A New Beginning That Lasts

(0:00 - 0:20) Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast, with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Folks, we live in a dangerous day. Moving into this new year, assume what you are looking, hearing at is false, but you've got to find out where the truth is. (0:20 - 0:42) It doesn't mean you quit, because listen, Satan flooding the lies that are out there makes it harder to find the truth. Because when somebody does find the truth, they've been conditioned to think it's a lie. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to Jackhibbs.com slash podcast. (0:42 - 1:01) Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. (1:01 - 1:17) Here is Jack Hibbs. Well, hey, listen up. Are you someone who might be thinking that you've messed up your life royally? I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say that to some degree, everyone thinks that from time to time. (1:18 - 1:29) I don't know if you're going to like what I'm about to say, but you're going to be able to relate to it. But maybe if we can figure it out, we can do well by it. And that is we're coming up on a year's end and a new year beginning. (1:29 - 1:58) And as humans, we're kind of suckers for falling into a trap whereby we think we can wash away what's happened to the past, make it all sparkly clean, gone and move on into the new year with everything rosy. Well, listen, I'm kind of reminded of what I saw the other day, and it was this. It was on YouTube, and I was watching because I really like this stuff about guys, you know, driving street cars, fast cars on the streets. (1:58 - 2:20) And there was a guy that was sitting at a stoplight and everybody was on the street corners, cheering him on because the guy happened to have been driving a Lamborghini. And it was probably his dad's car because when he punched it, he didn't know what to do with a thousand horsepower. And so the guy went out of control completely, and then he tried to stop it. (2:20 - 2:30) That didn't help any more better at all whatsoever. And the guy crashed into the curb. When you take a Lamborghini and hit a curb, it basically destroys a good chunk of that car. (2:30 - 2:40) The car was destroyed and everybody was laughing and that guy started crying. Listen, people feel like they've done that with their lives. They maybe have gone too fast. (2:41 - 2:54) Maybe they felt like they hit it too hard. And you know what? Maybe you did. Maybe that's exactly what happened is that all your friends were cheering you on and you punched it and you wound up ruining your life. (2:54 - 3:25) Maybe you got into a situation that you don't think you can get out of. And I want you to know something that as we come to a year's end and a year beginning, how do we mitigate it? Really, what was a hopeful thing kind of turns into a really, really almost compounding bad thing. It's like I want to restart, but can I? Is it even possible? So just with our time together, I want you to commit this verse to memory. (3:26 - 3:34) And I'm not saying that just because I'm supposed to. I actually did many, many years ago. It's Psalm 65, 11. (3:35 - 3:41) And I want to read it to you, the verbatim out of the New King James. Use whatever version you want. I'm sure it's great in all versions. (3:42 - 3:52) But listen to this. It's the psalmist responding to God's goodness. And I want you to hang on to this verse for the entire year. (3:53 - 4:06) And in fact, forever, until Christ comes for you. Psalm 65, 11 says, you crown the year with your goodness and your paths drip with abundance. Let me read it again. (4:06 - 4:18) Isn't this beautiful? You, that is the Lord, crown the year with your goodness and your paths drip with abundance. What a blessing. What a great blessing that is. (4:18 - 4:25) So let's unpack a few things about this. Number one, everybody, number one, I want to give you some facts. Number one fact is this. (4:26 - 4:51) It's never been this late before that the time that you view this, the time that you're listening, whatever time that is, it's never been this late before. In God's clock, on the calendar, on your watch, on your device, it's never been this late before. Can you agree with me on that? Of course you can. (4:51 - 5:07) Why is that important? Because time is a physical factor and so are we. We are physical beings and we live in a physical realm, but yet at the same time, we are spiritual in our creation. We are body, soul, and spirit. (5:08 - 5:15) With that said, we have a great conflict when it comes to time. We don't do well managing time. I don't care who you are. (5:15 - 5:19) You're going to write me a letter. You're going to send me an email. I beg your pardon. (5:19 - 5:49) I am a specialist in time and I work for NASA