? It's just me? Let's move on then. I always feel when I tell him I love him that I don't even like to say the words to him because I feel like I'm doing an injustice when I mention the words. I don't love him enough. I love him all I can, but I'm deeply convicted of how little I do love him. And I'll say, Lord, I love you. And Lord, you know that I wish I could love you more. I think that's one of the joys that heaven will bring is the desires of our heart he will completely fulfill. What is the desire of your heart? I know one of them for mine is that I could sing. And when I get to heaven, I'm going to sing. Everyone else is going to say, Lord, give me the desire of my heart. And they have earplugs walking around heaven. But I'm going to sing. And... One of the desires of my heart is I want to be able to fly without an airplane. Last night, we watched Peter Pan, the cartoon. And I just was drooling over Pan on how he could do the things that he could do. I want to do that. I want to be able to do that. The desires of our hearts. One of them will be, Lord, I love you. And it will be sufficient. Somehow it will be full. It will come out as it is in the heart, out of the mouth, and it will be true. I love you. And he's going to go, yeah! Say it again. I love you, Lord! And he's going, all right. It's going to be incredible. Well, to those who desire such things, He's made us a promise, and that is who give us the crown of life. And in Revelation 2, verse 8, it says, And to the angel of the church of Smyrna, and I wanted to say that word Smyrna, that name, because that church had to die for their faith. to the angel of the church of Smyrna write these things. And he goes on to say, do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And you will have tribulation 10 days, speaking of 10 specific trials that came to Smyrna. But be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And he who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. The second death is spiritual separation from God. It's what every person who goes to hell experiences. Their first death is that their physical body stops functioning and they die. The second death is when God says, Your name is not written in the book. I'm sorry. And your spirit is now condemned to an eternal death. And it is literally a living death. It never stops. God is in this life. That people are able to die in this life. And you say, well, I've never heard that like that before. Oh yeah, it's a mercy of God to be able to die. You know, the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that there's going to be a period of time when people will seek death and will not be able to find it because of the horrible events on the face of the earth. People will try to commit suicide in the tribulation period and they're gonna like take a gun to their head or they're gonna jump off a building or throw themselves into the sea and be dashed against the shore. And the Bible says they will not be able to die. Can you imagine putting a shotgun to your face and not be able to die? Death will be removed from the earth in an act of judgment upon those who have rejected Christ. Can you imagine? Right now, death is a merciful thing. But to those who have never accepted Christ, death is the first step of a horrible process that leads them eventually to the second death. And the Bible says, Jesus said to the church at Smyrna, be faithful unto death. And when you die, I'm going to give you the crown of life. Man, for the Christian, this is not home. Remember years ago when we were hippies? They had that... Just passing through our keep on trucking little logo. Remember the guy had bell bombs about as big as mine are right now, I guess. These big baggy pants. And the guy's going, just like this. Keep on trucking. Just passing through. That's only true for the Christian. We're just passing through. We'll keep on trucking for Jesus. See you later. You know, we're going, we're passing through. This earth is not our home. Now this is a very nice planet and I like it. And I think we should take care of nature, and I do. I mean it, I do. But I'm not in love with this world. You can go stand right down there in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite, and you're going to be thinking, I don't want to die. I want to just live here forever. Hey, as nice as Tuolumne Meadows is, it's a toilet compared to where we're going. It is a dump. It's a duck. Well, the water's crystal clear. Well, just wait to see where we're going. What will it be like? You know, I don't know, but maybe it'll be chocolate like Willy Wonka's rivers. I don't know, but it's going to be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be incredible. The crown of life. Now, what is this crown of life all about? What is this crown of life? Well, first of all, it is promised only to those who put their faith in Christ. Do you want to live? Isn't it amazing? There's not one person on this globe that doesn't want to live. Even if somebody's trying to take their life at this moment, their hope is, I want to live for something. That's why they're trying to kill themselves. They don't think there's anything to live for. But they hoped and wished that something was worthy to live for. It's within us to live. Yesterday I met at length with a woman who has faced... with death she loves the lord and she says you know i never quite walked with jesus all these years i've known him but now from the trial i'm in because of my situation i want to walk with him now and wouldn't you know it now it's kind of too late i wish i could live for him now i've squandered my time this is a wise statement from a person
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Why Am I Being Tempted? You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey everybody, this is Pastor Jack here, and I want to encourage you to get a great book. Now listen up, I know there's a lot of books out there, and we certainly do push a lot of books on this program because we want you to grow, and you should have a great library. Well, listen, One Day Nearer is a book written by Steve Miller, a dear friend of mine, and a great author, and here's the kick. It's a 365-day book. devotion, one for every day, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, how to be looking for him, how to be walking in light of his return. What are the scriptures that should encourage us? All of this in this fantastic book, One Day Nearer, by my good friend Steve Miller.
SPEAKER 01 :
Get a copy for yourselves, please, and grow. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. Did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like. It's called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you're going to love him on TV. So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That's jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
In this compelling episode, Pastor Jack Hibbs explores the nature of temptation, illustrating how it serves as a test that refines our faith. Learn about the role of temptation in developing spiritual character and the power bestowed upon believers to overcome it. Pastor Jack engages listeners with practical wisdom, urging them to recognize the sources of temptation and God’s ultimate design in allowing these tests to strengthen our resolve and faith in God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
I don't care what you're fighting, what you're struggling with. You go home, you turn on a worship album, and you begin to mouth those songs, and you sing those songs unto God, you know what will happen? Your heart begins to get lifted up. I can't explain it, it just happens. Your heart gets lifted up, you get excited, you wind up walking in victory and sensing the presence of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Well, that's the life-changing perspective explored in One Day Nearer by Steve Miller. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack. Now, this inspiring book helps you focus on the hope that Jesus is returning. And this book offers practical encouragement to live each day with faith, purpose, and joy. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Why Am I Being Tempted? See, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. But as new believers, they really struggled with temptation. You see, the devil's desire is to speak lies to us using temptation, but it's the Lord's desire to help us to overcome temptation and give to us the crown of life, which, by the way, he's promised to those who love him. so today pastor jack teaches that temptation is one of the most confusing areas in the christian life why are we being tempted well it's because god is using those things of life to develop a spiritual depth of character within us now with his message called why am i being tempted here's pastor and bible teacher jack hibbs why am i being tempted
SPEAKER 01 :
Why are you being tempted? A lot of us ask that question, Lord, why? You know, I remember being shocked coming to Christ, giving my heart to Jesus Christ, and then going home and the next morning waking up and finding out real quickly that I still had sin operating in my life. I thought if I'd given my heart to Jesus that all that would go away and I'd be fine. But that's not exactly the case. One of the great signs of being a Christian is that you become keenly aware of the fact that we are sinners, that we have this sin nature. In fact, a true believer in Jesus Christ experiences one tremendous thing unlike any other experience that we had previously, and that is we hate when we blow it, we hate when we do wrong. In fact, that is, again, a great mark of the believer. You may not be raising people from the dead, you may not be leading thousands of people to Christ, but the fact is, we know that we are children of God because the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us. And the proof to the pudding is that the Holy Spirit who dwells in us no longer will allow us to parade and traffic in sin. He warns us, he rebukes us, he encourages us, he strengthens us. And in fact, we agree with him. There's this weird thing called temptation. And this thing about temptation is that we willfully, we do, you and I, we willfully from time to time yield to it. And we ought not to be doing that. But God gives us the power to overcome temptation. And James is going to be speaking to us about this thing about being tempted. And we all go through it. Why am I being tempted? James chapter 1, beginning at verse 12. "'Blessed is the man who endures temptation.'" For when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord... as promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. Why am I being tempted? The purpose of a test, you ought to jot this down. In chapters 1, verse 1 to verse 11, the purpose of test is to really refine our faith in Christ and to cause us to excel in our Christianity. We need them to grow. But now we come to this thing in chapter 1, verses 12 through 18, actually. Regarding the source of temptation, we are tested, verses 1 through 11, and now in verses 12 to 18, we have temptations, and where do these temptations come from? We need to recognize the source. Do you remember, or are you too young, of a program called, I think it was called Laugh-In. Remember Laugh-In? Who remembers Laugh-In? Raise your hand. Just for fun. Who doesn't remember Laugh-In? Raise your hand. The children's ministry is across the street right now. There was this thing in there where a guy by the name of Flip Wilson, remember him? He'd come out and he'd go, well, the devil made me do it. He would do this thing really cute and he would say, the devil made me do it. He would be talking about something he got into. Then he'd throw his hand on his hip and he would say, well, the devil made me do it. And, you know, the devil can entice you to do things, but the devil cannot make you do anything. Now, that should bring, I don't know about you, but that brings a big sigh of relief into my heart. He can't make you do a thing. A lot of Christians walk around saying, oh, man, I'm just absolutely getting thrashed, man, by the devil. I can't stop sinning. Oh, hey, the devil can only point to the place of fulfillment of your passion and of your desires. You've got to go over there and take a drink of it. Satan parades around, but we are the ones who yield. And so we need to be careful about that. In 2 Corinthians 2.11, the Bible says, Beware lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. And we need to be wise. Again, I've said this before, but we need to repeat it again. There are certain areas where the church is ignorant of, and I find it extremely interesting that there are these certain areas that the Bible warns us not to be ignorant of. And of course, one of them is prophecy. And the church doesn't want to hear about prophecy. And the Bible commands us to know it. But the church says, no, I don't want to know that. I'd rather bury my head in the sand and be surprised from moment to moment and not know what to do. Then the Bible says to know everything we can about spiritual gifts. But what does the church do? Bury its head in the sand again because spiritual gifts are spooky. We could get into trouble. I've seen them abused. So the Bible says, don't be ignorant about them. Know them and operate in them. Find out which ones are yours. The Bible warns us to not be ignorant also about the devices of Satan, Satan's tricks. And we are in fact a people, a church, I don't mean this particular church, I mean the church by and large, ignorant of Satan's attacks and Satan's devices. But the Bible tells us that we need to be aware of them. We need to be asking the question, why am I being tempted? It's by virtue of temptation that people yield to that Christians find themselves in perilous situations. Even at this hour, there are people who are away from Christ. They may be drinking, they may be doing drugs, they may be in sexual affairs, or they may be in brawling-type lifestyles now, fighting and arguing, or whatever the case might be. How does this happen? It all comes through this thing of yielding to temptation. It's very dangerous. But the Bible has warned us over and over again. We need to realize about why are we being tempted and why am I tempted? Because you and I live really in between two incredible worlds. If I can put it to you in a real simple way, look at this podium, this pulpit right now. Let's say you are right in the middle. Okay? And this is your life. And on one side is the kingdom of light and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of love. And on the other side is the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of evil. Now, the Bible says that Satan is judged and that he is condemned ultimately to hell. The Bible also says that he's free to roam about, really actually to be doing God's bidding, though he would argue with you on that. He thinks he's doing his own bidding. But Satan's desire is that now that he has fallen from the presence of God as an anointed angel, he is now in fact a fallen angel. He's not a demon, but he is in fact a fallen cherub. He's a very powerful angel. Christian, listen to this. Satan is not the opponent of God. Do you understand that? It is not God versus Satan and whoever wins in the end wins the big deal. That is not what the Bible teaches. Satan is not the opponent of God, nor is God the opponent of Satan. The fact of the matter is the Christian is the opponent of Satan and Satan the Christian's opponent. Vice versa, back and forth. God is not challenged tonight. You know he's not challenged. He's out there going, oh, what's the score? Check the scoreboard. That's not God. How can Satan, now that he has fallen, afflict the heart of God? If we're in the middle and God is of the light and Satan is of the darkness and Satan has his will and God has his will, and by the way, so do you and I, how can Satan afflict the heart of God by controlling or influencing the souls and the lives of those who dwell upon this earth and even the Christian? That's how he afflicts the heart of God. If he can, first of all, regarding the Christian life, sterilize you as a Christian, Satan gets some sort of satisfaction. And if he can cause you to live and yield to temptation all the time, and he just kind of, so to speak, jerks your chain, and you might be heading out to a prayer meeting, and Satan jerks your chain, and you give up, and you go back, or he plays with you, toys with you, like a cat and a mouse. That's what Satan would love to do. And that's what he's wanting to do. He can afflict God's heart by sterilizing the Christian with fear and torment and keeping him wrapped up. But also Satan can inflict the heart of God by blinding the eyes of those who do not believe. There's a real power that's blinding the heart of those who don't believe. You and I have family and friends who don't believe. Why is that the case? Because the Bible says the God of this world, little g, don't get all excited, the ruler of this age, Satan's not a god, but the ruler of this age has blinded their eyes so that they cannot come to the truth. And that's how Satan afflicts the heart of God. by laming, maiming, destroying, crippling, and ultimately taking the life of those in unbelief, and it chagrins the heart of God. When we go out evangelizing, or when we go to prayer meetings, or when we preach the word, or listen, we just did something extremely tormentive to the kingdom of darkness, worship. He hates it. When we worship the Lord God, the kingdom of darkness trembles when that happens. One of the greatest powers that you can exercise as a Christian is go home and turn on a worship tape or a worship album or whatever the deal might be and sing songs to God. Have you ever done it? I challenge you to do it. In fact, if you're not doing it, you're really missing out on a big deal. In fact, you're getting whipped, if you don't mind me saying so, by the enemy. Because listen, the power that's available in praise is incredibly great. When you go home, and I don't care what you're fighting, what you're struggling with, you go home, you turn on a worship album. and you begin to mouth those songs, and you sing those songs unto God, you know what will happen? Your heart begins to get lifted up. I can't explain it, it just happens. Your heart gets lifted up, you get excited, you wind up walking in victory and sensing the presence of God. And I tell you, when you're walking like that, Satan can come up and tempt you, and you're going to go... Away with that. See, there's nothing you can tempt me with that would draw me away from my Jesus. This is just too wonderful. And you might say, well, I'd like to know if such power exists. Oh, it does. And you need to be walking in that power.