and I launch rockets and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that when it comes to you painting the house, taking out the trash, or planning the trip, or getting to work on time, we are all struggling with the time issue and that compounds the pressure of life so much so that when we come to the end of a new year, we are tempted to take a deep, deep breath. I get it. (5:50 - 6:02) So do I. And exhale at midnight into the new year and we have a belief that there's some sort of infusion of hope. Something's changed. Something's different. (6:02 - 6:08) When that may not be the case. It's not always the case. It can be. (6:09 - 6:37) But let's walk through a few things and that is coming to the realization regarding the times and the seasons of things. You look back over this last year and for you personally, did the year drag on? Did the year take forever in your life to come to a conclusion? Can you maybe write down the reasons why that's your answer? The answer is yes, Jack. It seemed like it took forever to go by. (6:37 - 7:04) Can you write down what you think are the reasons why? Here's the reason why. When something seems like it takes a long time, it usually means that there's some form of idleness or stagnation that is either bad or imposed upon us. Imposed by that, I mean you were stuck at a really boring job. (7:04 - 7:12) Your job was to watch the clock. I mean, right? I mean, that'd kill you. Or how about this? It's been a year of sickness. (7:12 - 7:51) And when you listen, you know, 24 hours feels like 96 hours when you're sick, especially at night. Have you noticed how night hours when you're sick seem to be like three days long? Why? It has to do with physical time and us being soul or mind and spirit creations of God. So when we talk about times and seasons, notice for many of us, I know for myself, as this year ends and a new year begins, I feel like it is still May or June of this last year. (7:53 - 8:08) My mind has not caught up to the pace that I lived. And I'm still trying to process if that's good or bad. But busyness causes things to evaporate so much so fast. (8:09 - 8:26) Now, normally the rule to all things is finding the balance. But I have yet to find an individual nor myself that can look back over the year and say, you know what? I managed out the important stuff, the urgent stuff, the leisure stuff and the work stuff. I managed it so perfect. (8:26 - 8:36) It came out just so great. I've never heard of such a thing. If you have that secret, you don't need to send it to me because I'm not going to believe you. (8:36 - 8:56) On times and the seasons are something that we need to always make sure that we leave in the hands of God by placing it first into the hands of God. The Bible tells us in Isaiah chapter nine, verse six, regarding Messiah, that he is the father of time. That Jesus is the father or the governor. (8:56 - 9:10) He's the authority over time itself. I find it just fascinating and wonderful that the book of Romans tells us that God can redeem our time. He gives us that opportunity to redeem time. (9:11 - 9:21) Time that we lost, he gives us the opportunity to reclaim that time with something good. But there's times and there's seasons. Obviously, in the calendar, there's four seasons. (9:22 - 9:46) And within each season, there's a little micro seasons within them. And in your own life, it's the same way. And so I just want you to look back over this last year and ask yourself, what do I need to change so I don't do the same thing in the first quarter of this new year? Season number one. (9:47 - 10:00) What do I need to do different? How do I need to slow down? Now, I know if you're anything like me, slowing down seems like a sin. It's like somebody says, you need to take a break. Get thee behind me, Satan. (10:00 - 10:11) How terrible. How can you talk like that? And yet they're right and I'm wrong, even though I feel like I'm right and I feel like they're very wrong. Most often, they're probably right. (10:11 - 10:22) That's why God has given us seasons. The summer is long daylight time for a reason. The winter months are shorter and darker, longer for a reason. (10:24 - 10:55) Ask the Lord this year, what is it that not does he want you to accomplish for the year? Ask him, Lord, what do you want me to accomplish in this season for my life? And then secondly, I wrote down this note. All these are notes to myself that there's God and that there's me. And to ask the question, what time is it? God, what time is it from your perspective? Because I can tell you what time it is from my perspective. (10:56 - 11:13) So for me personally, now granted, this is me. You use you and I will use me. Moving forward into the new year, I ask myself what time it is and I look around