SPEAKER 02 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 01 :
For those of you who are taking notes this evening, you ought to jot this down. There are three things that come against us by way of temptation. It's found in 1 John 2.16. For all that is in the world, here it is, number one, the lust of the flesh, number two, the lust of the eyes, and number three, the pride of life is not from the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it is passing away, but he who does the will of God will live forever. So there are three things that... come against us. The world. The world comes against us. The world system. You can label it whatever you want. Are you trying to lose weight? And, you know, the world system comes along and says, in and out. It's what a hamburger is all about. And you're doing great. Father, I'm exercising control. I'm standing in the liberty that Christ has set me free. And I will no longer be ensnared and entangled in the former things. And then that commercial comes on. And what do you do? You find yourself waking up halfway to In-N-Out Burger. You don't even know how you got there. And you're tempted. You're yielding the things of the world. They're not necessarily evil things. Whatever your case might be, the world system will tempt you. It's nothing wrong to wear a suit even. What can be wrong about a suit? Nothing's wrong about a suit until you get into this fetish of having to buy a new suit for every day of the week, and you've got to have a color under the rainbow for every outing, for everything, and you're obsessed with clothing. Clothing's not bad. It's good. But you can be obsessed with it. Then it becomes sin. That's the world system. Then there's this thing about... the lust of the eyes and the lust of the eyes is I've got to have what they've got I've got to have the other thing I want I want I want rather than this is what I need and we get drawn away by that and then there's this thing of the the devil himself of evil that we get tempted by the devil yes he can tempt so the temptations come from the devil and from the flesh and from the world The Bible says in Galatians 5, 16, I say then walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But what does it mean to walk in the spirit? The Bible tells us in the book of Romans that to walk in the spirit is to walk in the word of God, to know God's will for your life. The early church struggled with that. They didn't know because most of them were Jewish. They were wondering, well, should all the Gentiles be circumcised too like us? And then the council got together in Jerusalem and Paul was there to speak and the others. And they said, no, it is not circumcision that makes them righteous, but they are to abstain from things strangled. I said, well, what's that all about? Well, that's what the scriptures talked about, that they shouldn't be eating things that hadn't been bloodlet, you should let the blood out of them for your own health and safety. And plus for the Jewish minds, a great stumbling thing. Gentiles, they're eating blood sausage, blood pudding, blood bagels, blood milkshakes. And the Jews were going, this is sick. And also they said, listen, stay away from things like sexual immorality. And well, everybody could agree with that. And that was fine. Very important. Simple things. Things of the flesh. Pull us away from God. But remember this, as we get into this now, chapter 1, verse 12, that Jesus himself was tempted. You ought to write that down. That is encouraging. Jesus was tempted. In Matthew chapter 4, verses 1 through 3, the Bible says, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. What kind of a deal is that? Jesus gets baptized in the Holy Spirit, drives him into the wilderness, sends Jesus out into the wilderness at the advent of his public ministry, and there the Bible says Satan is to tempt him. The Bible says after 40 days, Satan came and said... and study your Bible carefully. He didn't say if you are the son of God. It's since you are the son of God. Hey, you're the son of God. Turn these stones to bread. Don't you think that sounded kind of good to Jesus at that time? 40 days of fasting. I wouldn't have even waited to turn the rocks into bread. I would have eaten the rocks. Turn these rocks into bread. Turn these rocks into bread. And that miracle would not normally be bad, would it? It wouldn't be bad at all. It wouldn't be bad. It's not bad to turn rocks into bread. It's not bad. It's bad when Satan says do it. But it's a good thing. Not when Satan says to do it. People, listen up. You can be focused on a good thing, but be hearing the wrong voice and get really messed up. And I've been there. See a good cause? Oh, let's go for it. Man, that's good. Come and follow me. And off into the ditch we go. Good thing, wrong voice speaking. We have to be very careful. Peter, saying this, These things, really good things, at one moment, then turns and says to Jesus, I rebuke you. Oh, this is all wrong. And Jesus turns and says to Peter, looking right past Peter, the Lord rebukes you, Satan. Can you imagine Jesus looking at you and saying, the Lord rebukes you. I rebuke you, Satan. I would look behind me and hope to see some horned creature behind me. You're pointing at me. Man, we can go from one moment of glory to the next moment of catastrophe because we're listening to the wrong voice. So the first thing we need to see, why am I being tempted, is in verse 12, and that is this. And boy, do we need to hear this. Why are we being tempted? Because this, there's a victorious condition for those who endure temptation. That's why you're being tempted. That's why you're going to be tempted tonight or tomorrow. Oh, you're going to be tempted. Why? Because there's a victorious condition that God wants us to have for those who endure. Listen to what he says. He says, verse 12, blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. So the first thing we need to realize concerning this victorious condition is that blessed is the man who endures temptation. The word blessed is the word that you all know about already. It means happy. It means super blessed. The Greek word means well-off. That cracks me up because somebody, we so often use that word. Well, is he well-off? Are they well-off? Oh, let's drive to Hollywood or to Newport. They're well-off. But you would never say, man, is that guy under temptation? Look at him. He's well-off. But that's what the Bible says. Are you being tempted? Yes. The Bible says you're well off. You're super blessed. Well, I don't feel blessed. I'm struggling under a temptation. Oh, yes. That's why we're coming to the word endures. The Christian who is tempted finds himself in a victorious place. of enduring. Why is that so good? Because God will manifest his presence when we endure. Listen, if we yield from one temptation to another, we'll never know God's presence. We'll never know the growth of the spirit. We will be led like a ox to the slaughter. We'll never know anything at all. But if we make a stand, God's power comes in. We stand on the word of God. We're praying. We're singing praises. We're in fellowship. We're in the word of God. And God shores us up. Many times, though, the Christian crumbles before God gets his tools there and his cement and his wheelbarrows to shore up the wall. We give in. Oh, my gosh. I'm being tempted. Bye, everyone. Stop. You don't have to yield to temptation. By the way, again, Satan is not dragging you away to temptation. You are yourself. I am myself. He can only dangle the goods in front of us. We're the ones that go, gimme, gimme, gimme that. He can only tempt. And by the way, being tempted is not a sin. Did you know that? It's not a sin. It's not a sin to be tempted. You might say, well, great, I'm gonna go down to Joe's Topless Bar and Grill and stand there knowing now that it's not a sin to be tempted. I'm persuaded of better things concerning all of you. You don't do that.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Why Am I Being Tempted? You know, this message, by the way, is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. If your kid or your grandkid is in a season of doubt about God, What would you do? Let's say he's a young, let's say he's eight years old and he's kind of thinking about God and doubting God.
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Yeah. Well, first of all, Lisa and I have raised our kids and now it's the grandkids. So I know that question. What we do, believe it or not, what we've done, what we do is take them outside. And if this is appropriate, dependent upon the weather, have them lick their finger, right? Put their finger in their mouth, get it wet, stick their finger up in the air and ask your kid, what side is your finger cooler on? Or what do you feel? I feel the wind blowing. How do you know that? I can feel it. Look at the trees. What's happening? The leaves are moving. Well, how do you know the leaves are moving? Look at them. The leaves are moving. So, hey, buddy, but what's moving the trees? Wind? No, you got to do better than that. What's wind? Get them to think. You can't give them the answer. That doesn't build faith. Show them how to think critically to come to a conclusion. They see a tree moving. They feel the finger cool on one side that the wind is blowing on, and yet they cannot see the wind because their eyes are not capable of seeing molecules and millibars in the atmosphere. Right. but they see the effect of it. So the same is true about God. Right now, we're not in heaven yet. In heaven, we get our heaven eyeballs. We'll be able to see him. Right now we can't, but we see his evidence everywhere. So when you see the ocean moving, he said in the Bible, by the way, I'm going to move the ocean. I'm going to move the seas with the swells. And by the way, he says in the book of Job, I'm going to draw a line at the shore where these mighty waves cannot go past. Right? Take your kid down to the lake or down to the beach and show them this is evidence of God. So that's going to start to dispel doubt. But we must never, ever allow doubt to go unanswered. That's a recipe for disaster.
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This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he unpacks the message of 'What's Wrong With Money?' offering insights into how financial success, if mismanaged, can skew our values and lead us away from true security in Christ. The conversation invites listeners to reflect on their own financial practices and consider how they might use their resources to further God's kingdom. With engaging anecdotes and practical advice, this episode encourages believers to become cheerful givers and prioritize spiritual growth over material gain.
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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What are our needs and what are our wants? I'm not saying that desires are wrong and the pursuit of pleasures are wrong. It is this. We are a culture given over to it. And we so often spend money and have nothing to show for it in the end because we're trying to fill the boredom in our hearts. And God's got a better way.
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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Well, that's the life-changing perspective explored in One Day Nearer by Steve Miller. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack. Now, this inspiring book helps you focus on the hope that Jesus is returning. And this book offers practical encouragement to live each day with faith, purpose, and joy. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. on today's edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues his series called The Book of James with the message titled, What's Wrong With Money? Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. But as new Christians, they really needed some wisdom when it came to money. You see, whenever we get our eyes off the blesser and look to the blessings, well, that's when we're bordering on idolatry. The pursuit of money can destroy our faith. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that money for Christians should simply be seen as a tool for the kingdom. Money can be used to bless others, or if used unwisely, it can steal the depth of our character and alter our biblical worldview. Now with his message called, What's Wrong With Money? Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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And the challenge comes to our hearts this morning. Can we or are we pressured by this world's sales tactics? And you know what the world sells us, right? It's this, what are you wearing? I mean, you go home, turn on TV. What are you wearing? Whatever the commercial is selling, they're trying to sell you on the fact that whatever you have stinks and what they've got is the best and you've got to get theirs. You notice that? So what are you wearing? The world wants to tell you. As a Christian, you know what? I'm not going to have the world tell me that. Another thing is, what are you driving? Watch the commercials. I mean, you can have like a, you know, you can have a nice Buick or something, you know, and it's like, a what? You drive a what? Do they even make those anymore? Oh, it's got to be a Lexus or it's got to be a Benz or it's got to be a Lincoln or whatever it is, you know? Well, who says, Madison Avenue? Here's the other, the big third one is, where do you live? Where do you live? Skid Row, where do you live? You live where? I'm talking to a Skid Row person. That's wrong. There are great people who love the Lord. You want to meet them? Go to the homeless outreach on Saturdays. Who love Jesus Christ? They have nothing. They have no shoes. And they ought to be able to come right in here and sit in the front row, don't you think? You see, we're quiet right now. We actually live in a culture, and we ourselves are predominantly, I think, guilty of being prejudiced regarding the wealthy and the poor. We don't want to admit it. The poor, they're over here. And that may happen in society. It may happen in our city. But it can't happen in the church. No way. We're to be loving one another. And so the verse here in verse 10 is the second point. What's wrong with money? This is what's wrong with money is that verse 10 tells us it can bring, listen, it can bring financial success. And you go, are you crazy? Isn't that what we're living for? Well, hang on a moment. Look at verse 10. But the rich man, he should actually glory in his humiliation. Why? Because as a flower of the field, he will pass away or he will pass away also. Who will? The rich man. You see, the rich man says, this is the kingdom I have built. This is the thing that I have made in my name. And this is the rich man that is conducting himself outside of Christ. He doesn't give to God's work. He could care less about God's people. He's going to perish. But isn't it true, first of all, that money is a fleeting thing anyway? I mean, you get it and it's gone. Last night in last night's service, I made mention about... My daughters, one has dark hair, one's got blonde hair. One's taller, one's shorter. One talks a lot, one never says a word. I mean, they're exactly opposite. And one finds a penny and just polishes it clean and puts it in her bank. The other one finds the penny and now gets all stressed out. What's the matter? I found this money. Fine, great. What's your problem? I mean, you're all tense. What am I going to buy? It's like it's burning a hole in her hand. Oh my gosh, I've got to spend this. And the other one's out there like collecting Coke bottles and putting it away. It's so funny, so different. And there's people like that in the church, and we're like this. We're all, we put this together, we're like this. But the bottom line is, if you're going to save or if you're going to spend, put God first. Right? That's what we're to do. Now, you know what? We want to do this as a corporate church, don't we? Don't you appreciate the fact that the air conditioning is running or maybe you want the heater to come on? Or the lights are on. We've paid the rent on the building this month. Aren't you glad? Did you even think about it? No. You think next month this church is going to be here, don't you? You know why? Because people tithe to God's work and we cut a check to who owned this building. And People give to keep the work going. And if everybody gave like I gave, what kind of church would this be? If everybody gave like you gave, what kind of church would this be? Or would James Dobson get support or World Vision or whatever it might be? It doesn't have to be to this place. God has blessed this place and we're grateful for that. You see the point? In Proverbs 3, the Bible says to honor God with our increase. Are we doing it? And see, this is a touchy issue that we don't talk about. And I want to say this, and I'm sure I'm going to be misunderstood. But I believe personally that God would love to bless his people with more resources if we would manage them correctly. Where do you get that idea from? Well, first of all, God says if you're faithful in little, he'll make you faithful in more. And that applies to anything for that matter. But also God says in Malachi, he says, you know what? You give to me. And I'll bless you. I will open the windows of heaven and bless you back. God says another place, I will give unto you, pressed down, shaken together, stomped on, overflowing, packed tight, blessings flowing into your life that you won't even be able to contain them. If you will. Put me first in your life in this area of giving. Paul says, be a cheerful giver. The word in Corinthians is hilarious. Be a hilarious giver. Can you imagine? The real meaning of the word is, oh, pass the buck over here, brother. All right. Where's the dad? Come on, over here. Can you imagine? Are we tithing yet? Quick, get in the church. I don't want to miss the tithe. Isn't that cute? That's the way it should be. You want to get a real picture of what it's all about? Go across the street to the other building. Your little cutie walks up there with his nickel, and he's so excited. He's waiting. He's shaking it. Here comes a little house with a little hole in the chimney thing. He drops it in.
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All right.
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He's all pumped up about it. Me and we get that checkbook out. All right. Oh, there you go. I gave my five bucks. Listen, Paul says, keep your stinking five bucks. God says, give hilariously. If you can't give it, keep it. I'm glad he said that. Can I get my money back after the service? Give it from your heart. He who sows sparingly, the Bible says, shall reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. And it's definitely in the area of finances, says the Bible. It's true. Do we honor God with our resources? I want to challenge you to do this. It's really fun, actually. I mean, it is fun. You pray and ask God what amount He wants you to give. You know, there is no set amount, you know. For some reason, people got this idea of 10%. Where did that come up with, you know? In the Old Testament, it was 23 and a third percent. In the New Testament, it's supposed to be according to your heart. So really, for the Christian, I like Mr. Colgate. Remember the toothbrush man? Mr. Colgate said, God, I'm going to give you, if you bless my business, I'm going to give you 90% of all that I make. That's radical. God had to bless him. The guy would starve to death. His money still sends missionaries around the world today, though he's dead and in heaven. But do this. Get your stack of bills. I don't know how you do it, but you know, like the 15th of the month for us in our house, that's a good time. It's the 15th. It's right in the middle of the month. You get the check. You got your stack of bills. The first thing you write is to God. It's like a total awesome thing. It's like, okay, Lord, I have no idea what's in that envelope, but I'm going to gift you the first. You write it out. You put that check over there. That's the God's work. Now let's open these bills. And you begin to open it. You begin to see those, what, MasterCard is crying. And the thing is, listen, you put God first, and I promise, what can I promise you? I can't promise you a thing. The Word of God promises you this. God says, you put me first, and I'm going to bless it. I'm going to honor what you're doing. And you're saying, well, does that mean I'm going to make more money? You may or you may not. But he will bless you more than you'll be able to contain it. Well, what does that mean? You might make more money, but you might also wind up being more healthy. Or he might bless you with other things. Your car might live past its warranty. Those kinds of things. Those kinds of things. He's promised to do this. And God says, you test me. It's the only thing in all the Bible that God says, you test me and see. Isn't that funny? He doesn't say, test me in this area and test me in that area. He says, concerning giving, you test me and see. Jesus says, you know what? You can serve God or you can serve mammon. That's money, but you can't serve both. Isn't that true? Financial success can ruin us because it will alter our view of things. It will skew our hearts, and we won't think correctly and clearly, and we'll begin to think. I remember the first day I walked into Calvary Coast to Mesa, I was a punk, and I was making too much money for my age. And I had given my heart to Jesus, and I sat in there, and, well, this place is huge. There's a lot of people giving. God doesn't need my money. That's how I was thinking. This place is massive. That's a nice carpet. We were able to afford the carpet. They don't need my money. I lost everything. I mean, I lost it. And man, I had a whole different view after that. There's a man who built many of the freeways up in San Francisco area. In fact, he even built the Grapevine Freeway. I forget his name. This man was a Christian man. And in his own words, he said that before he entered the contract with the state of California, he dedicated 50% of the proceeds of his income to the Lord's work. And when he got paid, and this is a major deal, When he got paid, he didn't honor the agreement that he had made with the Lord. And in his own words, he wrote in a commentary in the newspaper, for all people to listen and to learn that he had spoken a word unto God and did not hold to it. And this man went completely bankrupt. He was sued and completely devastated. And he went on welfare. And at one point in time, he was one of the most wealthy men in California. In his own words, he said, I loved God with all my heart. I made a thing with God. I said, God, if you give me those contracts, I'll give you 50%. And he said he didn't give God a dime out of it. And he said the Lord was just in taking away what I had robbed him of. And you might say, well, I don't think that's in the Bible. And God says in Malachi chapter 3, you've robbed me because you've kept back an offering unto me. And I want to bless you, but you've robbed me. Isn't that amazing? You might say, well, Jack, I can't afford to tithe. No, you can't afford not to tithe. Put him first. Watch what happens.
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You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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And some in this body are so precious, they've come and they said, Jack, we are literally living off of welfare at this time. We don't have a penny to give. We want to know if coming and cleaning the church or doing the windows or coming and praying that God will honor that. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that what Paul talks about to Timothy concerning those who are truly widows? The word widow in the Greek means to be abandoned, either by death or by abandonment. And it says concerning those women who are destitute and abandoned. He said, let them receive blessings from the church, but also they should pray and minister to the body. God honors that. And the third and final thing regarding this problem with money and what is wrong with money. is that it promises us security that it really can't give us, verse 11. It promises security that it can't really give us. Look what it says. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass. What does? The sun, the test, the trial. Well, first of all, it withers the grass. Second of all, it causes the flower to fail. And the third thing is it causes its beautiful appearance to vanish away, to perish as dust. so the rich man also will fade away in his own pursuits. Now, get a load of this. As I mentioned earlier, Paul says those who desire to be rich pierce themselves through with sorrows. I want you to hear this. I looked this statistic up. This is shocking. Talk about success, talk about pressure, and talk about not getting security in the pursuit of money. A 1996 Gallup poll conducted on lottery winners from 1985 to 1995, 10 years. 74% of lottery winners in America, 74% of them had to see a psychiatrist after they won their money. Well, you might say, well, it's a big deal. I see one now. What's the big thing about that? This is serious. They won what should cause peace, right? They think, I can rest. They wound up going to a psychologist.
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74%.
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60% of them began drinking. 81% of those who are married and won the lotto, 81% of them filed for divorce. I won the lotto. I won the lotto. I don't need you. I won the lotto. Isn't that weird? Change is the way you think. What normally you would have been content, now you are discontent in the heart. 43% of them started taking drugs and established a drug habit. By the way, remember Rodney King? How much did he win? Three? Was it 3.2 million? Something like that? Rodney King is officially sought on the news a year ago. Broke. Absolutely broke. Money gone. His friends were interviewed and they said, he spent it on us. He spent it on women. He spent it on drugs. He spent it on drinking. He's broke. $3 million gone in a couple of years. 27% of those who won the lottery within five years from 1985 were financially broke. The very thing that they pursued. Remember a couple of weeks ago when it was up to like, what was it? Huh? How do you know? No, there were people in lines. Did you see the people in lines at stores all over the place? Millions and millions of dollars. Hoping for what? To win. Why win? Why win? when most of the people wind up having a destroyed life, we've been sold the bill of goods that why should we pursue godliness when we can pursue wealth? And Jesus says, be careful. Be careful. You know you're in trouble when you start looking at that checkbook and it begins to look a little padded. All right, I can kick back and rest. And Jesus says, be careful. You might begin to say, let's build bigger barns, Jesus said in this parable. Oh, we're doing so well. Let's build bigger barns. Let's expand it and fill up bigger barns. And Jesus says, you fool. Don't you know that tonight your soul is required of you? And that man died, never preparing for eternity. He had his investment portfolio all nailed down. He had life insurance. He had stocks all lined up. He had a living trust. Is it bad to have money? No, it's bad to mismanage it. And every one of us will stand before God and give an account for how we spend because it's not our money, it's his. people desiring to be rich, trying to find success, and trying to find rest and peace, and it won't work. There's a place called Lost Wages, I mean, Las Vegas. And you go by there, and you know, we have family in Salt Lake City, so we can stop in Las Vegas, and that's where you eat breakfast, or dinner, depends on what time of the day you're traveling. And they have prime rib dinners for $2.99. Isn't that great? You can't even buy a prime rib for $2.99, but there you can. And you can have steak and eggs in the morning for like $1.75 or three, whatever it is. It's just like so cheap. And inevitably, and you stay in these really nice, what I would think to be like a $200 room a night, and you're paying 45 bucks. How can this be? Because it's the poor schmuck down there paying for it. It's the guy pulling the handle. That poor monkey, that guy's yanking on those things, and I'm eating the prime rib that he bought. I kind of like this deal. But not the guy yanking on the handles. And he's got his friend feeding the quarters into the machine. And he's pulling. He's pulling. Wearing himself out. Have you seen them? Their eyes are all puffy. They're there. They got all these drinks gathered around. And like, man, we're having fun, right? Tell me we're having fun. This is great. And they're spending. We had a family in the church whose father went to Las Vegas and spent his money. Came home. Got an airplane flight. Came home. And then went back. And his wife was trying to find out where he's at. What's he doing? You know what he did? What? God had blessed this man's life. He fell away from the Lord. And I mean God had blessed his life. The guy fell away from the Lord. He took their money and lost it in Vegas. And then he took the deed to their home and lost it on a table in Vegas. And their family was ruined. And they wound up getting a divorce. Unbelievable things. And the people are pulling on the handles, and they think they're going to maybe strike some kind of security. Listen, those that trust in riches will come to naught, says the Scripture. Jeremiah 45.5 says, Seekest thou great things for yourself? Seek them not, for destruction shall come upon the earth. Listen to this, and I'll be done. Proverbs 23, verses 4 and 5. This is a classic. In fact, we need to have a Vegas mission. Mission to Vegas. This is cool. With this theme verse on the track that we hand out. Do not wear yourself out. Do not wear yourself out trying to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast a glance at riches and they're gone. For they surely will sprout wings and fly away like an eagle. Proverbs 23 verses 4 through 5. Isn't that great? Isn't that something? Oh man, if I could just win the lotto, 74% of you will have to go to the nuthouse. Oh, if I could just win the lotto, 60% of you start taking drugs. Oh, if I could just win the lotto, we'll have peace. Well, 81% of you get divorced. We can't handle money because money was to be managed with God as one in our eyes and in our view. America has been blessed by God because America founded itself upon the word of God and sought God first. That's why we're enjoying financial benefits. But America... does not have long to live, possibly. And if you know Revelation 13, verse 13, our money doesn't mean much anymore. When it all comes down, will you maintain your faith in God? Or is your heart divided? This is a serious time. Pray for the United States. Pray for all of our hearts. Could we be experiencing such blessings right now? And in a moment time, the carpet pulled out from underneath this and all we'll have is our faith in God. We will be humble, won't we? That will be good, to be humble. But may we keep our faith in the Lord. Serious times. Father, we come before you and we ask you, Lord, that you might make us doers of your word and not hearers only. Father, we live in a culture that, and justifiably so, ridicules the church for its spending, mocks its so-called leaders and their extravagant living. People, so-called reverends, bilking people out of millions of dollars to appease their fleshly desires, and the world laughs. And we do not blame them. But Lord, we don't want to be associated with such things. regarding our fellowship or regarding our own private lives. To look at these things not as dollars but as tools. To use them to expand the kingdom of God. To live within our means. And to have the ability to bless our brothers and sisters around us. This we pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, Amen.
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Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio with his message called What's Wrong With Money? Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That's K-N-O-W God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
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Hey everybody, this is Pastor Jack here and I want to encourage you to get a great book. Now listen up, I know there's a lot of books out there and we certainly do push a lot of books on this program because we want you to grow and you should have a great library. Well listen, One Day Nearer is a book written by Steve Miller, a dear friend of mine and a great author and here's the kick. It's a 365-day devotion, one for every day, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, how to be looking for him, how to be walking in light of his return. What are the scriptures that should encourage us? All of this in this fantastic book, One Day Near, by my good friend Steve Miller. Get a copy for yourselves, please, and grow.
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One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Today, Pastor Jack teaches that we live in a culture that places so much pressure on finances that we tend to overextend ourselves. Money can blur our vision, give us false hope, and can even change our hearts towards God.
The post What’s Wrong With Money? – A first appeared on Pastor Jack Hibbs.
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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Why does the river dry up? There could be a thousand answers to that question. But how is it in your life? And you can stand back and point to all of these reasons why you think your river is drying up of income. But the fact of the matter is, maybe God is just doing something in your life.
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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.
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Hey everybody, brand new year. Listen to this. What a promise. Psalm 65, 11, God there announces that his paths drip with abundance and he makes his way prosperous. So listen, draw close to God, enjoy the new year in Christ, celebrate him every day and everything that you do. Listen, let God's work in your life be an incredible witness to other people. Bring them along. Bring them along with you into the kingdom of heaven. Love on them. Listen, the people in your life who are not Christians, start treating them like a Christian. Watch what happens. Share the joy of the Lord because you can. And exalt in his liberty and freedom because he's given it to you. Let's have an awesome new year in Jesus Christ together. Amen.
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on today's edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues his series called The Book of James with the message titled, What's Wrong With Money? Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. But as new Christians, they really needed some wisdom when it came to money. You see, whenever we get our eyes off the blesser and look to the blessings, well, that's when we're bordering on idolatry. The pursuit of money can destroy our faith. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that we live in a culture that places so much pressure on finances that we tend to overextend ourselves. Money can blur our vision. It gives us false hope and can even change our hearts towards God. Now with a message called, What's Wrong With Money? Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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Christian already needs to be prepared for trials and difficulties in this life. That when they come to the Christian's life, it does not mean that God has turned His back on us. It doesn't mean that God no longer loves us. It doesn't mean that God is angry with us. But in fact, difficulties in life come to the Christian. or the perfecting, or for the completing, and this sanctification work of the Spirit bringing us to maturity. We will never grow up as a Christian without trials, as much as we hate them. We need to realize that God has, in fact, planned them. And so, with that, we can kind of relax. Because everything that comes to our lives, will you remember this? Everything that comes to our lives... is first filtered through the Father's hands. We can boast about that as a Christian. The non-Christian world, that's another story. God is trying to get them to give up on this world saying to come to Christ and know Him as Lord and Savior. In verses 5 through 8, James taught us that we need to have wisdom regarding trials. And I don't know how it is in your life, but when a trial comes to me, I want to know, what's this all about? How am I going to make it through? And what exactly is God trying to do in relation to this trial in my life? I mean, that's nine-tenths of the victory. If I know what he wants to do, I can, in my stubbornness, lay a little bit more still on the spiritual surgical table as he works on me. If I don't know, then I'm flopping around and asking questions and goofing off, not really taking advantage of this thing that God has engineered for me, and that's a trial. I need wisdom to conduct myself in a trial. And so he said to us last week, we are to ask God for wisdom. And it's free for the asking. Our problem is we don't often ask. Oh, God, give me wisdom. God, give me understanding. Lord, help me to get through this. So in your own life, you can just pull out a piece of paper, you know, and just jot down, these are the problems of my life. And then you superimpose God's presence on those problems and ask Him for wisdom and how to live through them and how to deal with them. And now this morning we come to verses 9 through 11, and he's still talking about trials in our lives. He's going to do this for quite a few more verses, actually. But in verses 9 through 11, he's going to be speaking to us about our conduct regarding a certain status within the church. Look what he says, verse 9. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. but the rich in his humiliation. Because as a flower of the field, he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than the grass withers, the flower fails, and the beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. James just brings up this next spiritual shotgun. Cox that thing and he's going to get us with it. He's going to teach us. And you know what he's going to teach us about? Everything in the construction of these three verses are all in the context of wealth, of money, and of status among brothers and sisters in Christ. So the title of the message this morning is, What's Wrong With Money? What's wrong with money? Well, can anything be wrong with money? Oh, yeah. There can be a lot wrong with money. What is wrong with money? I know what's wrong with money. I never have enough of it. That's what's wrong with money. We might be like Tevye. You ever watch Fiddler on the Roof? Rent it. What a great movie that is. And Tevye, he's there and he's talking to God. And he's saying, Lord, you know, we're hardly able to make it. It's so difficult. It's so hard. And this time that we're having, so trying. And he says, you know, Lord, he goes like this. He says, God, you say that money's a curse. So I pray you'd smite me with it. And a lot of Christians are saying, oh, God, you know. If I just could win the lottery, you know, I'll give money to your work. I've heard that a thousand times. Lisa tells me that all the time. No, I'm kidding. Just joking. But if I just, you know, if my ship came in, oh, what I could do for the kingdom of God. Listen, the fact is, what's wrong with money? There's a lot wrong with money. It's not so much that money itself is evil. Did you know that? Money is amoral. It's not good and it's not bad. The difficult thing regarding money is that it is an instrument that executes our will. Are you aware of that? Money allows us to express ourselves in our true pursuits and desires. Paul said in 1 Timothy 6, verses 6-10, he says, "...Godliness with contentment is great gain, and with having food and clothing we should be content. For those who desire riches expose themselves to many various temptations that drowned men in perdition and in destruction." who, some having embarked upon that path, have been shipwrecked of faith. The pursuit of money can destroy your faith. And that is a warning. What's wrong with money? There doesn't have to be anything exactly wrong with money. What's wrong, really, is our hearts. And there is enough in this message to offend all of us here this morning about money. We don't want to talk about money unless we're going to get some of it. We don't want to talk about money, especially if somebody wants it from us. We don't want to talk about money. It's a private thing. We spend our money the way we want to spend our money. And God, you just be there on Sunday and I'll do this the rest of the week with our money. Oh no, that's wrong. We can't name the name of Christ and take what God blesses us with and completely do it to our own benefit. So what's this thing about money? By the way, if you're visiting Calvary for the first time, I have figured something out today that this is the first time we've talked about money in seven years. So if you're visiting, you say, well, they talk about money. Well, you've picked the... Come back in seven years, you'll probably hear it again. What's wrong with money? The first thing that we notice what's wrong with money, first of all, in verse 9, is that it places financial pressure on people. It places financial pressure on people. And if you have money, you might be saying, so what? And God wants to speak to you about that attitude right now. The Bible says in verse 9 here of James chapter 1, Let the low brother glory in his exaltation. Look at verse 10, But the rich in his humiliation, because as the flower of the field he will pass away. Verse 9 is our first point. That what's wrong with money is that it places financial pressure upon people. It's not supposed to do that. The pressure comes from this. It says here in verse 9, let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. The word lowly has three definitions in the Greek. It's one little word in English, lowly. But the word means this in the Greek language. Number one, that there's a river. The word pictures a river that's drying up. There's no longer any water flowing by you. Of course, in the context, it's money. There's no more money coming in. The next meaning of the word lowly in the Greek is that it causes depression. So you could read, let the depressed brother glory in his exaltation, or let the brother that doesn't have an income any longer glory in his exaltation. And the third meaning is, let the brother be humble and glory in the exaltation. Humility... There's depression and there's the understanding that our ship not only didn't sail, it sunk. And doesn't that describe the dilemma that so many people are in? If you don't have money, we so often get depressed. Now the Bible here is not condoning the fact that as a Christian, we should be depressed when things are bad and up when things are good financially. It's just honestly recognizing the fact that we are prone to depression when we don't have money. because we can't maybe do the things we want to do, or we can't live like we want to live, or whatever the case might be. But it speaks about the river drying up. Why does the river dry up? There could be a thousand answers to that question. But how is it in your life? And you can stand back and point to all of these reasons why you think your river is drying up of income, but the fact of the matter is, maybe God is just doing something in your life. It could be that we've mismanaged something, but God is not pointing fingers here. He's acknowledging the fact that they are among the brethren here in Christ, the sisters, that there are those who are not doing well financially. And what are we to do? First of all, if that's us personally, if we are experiencing this lowliness, we don't need to be depressed and we're not really even poor. What in fact is going on, God has placed us who are poor, all of us, depends upon the culture, you know. You know, we're all like very rich here, you know. I don't feel very rich. I was in Mexico this week. We're starting a Calvary Chapel there. We're rich. Do you have clothes on? Please say, yes, you do. You're rich. Are you hungry right now? Oh, yeah. Well, you'll in a moment satisfy your hunger at a restaurant or at home. You're rich. You know, nine-tenths of the world, they go to bed hungry, not having enough food. We have been so blessed in this country. We need to be content with that. Godliness with contentment is great gain. But we live in a culture that places so much pressure on finances. How much money can I get out of this thing? How much money can I get for this? How much money in this money-driven society? And it's sad to say there are many, many churches that are money-driven churches. That's how they conduct themselves. Rather than focusing on God and letting God supply the need, I love Pastor Chuck has always said in Chuck chapter 1 verse 1, It's when God guides, God provides. And if a church would operate under that simple rule, it would do so much better. And you might say, amen, may the church always operate like that. And all of us want to say amen to that. And I want to ask you, James wants to ask you this morning, how are you doing in your private life? How are your finances privately? How do you conduct yourself? According to Proverbs chapter 3, the Bible tells us there, around verses 8 or 9 or so, that we are to honor God with the first fruits of our increase. We are to give to God the first portion. In fact, in the Hebrew mind and understanding, if you get milk from a cow, you give God the best part of the milk. If you get grain from the field, you give God the best grain. That's the first fruits. The most choice. But we live in a culture that has driven us to this brink of overextending ourselves. And we can't give God any glory at all in relation to money. In fact, we don't control our money, many people. The money controls us. And we're driven back and forth.
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You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
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We live in a time that is most radical. The United States at this moment, it's rather alarming if you know the long-term picture. But America right now is experiencing incredible financial freedom right now. And many people are benefiting from that. According to statistics, we're making money, all of us. And you're putting more money aside in savings right now, aren't you? Are you? That's what they tell us. I'd like to see some of this happen, but the stock market almost from week to week is what? Breaking records. It's amazing. People are making a lot of money. The society we live in with that, we have a tendency to lean upon that money and to trust in that money. And I've got to confess something to you. This is terrible to say publicly. But I already have the last three services, so I'll continue to blow it in this one. I remember not too long ago going out to the mailbox to look for a certain envelope. Because years and years ago, I was able to buy a lot of stock actually at the time in a company that... To the glory of the Lord, it's done very well. And so there's the statement that comes. So I go out there, and I grab the envelope, and I look, and it took me like what felt a month to make it back to my front door because the stock didn't do that well. And I'm like this. And then the following day, statement came in the mail, and I opened it up at the mailbox, and I almost fell into the gutter with joy and delight. I jumped to my feet, and I danced all the way into the house. Why? Because it was a very good, good performance of that stock. And I got in the house, and I said, oh, man, look at this. And the Lord said, you bum. Look at you. You carnal thing, you. You couldn't rejoice when you lost, you know, some money last time, but now you're all happy because you made some money. Where's the joy? And I felt about this big when he said that, you know. Lord, you're right. In our Christianity, a brother comes into the church of a low degree. Are we connected to him because he has money or he doesn't have money? Should that even be a thought in the church? Never. It should be stricken from the record of our mind. Do the rich sit on one side of the church and the poor on the other side and maybe the middle class in the middle? James says be careful because there's chief seats in places and will you give the chief seats to them? Jesus made reference of that as well. James says in James 2, verse 6, he says, don't the rich, don't they arrest you and sue you and take you to court? Have you ever noticed a poor man who's been humbled by his depravity? He doesn't push a shopping cart by and say, I'll see you in court next week, brother. Oh, no, he won't do that. He'll get a call from my attorney. He doesn't have an attorney. Can't afford one. But the Bible says the rich sue us. The rich take us to court. Now, is it a sin to be rich? Absolutely not. Is it a sin to have so much? No, it's not. It's how we govern them. It's how we manage it. Now, I want to say this loud and clear. There are people in every body that I've ever had the experience to know, both locally, here, and around the world. In every church that names the name of Christ, there is always at least one brother or sister who's financially strapped and needs that body. And this is a theory of mine. I think God sends Christians like that to a church so that they can be almost like litmus paper to test the hearts of the believers. Oh, says the Bible, if you see your brother in need and you're not giving the things that he needs, you're a scorn concerning the word of God. Be warm and be filled, we would say to him, but we don't give him the wherewithal to be warm or to be filled. Oh, you guys are in need, huh? Yeah, we lost our job and we're losing everything. Oh, wow, I'll pray for you. Well, that's nice, but how about giving me a hamburger? I can't eat your prayers. I do want you to pray, but my stomach's rumbling right now. When we say, I'll pray for you, we need to hand them something and say, I'm going to pray for you. That's Christianity. This is what James is talking about. When a brother of low estate comes into the fellowship, first of all, that brother needs to know and that sister needs to know that God has highly exalted that person. That they may be going without in this world, but God says, you know what? You think you're poor, but you're in fact rich. You're at least rich in faith. You're coming in this trial, in this difficulty. You have nothing, and yet you worship me. And really, there's going to be a great reward given to a mind and a heart like that. But we live in a culture that puts so much pressure financially on people. And again, I am not saying that wealth is evil. It's how we use it and focus on it. We need to be very careful. Jesus is the poor we will have with us always. And in Galatians 6, verse 10, the Bible tells us that as we are given opportunity, we should minister to those who are of the fellowship. They're in need. It's very important. We need to be careful because riches can... even affect the way that we think. It puts pressure on people. Why is it that people, they get a little bit of money and it changes their attitude? Have you seen this happen before? I've seen this happen. People get a little bit of money and their attitude changes towards people and towards things. I was at a restaurant, and on a day like this, this would be a good time to announce it, I guess. Great restaurant, my favorite. It's down in Fashion Island in Newport Beach. It's called the Cheesecake Factory. You ever been there? It's the best. Great prices, great food, get the Cajun jambalaya. It's the best. Well, everyone else thinks it's the best, too, because when you go there, you've got to wait an hour or two to get into the building. In fact, they give you these little beepers. When you put your name in there, they give you a beeper. You're out there walking around forever, then your beeper goes off, and it means it's time to get to your table. Well, you're standing in line to get our name on the list. And I'm standing there, and this guy just takes cuts. And he goes, how long is the wait? Hour and ten minutes. And the guy goes, this is all I have right now. He goes, how long is the wait? You know, I don't know about you, but have you ever been robbed? That's how you feel. Same feeling. The guy cuts in front of me and goes, how long is the wait? You know what I wanted to do with that guy. How rude. In other words, listen, I can buy you off. I want my name at the top of that list. We live in a society that just bends over for this, keels over. I knew, you know, I was thinking, oh man, I would love to be in that guy's position right now who's being bribed with this. People think I've got money. I can do this kind of a thing. And it's a tragic thing. No, the Bible says in verse 10 that the rich needs to be humbled in his humiliation. The poor man can't do this. But why is it that money comes into the life even of a Christian and they begin to change? You know, one week, you know, you're talking to them and they have nothing. But, you know, somebody leaves them money and the thing is now they've got, oh, we got a check. And they change their attitude. And now they walk like this. Hello. What's the matter? What? Well, you didn't walk like that last week. Did you have surgery or something? What is this? No, you know, we... A check. Why are you talking like this? People, so many of us can't handle money. It begins to alter the way. Well, I'm not going to sit over there. What is wrong with you? And we laugh about this because the thing is we've seen it happen. Pressure. There's the haves and the have-nots, and it should never be in a church. And we are blessed in this body. There are people in this body who have multiple millions of dollars. There are people in this body who have no money at all. And you know what the beautiful thing is? Rarely do they ever know about one another's case. The beautiful thing about many, many of you as you give, you know, part of your giving goes to a benevolent fund every month to help people stay in their homes or turn on their water or keep their lights on. Abandoned moms with kids can't put gasoline in the car. These kinds of things you contribute to on a monthly basis and that's a great thing. But we are to never talk down or look down at a brother or a sister who does not have the financial status that you might enjoy. Paul says in Philippians 4, verse 11 through 13, he says, not that I speak in regard to need. I love the way Paul said that. He says, I want to talk to you about something here in a moment. And by the way, I don't have need of anything, so I don't get any ideas. I like that. He says, I have learned in whatever state I'm in to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry. Have you learned? Have I learned to be hungry? I've learned how to be full. I haven't learned how to be hungry. I haven't had to learn that. I have learned both to abound and to suffer need. In verse 13, he says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's the key, you know. Do you need money or do you want money? What are our needs and what are our wants? I'm not saying that desires are wrong and the pursuit of pleasures are wrong. It is this. We are a culture given over to it. We are obsessed with it. We are a culture that creates more amusement parks than any other culture in the world because Americans are pretty much bored. And we so often spend money and have nothing to show for it in the end because we're trying to fill the boredom in our hearts. And God's got a better way.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called What's Wrong With Money? Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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Well, hey, everybody. This is Pastor Jack here, and I want to encourage you to get a great book. Now, listen up. I know there's a lot of books out there, and we certainly do push a lot of books on this program because we want you to grow, and you should have a great library. Well, listen, One Day Nearer is a book written by Steve Miller, a dear friend of mine and a great author, and here's the kick. It's a 365-day book. devotion, one for every day, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, how to be looking for him, how to be walking in light of his return. What are the scriptures that should encourage us? All of this in this fantastic book, One Day Nearer, by my good friend, Steve Miller.
SPEAKER 01 :
Get a copy for yourselves, please, and grow. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash Real Radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Join Pastor Jack as he unpacks the lessons from the Book of James, guiding us in understanding the benefits of trials and the growth of enduring character. The episode emphasizes reliance on God for clarity and wisdom, dissecting the concept of double-mindedness and its hindrances. The biblical stories of King Solomon and David serve as powerful examples of faith in action, showing us the impact of believing without doubt and the legacy of wisdom shared across generations.
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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If you could see from God's vantage point how we're supposed to be with Him, we would all have these little bonnets on with a baby bottle in our mouth and booties on and He's just holding us. And in the mind we're thinking that we can do all these great things and God says, not without me helping you.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible. Have you ever stopped and thought, boy, what if Jesus were to come back today? In a world that feels more uncertain by the minute, it's easy to lose sight of eternity. But what if we lived each and every day with the hope and anticipation that Christ is coming back? Now that's the powerful perspective offered in One Day Nearer, written by Steve Millard. And it's this month's featured resource from Pastor Jack Hibbs, One Day Nearer. Through biblical insight and practical encouragement, this book's going to help you face life's challenges with faith and purpose, reminding you that with each sunrise, get this, we are one step closer to being with Jesus. If you're ready to realign your focus and rediscover the joy of living for eternity, One Day Nearer, it's really a must read. The point is this, friend.
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Every day that you get up, you are one day nearer.
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This book is available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Book of James with a message titled, Lord, Give Us Wisdom. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. You see, they had a limited understanding of how God's grace really does work and why life is so full of hardships. You see, the trials in life can cause us to want to know why. But as we grow in the Christian faith, we'll see how trials can produce a deep and enduring character within us. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that Jesus is the personification of wisdom. It's why we need to go to him, recognize our need for clarity, knowing that he will supply all of our needs according to his riches and not ours. Now with his message called, Lord, Give Us Wisdom, here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
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You can miss something that's right in front of your nose if you don't ask the right questions. You know, some people get upset with children. Man, all she does is ask questions. Or all he does is, Mommy, why? Mommy, why? Hey, don't frustrate that. That brain has grown faster than you, Mom and Dad, can answer its questions. You better get on your horse there. And when that little guy says, why is the sky blue? You better have an answer for him. You better have an answer. Tell him. They're growing so much. And when you ask the right questions, it's a good thing. We need to ask the right question. Oh God, I'm in the middle of a trial and I'm asking you for wisdom, please. Lord, get me through this. But let him, verse 6, ask in faith. That is the requirement. Ask believing. Ask in faith. with no doubting. This is heavy. No doubting whatsoever. You pray to God for wisdom with not one doubt in your mind or else don't ask. It's as pungent to the family and to the heart of God as if your child walked up and said, mom, can I have something to eat? That mother is gonna turn and feed that child. Can you imagine the child coming up knowing that the refrigerator is so full? And that little tummy is telling him or her, I'm so hungry. And for years, that little baby, well, not for years, but for months, that baby nursed upon mommy. And then for years, been fed by the spoon and fed by the table and fed by the hand. And then that little baby someday comes up, that little five-year-old walks up and says, mom, can I have some food? And mommy discerns this little hesitation. Well, yeah, why? I just don't know if you're going to give it to me or not. That would break your heart as a parent. That would break your heart. What do you think I am, some kind of a wacko? Are you hungry, honey? I don't even want you to get hungry. And God is saying to us right now, you lack wisdom in something. Is there anything in your life and in my life that we don't have exactly the... Squeeze on it. Is there something in our lives that's kind of flapping out there in the wind? We don't know quite what to do with it. Let's ask him for some wisdom. Could be anything at all. We just don't ask. And we need to start asking. Asking in faith with no doubting. Why? It insults him. believing when you ask him. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. Well, that's pretty serious stuff. And listen, this is very serious language here. See the word tossed? The word tossed means to be bellowed. It's where we get like a... You know where you... Take like the billows that generate wind and you stoke the flames. It means to agitate. And by the way, the word is not, don't think in your mind that the waves like we have here in Southern California, the waves continually move toward the shore. It's not waves of direction. It's as though the person is in a tank and the tank is on the table and it just jitters. And have you ever seen what water does when it jitters? It doesn't go anywhere but up and down, up and down, up and down. It doesn't go left, right, north, south, east, or west. It doesn't do that. It just goes up and down, up and down like pistons. That's the word that's used here for tossed. Have you ever felt like that? I told you last week I got a note. Or I got a note, I'm sorry, it was last Sunday after first service. A person had written a note and they used this exact word and they didn't even realize it. We hadn't gotten to it yet. They said, my life is like on a sea and I'm being thrown up and down and I can't see anything. I don't know where to go. I have no direction. In fact, it was spoken in there, I'm like a boat. You ever felt like that? Up and down the raging of the sea, seemingly going nowhere. An unstable man, a man that has no faith is like that. He's got no rudder. He's got no direction. Well, how do we get that? By coming to God and literally, and here's where we begin. We bow our knees down to the ground if necessary and say, God, I'm hearing that you're big. I'm understanding you wrote the Bible. I can't fix my life. I'm asking you to take the helm of my life. And Lord, I'm coming to you and I'm asking to give me wisdom. Only a fool would not ask God for wisdom. For the Bible says in Psalm 14, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. And that person is tossed on the sea of life, up and down, no direction. All the while looking like they got it all together. Tossed by the wind. Verse 7, For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. Boy, that is a strong statement. The fact of the matter is, a person who comes to God doubting and asking and requesting regarding worship, wisdom, if he's doubting, God says no. No way. You see, what's very interesting about it is that the very thing we need is wisdom and we're to seek hard after it. In fact, Psalm, you can jot it down later, I believe it's Psalm chapter 8, that personifies wisdom. And the scriptures tell us that we're to seek after wisdom with all of our heart. Remember in 1 Kings with great King Solomon? Solomon receives the kingdom from his father. And Solomon, such a precious, humble man at that time, at that time, Solomon says, Lord, I don't know when to go in and I don't know when to go out. I'm king, I don't know what to do. And I'm asking you, Lord, to give me wisdom and understanding that I can govern your people. And God responds. And he says, Solomon, because you have asked this for my people and nothing for yourself, I will not only give you wisdom and understanding, but it will be wisdom and understanding that surpasses all humankind. And even today around the world, the rumor and the lore of Solomon being the most brilliant man that's ever lived still reigns today. The smartest man, the wisest man, the wisdom of Solomon. And then God says, you know, because you didn't ask something for yourself, I'm not only gonna give you a wisdom and understanding, I am gonna give you riches beyond measure. I'm gonna give you influence and blessing that you can't contain. We as Christians need to be wise in these last days. The Bible tells us that we need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. Now, we all know what a dove is like. We have doves every night and every morning come into the yard and you can hear them. You know how they flap their wings? They make that funny little squeaky sound. And they're all over the backyard there feeding. And they're so gentle. We get the binoculars, even though they're just maybe 30, 40 feet away, we'll get the binoculars and look at them. And they look like they're airbrushed. They're so perfect. And they're so gentle. They're so peaceable. Gentle as a dove. But what about a serpent? Man, you've got to be pretty wise to be a serpent, don't you? You ain't got no legs. You look across the street on a flat road, you could look 10 miles that way. 10 miles the other way. Here we go. And you start going. You know, 15 minutes could go by. Okay. That's one laying down. They got to think, man. They're cunning. They hide. They know when to move. They know when not to move. They know how to scare you. Some snakes that don't pack a venom, they'll bluff you even. Some snakes will curl up and they'll act like they're going to strike you and they're thinking, I hope this idiot doesn't know that I'm not a rattlesnake. Wise, that's how they live. We need to be wise. Asking God for the wisdom, and it's a wisdom for the moment, wisdom for the situation, because God wants us to keep asking. Let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. Look, here's the reason why, verse 8. He's a double-minded man. Unstable in all of his ways. The word double-minded means he's got two souls. Now, he doesn't really have two souls, but he kind of does. He can't make a decision. He vacillates from one view to the other. You ever notice someone like that? What do you want to eat? It's just better you order for them. They can't decide. Well, should we go north or south? I don't know. It's like they're divided, and they'll get in an argument with themselves. They're divided. Well, this word means to be divided in the soul, to have a soul going to the left and a soul going to the right, to be double-souled or to be dual-minded. They're split right down the middle, and they can never come to any kind of a direct path. They can't make up their mind and move. Why? They have no faith. You see this? They have no faith. When they do pray, it's down in everything. When they go to pray and ask God for wisdom, they don't believe God's going to give it. And this is a serious thing because you and I can become guilty of this. They don't believe that God will give the wisdom even though they're praying for it. Isn't that a terrible thing? Lord, I ask you for wisdom. and believing that you're going to get it. Now, I can understand us having doubt if we're saying, Lord God, I just asked you for that winning lotto ticket. Now, you ought to doubt about that. First of all, you ought not to buy the ticket. That's your first mistake. God, can I use your money to buy a lotto ticket? Now, you'll hear them loud and clear if you ask them. We just don't ask. Doubting. Doubting. This man's not going to receive anything. Why? Because he's double-minded. He's dual-minded. He has no conviction.
SPEAKER 03 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
The tragic thing, very, I think, most important thing is that a double-minded man is an affront to the nature of God because God does not vacillate. If our God does not move, then can't we stand firm on him? You see, a double-minded man is insecure about everything. Many of us as new believers, when we start out our walk with Jesus, what do we suffer from? Am I saved this week? I was saved last week. Am I saved this week? You vacillate. Why? Because your faith is weak and you're learning. But what happens after a time? You begin to know, hey, there's nothing that can separate me from the love of God. Not even myself. Hallelujah. Thank you, God, for John chapter 10, verse 28 and 29, that tells me that I'm hidden in the hollow of your hand, and I'm also hidden in the Father's hand, and I'm stuck between the Son and the Father in the palm of their hand. Hallelujah, Jesus. Hey, that gives confidence. That gives assurance so you can pray and act in faith. But a double-minded man, he's unstable in all of his ways. And this word unstable is better more described than it is told in words. His feet and his very thinking is housed and positioned on jello. Think of that, jello on a dish. Why is it when we pass jello on the table, we got to shake it? It's just the coolest thing. All I have to do now is do jump rope and see the same thing happen, you know. Look at that jello. But this gel, look at this. And that's the man who's unstable in all of his ways. It's just like that. He's constantly moving. One of the tall tale signs to identify an unstable man or woman in all of their ways is that they worry about everything. They worry about it all. There's no peace. There's no rest. There's no stillness of the soul. They can't lay down at night without their gears spinning because they're worried about things. They can't leave it on the incredible foundation of God's hand. Oh, if we could see ourselves from God's vantage point. I don't mean this to sound rude by any means, but if you could see from God's vantage point how we're supposed to be with Him, we would all have these little bonnets on with a baby bottle in our mouth and booties on, and He's just holding us. And in the mind, we're thinking that we can do all these great things, and God says, not without me helping you. We hear all these... supposedly mature thoughts going on in our minds, and God says, you're just my child. And if I don't set you on the path and help you along and keep you from falling down, you'll crash. That's who we are. And when you start to see people like that, I don't care who it is, if they walk up and they're 900 pounds and seven feet tall, you know what, they're a baby in the hand of God. David had faith when he ran up to Goliath. I love it. By the way, it's awesome. We stood in the Valley of Elah. They know exactly where that spot is at because that valley snakes along. And then there's two big ridges that go up. And the Israeli army was on one side and the Philistine army was on the other side. And in between that valley is a creek bed of smooth stones. They're perfect. And it's so cool. David goes up there, and we read the story, and we have a hard time believing it. Oh, man, I'm sure this kid was 12, 13, 14 years old. He goes after this guy that's 9 feet 6 inches tall. His spear weighed 135 pounds. He slept in a bed according to the scriptures in the book of Deuteronomy. The prince of Og, his bed was 14 feet long. Six fingers and six... And toes. He put an end. Weird guy. Weird people. There were a bunch of them. David, I love his attitude. I like what our tour guide told us. He gets out there and he goes, David is a man. He's a young man. He's a little guy with a lot of chutzpah. He had a lot of guts. Well, we say, well, was it guts or was it God? It was both. God brought the giant down. It was his guts that trusted in the Lord. David shouted out, hey, you uncircumcised Philistine, you. That's pretty, that's a heavy, that's a, you wouldn't say that with women present anywhere. They didn't have women in the Israeli army on that day. You come in the name of your armies, while I come to you in the name of our God. Goliath says, what, do you take me to be a dog? He sent a little kid out here? I bet he laughed. Can you imagine the laugh of a giant? The ground probably kind of shook. David picked up five stones. Do you know the reason why he had five stones? One was for Goliath. The Bible tells us by name, Goliath had four brothers. It gives their names in the book of Samuel. That's cool. That's faith. Come here, you big pile of uncircumcised flesh. He gets that thing going and he checks his little pocket. Yeah, got four more right in there. Because the brothers come up. I'm going to knock them out too by the power of God. And Goliath's standing there and he just goes. And notice the stone didn't kill him. Read the fine print. He didn't kill the giant with the stone. Stone knocked him back on his back. Stone knocked him over. Well, I don't know. This part scares me. David runs up there and stands on his chest and pulls out a sword. He's a little guy. Pulls out a sword and plops it on Goliath's neck and starts sawing. The guy wasn't dead yet. He was dazed. David cuts his head off. That's an awesome story. Every guy loves that. It's like, yes! Now David could have sat there and said, with knowledge. Knowledge isn't bad, but if you don't have wisdom, what good is it? With knowledge, you could have said, you know, the trajectory of this thing, when I let it go, this velocity is going to basically, his skull is about six inches thick. I think maybe if I hit him just right, I don't know. Then it checks the wind. No. David had wisdom to trust in the power of God Almighty, and it brought the giant down. David was not double-minded. And you'll be able to do those things if you're not double-minded. Well, Jack, I'm double-minded and I don't want to be double-minded anymore. What do I do? You ask God believing with faith for wisdom and your life will become still and calm. I'm not saying your trials will go away, but they will keep you awake at night. And in the morning when you arise, the Lord will have baptized you with wisdom on how to deal with them. And you know when God's wisdom is in effect because it brings him honor. Some may recognize that, some may not. But it'll bring him honor.
SPEAKER 03 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Lord, Give Us Wisdom. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That's K-N-O-W, God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don't know if I'd call it a bribe, but I make a deal with my eight-year-old grandson. And we pick out a Bible verse that I haven't memorized it and he hasn't memorized it. And the next week, I'll call him to do the next one. And if he has the one from the week before memorized, I put $5 into a bank account for him. And I'm kind of bribing him, but that's all right though, isn't it?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, listen, that's not bribery. I think it's fun. Listen, well, you think it's fun because it's a biblical thing to do. And let me explain. The scripture commands the grandparents to be laying up money for the children. In our culture, we've so abandoned God that now when people grow older, they lean on their children to take care of them. The reverse is biblical. The parent, the grandparent is to labor in such a way that they save up resources for the grandchildren. In this case, it's beautiful because you're teaching your child that good behavior can be rewarded. It doesn't have to be, but in your case, you're doing that. There is a relationship established where you guys are exchanging the word of God together. And the fact that you are putting it in a bank account.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
is actually brilliant because it's teaching him a plethora of things. The Bible, Papa loves the Bible. I want to be like my Papa. We memorize this together. The legacy, let's be honest, the legacy is when you pass into the arms of Jesus, he's going to miss that like crazy. That's a legacy. And that's what you want to experience. But the cool thing is this little account that will build up over time, he will have a great respect for I predict a great respect. He's not going to spend that money on bubble gum or some plastic piece of junk because I got that with my papa.
SPEAKER 03 :
This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
Explore the depths of spiritual wisdom through an enlightening conversation with Pastor Jack Hibbs. This episode navigates through the trials outlined in the Book of James, guiding listeners on how to transform hardships into platforms for spiritual maturity. Pastor Jack shares moving accounts of individuals who have found strength through faith, encouraging listeners to turn to God for wisdom in times of uncertainty. Join us in seeking a deeper understanding of how divine guidance can illuminate the path through life's toughest moments.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
So it's not so much anymore, oh, I can't believe this happened to my house or my car or to my body or to my friend or whatever. I can't believe this. No, what we say now from here on out, we should raise our right hand and repeat, oh, Lord God, help me to have wisdom the next time I have a trial.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey everybody, brand new year. Listen to this. What a promise. Psalm 65, 11, God there announces that his paths drip with abundance and he makes his way prosperous. So listen, draw close to God, enjoy the new year in Christ, celebrate him every day and everything that you do. Listen, let God's work in your life be an incredible witness to other people. Bring them along. Bring them along with you into the kingdom of heaven. Love on them. Listen, the people in your life who are not Christians, start treating them like a Christian. Watch what happens. Share the joy of the Lord because you can. And exalt in his liberty and freedom because he's given it to you. Let's have an awesome new year in Jesus Christ together. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Book of James with a message titled, Lord, Give Us Wisdom. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. You see, they had a limited understanding of how God's grace really does work and why life is so full of hardships. You see, the trials in life can cause us to want to know why. But as we grow in the Christian faith, we'll see how trials can produce a deep and enduring character within us. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that Christians are developed under the pressure of trials. In the world, we have trouble, that's true, but we can still have peace knowing that when we ask the Lord for wisdom to overcome, He really is faithful to give it. Now with his message called, Lord, Give Us Wisdom, Here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
We're talking here now about wisdom. James goes from verses 1 through 4, talking about trials in life. And we covered that last week, how we all go through trials. You can be in here tonight and say, I'm not a Christian, and I'm not going to give my heart to Christ because I don't want trials. Look, these things come with life. You can go through your trials in life without God, or you can go through the trials of life with God. The beautiful thing about being a Christian is our trials have meaning. And I don't know about you, but I want to know. If something's wrong, I want to know what's wrong. If the doctor can't find out what's wrong with you, it drives me nuts. I want to know what's wrong. At least they can start fixing it, right? Or if you take your car in and they work on it and work on it and they say, well, we think we've got it. You think we've got it? I think I'm going to pay you. Maybe. You know, what does this mean? And so, you know, you go away thinking and driving and listening and worrying because you're not exactly sure. Right? Well, trials come and they're ordained by God for the life of the believer. And if you're not a Christian tonight, the things that happen in your life that would pressure you and come down hard on you is in fact God's gentle, loving care, believe it or not, trying to get you to a saving knowledge of Jesus. A lot of hardships bring people to God. I don't know where he is at now in his walk with Jesus Christ. But years ago, Lisa and I had a chance to meet and to talk with BJ Thomas. Remember him? Raindrops keep falling on my head. Guy that sang that song. And we had a chance and we were talking with him. He was at Calvary Costa Mesa. And... He said, you know, I was so hooked on drugs. I was spending somewhere around three or four thousand dollars a week on drugs. He said, I was so devastated by drugs. I was so messed up, lost everything I had. He said, I literally could not go any further. He said, the best thing that could happen to me is my life could have been taken from me. He said, I hated to live, but I didn't have enough courage to take my own life. And he said, then Jesus Christ came into my life. And that's a beautiful thing. And sometimes trials can get you so down, as the old saying goes, I'm so far down or I'm so flat on my back, I've got nowhere to look but up. And that is so true in so many people's lives. And so he was talking to us about trials. Remember he spoke to us about being a bondservant of God? That James is a bondservant and that he was owned by God. It was a beautiful, beautiful statement that James now came out of his servitude to the world and he wound up yielding his ear. Do you remember? Were you here last week? Yielding the earlobe? to the bondservant tag that he would receive, that metal awl in the ear, that would declare that he had now, by his free will, accepted his master forever. And that master would have been God. And so now James works for God. And he was speaking to the 12 tribes dispersed throughout all of the area of Asia and of the northern regions of southern Russia or northern Turkey. And then he said to us, my brethren, count it all joy. That word count, remember, was a word of mathematical terminology. Tally up all of your hassles and put that number over here. And then look at the will and the plan of God and put that number over here. And you will see how wonderful God's plan is. You can count it joy when you fall into trials. And that was not a happiness. It was a joy, a joy that sticks, a joy that can't be shaken. A joy that even when tears are flowing down our cheeks, we can have that peace and that joy. And then he challenged us in verse 3. He said, knowing that the testing of your faith, you got to know it. You got to know. You got to have that knowledge that God is testing our faith because there's a good thing to be produced in the end and that would be patience. And that patience would have its complete work. Now remember, so that you're not frustrated in verse 4, he mentioned to us that let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect yourself. And that word doesn't mean perfect as you read it. The best word that we can come to in the English is the word perfect. But in the Greek, the word is mature. Most mature. that we would grow up, that we would be people that would not be so prone to say, oh God, why are you doing this? Oh God, how can you do that? When in reality we can say, God, this terrible thing that's going on in my life, you know all about it and I'm asking you to help me. Give me your peace. And now we come to verse 5, which is very, very important. And what I want you to jot down tonight is just a few things, and that is in verse 5, we are going to be looking at who we are to talk to. Who are we to ask about trials? Who are we to talk to when we're in a trial? Now, all of us need to commit this to memory. Verse five means, who do we talk to when we're in a trial? And I'll explain why in a moment. He says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Notice this, ask God, ask God for what? Wisdom, why do we need wisdom? Well, let me ask you, how well did you handle your last trial? You see how we need wisdom? Because we get overwhelmed. Oh, how could this be happening to me? God says, well, why not? I couldn't think of anybody better. Oh, God, don't you love me? Yes, he does. In fact, all your friends, like Job's comforters, would come up and say, wow. Wow. What about this? What about that? I know why you're so sick, Job. You know, you've had this problem in your life. You've got this secret sin, Job. Confess it and you'll be okay. That wasn't Job's problem. And then one guy comes and says, Job, you know what you're doing? You're sinning. You're just sinning left and right. That's your problem. That wasn't Job's problem. It wasn't his problem at all. At the end of it all, Job sits down and he's vindicated by God, even though he got through a terrible fiery trial. By the way, do you remember what Job's trial was? He lost his children. I think he had 10 kids. Wasn't it 10 kids? He lost 10 kids in one night. In fact, what a godly man. He gets up and he says, you know, I'm going to pray for my kids because who knows, they could have sinned last night. What a parent. Lord, I just ask you to bless my kids. And he goes down that list of 10 kids. And he's praying for his family. And of course, while he's praying for his family, Satan is up there talking to God. And God says, have you considered my servant Job? Now I pray to God that if Satan comes knocking on God's door, God never says, consider Jack. Just, it's okay. I don't need that. Can you imagine? Oh, and the Lord, it's so cute because the Lord, I mean, it wasn't cute on Job's side. That's the whole thing about trials. We're down here in the dust. God's up there and he says, you know, look at my servant, Billy Graham. Served me all these years, loves me, faithful, great man of God. And because the Bible says in the book of Revelation, Satan is the accuser of the brethren day and night, Satan's up there saying, Billy Graham, please God. I mean, look at him. The guy picks his nose when he is being driven around places. He snores. Those are probably big sins for Billy Graham, I guess. I don't know. But Satan's there accusing, always pointing the finger. And God says, well, have you considered my servant Job? And Satan says, I tell you what, you know what? You've blessed him so much. You just let me at him. And I tell you, in a moment, he'll curse you to your face. Take away all the blessings and he'll let you have it, God. And the Lord knew better. The Lord knew what Job could handle. And the Lord says, I tell you what, Satan. You can have this, this, this, and this regarding Job, but don't you take his life. And so what did Satan do? If you want to know what's in Satan's mind, God didn't say take his kids, burn his crops, destroy his livestock, and wipe them out completely. God didn't say that. God just says you cannot go this far. You can go to a certain point, but that's it, Satan. And by the way, Satan had to obey God, and he did. Remember that. But Satan launches his armada against Job, and Job winds up losing the very children he was praying for. A storm came and fell in and killed all of his children who were all together fellowshipping. Now, I know that in your mind and my mind, that doesn't make much sense to us, but it sure does to God, and I can't tell you anything more than that. I don't know why things go the way that they do. They just do. And I got to turn to him and say, God, you know. Why is this happening? Lord, I don't know why this is happening, but you alone know. And we need to take comfort in that. And that's why we need wisdom in the midst of trials. Wisdom. So it's not so much anymore, oh, I can't believe. This happened to my house or my car or to my body or to my friend or whatever. I can't believe this. No, what we say now from here on out, we should raise our right hand and repeat, Oh, Lord God, help me to have wisdom the next time I have a trial. That's what we need. Lord, I'm in a trial. I ask you to give me wisdom. He says in verse 5, if anyone lacks wisdom, in the Greek, the word implies all of us lack wisdom. So it's not some, well, you know, I'll pray that for him over there. He looks like he could use some wisdom. So what is wisdom? First of all, there's a wisdom of the earth, which is not necessarily on the surface, hear me out carefully, good or bad on the surface. But the Bible does say it's devilish. Isn't that interesting? It's weird, huh? There could be a wisdom of the world that is really brilliant, and we probably wind up praising it a lot of the times. Wow, that was a really super stroke of genius that whoever did about whatever. But it's not from God. There's a wisdom of the earth that is devilish, and then there's a wisdom of God that's from heaven. And this is the wisdom that comes from heaven, obviously. And it says, if you lack it, we all lack wisdom. Now, here's the deal. Wisdom has several definitions, really, but they all say the same thing. Wisdom is the correct appropriation of knowledge is one definition. Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge is the other one. And I read this this week, somebody really brilliant who spoke real simply, and his name was Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein seemed to be, the more I read about this guy, seemed to be really down to earth. He upset a lot of the intelligentsia of the world because he was kind of a cool guy. Albert Einstein says, when you have knowledge, if you're going to take that knowledge and benefit anybody with it, It's what you do with it determines if you have wisdom. Man, that is easy.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
You can be a rocket scientist. and have no wisdom. You can be able to answer every question on Jeopardy and have no wisdom. You can be able to say this and say that about, oh, that guy knows everything about everything, and then the guy turns around and just absolutely falls off the edge of the curb. There's almost a density about the guy. I knew somebody, well, I knew somebody And this guy was a brilliant electrician. Brilliant. And his problem was he just knew it. And he went to school and he like fell asleep in classes and just wound up nailing all of the questions on the test perfect because he's just a smart guy. For him, electricity just flowed in his head. But yet this guy was walking through sliding glass doors. he would take his car and put it in drive and look behind and go right through his garage door. You never wanted to be with him. And yet he sat down at the books and he was brilliant. But the guy was a minister to society and himself as he got around. He had no appropriation regarding that knowledge. Knowledge is great. You know, knowledge is something that is acquired. You can obtain knowledge, but you cannot obtain wisdom. Well, you say, well, wait, I thought experience breeds wisdom. Experience does breed wisdom, but the wisdom we're talking about here in the Bible is wisdom from above. It's given by God to God's people, and it's got to be asked for. So what we want to do is, who do we ask in the midst of a trial? Well, I know what most people do, and this kind of bugs me, and I'm not innocent on this either. But you know what we need to stop doing, every one of us? When we're in the middle of a trial, we need to stop asking other people. You got it. Men. Men. Mr. and Mrs. Men. Mankind. Something happens, and we're on the phone. That is an absolute insult to God's character. That is just, to me, that is just disgusting. Something happens, and whoom, to the phone we go, oh, Betty, oh, Bobby, oh, you know what? Get on your face and talk to God. It's happened for a reason. Fall on your face and call Him first. His number is Jeremiah 33.3. Did you know that? Jeremiah 33.3. You can call him. Jeremiah 33.3. It says, call on me and I'll answer. That's his number. Jeremiah 33.3. Jot it down. Call him up. God, I'm calling upon you, God. And he says, I will answer. Nobody's calling. His phone sits there. Everybody's in the midst of a trial, but who calls him? No, we wind up calling people. And then we wonder why we're so messed up in the trial. The Bible says in Proverbs 3, verses five and six, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not to your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. Hard to do if we're not talking to Him. Ask God first for wisdom. What this implies is rather convicting. If you and I don't have wisdom, what is implied is we don't talk to God. What should I do about this situation? I tell you, in this ministry, including myself, any pastor or any lay person in this church, if you come and ask them, what should I do about a situation? The first thing out of our mouth had better be, have you talked to God about that? Have you asked Him? Well, no. You know what? That pastor or that evangelist or that priest would do you an injustice if they began to regurgitate answers right into your lap because that's not what's supposed to happen. We are to go to God ourselves. and talk to Him. The Bible says there's one mediator between man and God, and that is the man, Christ Jesus. We're to talk to Him. I know that's kind of alarming. Some people might think, this lunatic thinks he can talk to God. It's true, we can. We don't always hear an answer. But we can talk to Him anytime. This afternoon when I announced to these kids that Jesus Christ is in heaven and he loves you, no matter what you've done, he loves you and he wants to make your life all new again. You should have seen the tears in the eyes of young girls in that stadium. Tremendous. God cares. God wants to hear from us. If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Ask the Lord. No man can give us wisdom. Nobody can. And look what else. Who gives to all liberally. The word liberally is generously, just incredibly generous, God is. So you ought to circle that word liberally in the New King James or generously. If we lack wisdom, we can ask of God who gives it liberally, and look, without reproach. You know what the word reproach means? It means without being frustrated, without being upset by your continuous asking. That's what it implies. Isn't that great? Lord, I need wisdom. You know how often God wants to hear from you and I about wisdom? About every five minutes. Oh God, I need wisdom. And the beautiful thing is, He's tender about it. He's tender. He's not only generous, he's tender. He doesn't say, what is it? This is the fourth time today. I'm running the universe. I've got the eons to maintain. I mean, what is it? I need some wisdom. Oh, brother. He doesn't do that. He's so kind. He gives and gives more, as the old hymn says. He gives more. God, I need wisdom. What do you think he says? No. I'm not going to give it. But you said that you give it generously. Well, that was yesterday. No, I am the Lord and I change not. I tell you, we're going to need wisdom tomorrow. And Monday and Tuesday, we're going to need it. So we need to start getting into the mode, not just coming to church and doing our Christian. No, we need to do this from now on. Lord, give me wisdom. Some of you, I look around here, some of you are seeking God for direction in your life. Some of you are going to Russia. God, I want wisdom for that. Some of you are on business ventures and your business that you do. God, I need wisdom. Schooling, I need wisdom, Lord. Some of you are in the medical field. Lord, I need wisdom. How do I deal with this? God, give me. I tell you, I'd like to have a doctor and a surgeon and a nurse full of wisdom, wouldn't you? Especially if they have a knife in their hand, I want them to have a lot of wisdom. But think about it. God, I need you in my life and I need wisdom. Recognize this, that we need to confess our need in this area. That's what God's going to do. He's going to bless us with wisdom when we ask him. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And we need to seek him. Let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Can you underline that in your Bible? It says in my Bible, it will be given to him. Do we believe this? It says that he'll do it. If you and I lack wisdom, this verse is warning me that it's not his inability to answer prayer, it's my inability to ask. Because you know what? We don't think about it. I remember years ago where I used to work, the big president came into the room and They had been interviewing a certain person or certain people for a certain job and they all got together and they're kicking around the idea about who they're gonna hire. And they had these people from Northwestern University and Johns Hopkins University and all these great, great schools where there's medical programs, super duper things and these great, great people. And all these guys are spouting off, giving their inputs about who to hire. And I remember the president, Beautiful Christian man, by the way. He said, you know, we're going to go with so-and-so. And it kind of stunned everybody because they didn't come blazing through the interviews like everybody else. And he said, you know, nobody asked the president why. He's the president. But he's such a kind man. He just says, you know, and this is the reason why. That person in our interviews knew what questions to ask. And that's a key. You can miss something that's right in front of your nose if you don't ask the right questions.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called, Lord, Give Us Wisdom. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of James. It's a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey everybody, this is Pastor Jack here, and I want to encourage you to get a great book. Now listen up, I know there's a lot of books out there, and we certainly do push a lot of books on this program because we want you to grow, and you should have a great library. Well, listen, One Day Nearer is a book written by Steve Miller, a dear friend of mine, and a great author, and here's the kick. It's a 365-day book. devotion, one for every day, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ, how to be looking for him, how to be walking in light of his return. What are the scriptures that should encourage us? All of this in this fantastic book, One Day Nearer, by my good friend, Steve Miller.
SPEAKER 01 :
Get a copy for yourselves, please, and grow. One Day Nearer by Steve Miller, available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. That's jackhibbs.com slash Real Radio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