and I'll be very, very honest with you. (11:14 - 11:25) I'll be very transparent. I look and I see that whatever's happening seems to be happening very quickly. So I assume it's going to be true for the new year. (11:26 - 11:49) And I also have a sense of great urgency. In other words, in my mind and in my actions, granted at my age, maybe I've never, it's never been this late before for me. Maybe everybody my age thinks this way, but I'm just now arriving at my age. (11:50 - 12:02) And so I'm thinking things like, I need to start giving stuff away. Say what? What? Say what? What? What I mean by that is this. My grandsons love my model airplane collection that I have. (12:03 - 12:27) And so I've noticed this last year, the joy and the desire to give each of my grandsons, my granddaughter doesn't care about airplanes, but my grandsons freak about airplanes. I've been giving those cherished models to them and I'm happy about it. Why? Because I've lived my life. (12:27 - 12:43) They're living their lives. And so for me, I sense and feel this transitional type of season that I'm in. I realized that coming up in January, I'll be 68 years old. (12:43 - 12:53) Will I be healthy for the next five years or 10 years? I don't know. Will I be healthy for the next month? I don't know. Only God knows. (12:53 - 13:12) But I've got to be thinking this way, putting together the times and the seasons and asking God what he wants for me. What time is it between God and I? I think that's a good question to ask yourself. Lord, what time is it between you and I? How much time do I have? You're not going to tell me the day. (13:12 - 13:17) I know that. That you keep to your own private trust, God. I understand. (13:18 - 13:36) But can you make my life, because you know all things, can you make my life matter and make the minutes and the hours matter? Now, friend, listen to me. I'm going to say something that is going to hit you right between the eyes, and I mean to do this. I'm assuming you're a Christian. (13:40 - 14:06) If you spend an hour every day playing games, video games, gaming, that's lost time that will never come back. And it was a big fat zero for kingdom expansion and kingdom purposes. I don't think I'm obsessive over this, but I've only got limited days of my life. (14:07 - 14:19) In fact, count how many weekends you have left in your life. There's 52 weekends a year. How many weekends do you have left? Think about that. (14:19 - 14:47) How many Christmases will there be? How many Mondays will there be for you? Because you and I don't know. I actually know people who, they say they know Jesus, but they actually spend hours gaming and playing on these things. And the church needs them. (14:48 - 14:59) And they need to use their gifts for the kingdom. They need to be active about God stuff. So God, what time is it? Is the question I want to ask myself in this new year. (14:59 - 15:11) And then the third thing is, and I wrote this down this way. It's always, you know, this thing at New Year's Eve. What's your resolution, dude? You know, they never work. (15:13 - 15:31) And then you tell somebody, I'm going to lose five pounds this year. And whatever it might be, I'm going to quit smoking, or I'm going to stop this, or I'm going to start the other. Okay, you Jack up your expectations. (15:32 - 15:55) And then before the end of January, you're all crushed and depressed because you failed. What I want to encourage you to do is to seek the Lord and apply Psalm 65 11, knowing that he's got the path for you to walk on, and it's going to drip with abundance. That he has ordered the year and he's ordered goodness for you. (15:56 - 16:09) Why don't you listen? Why don't you and I look for that goodness instead of goofing around? Let's look for the goodness. And let's look for the paths that drip with abundance. Psalm 65 11. (16:10 - 16:25) Because friends, listen, people will say, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to reset my year. Yep. It's the new year. I'm going to press reset. Hmm. I don't think it's going to work. Or I'm going to rewind. I'm going to rewind and do it over. (16:26 - 16:44) Are you sure you want to do that? Because even if you had a great year past, what if God wants to have this year to be greater or different? Better? Don't rewind. Don't hit reset. Don't rewind. (16:45 - 16:55) Renew. Renew. Come to this new year and say, according to the Bible, everything that is past is behind me. (16:57 - 17:18) Everything that is before me, I'm going to press on into seeking God. He's promised to go before me with his goodness, and he's going to bless the path that I'm on if I follow him. I am aggressively taking on January 1st to walk for the glory of God, and I'm going to be looking for God to do amazing things. (17:19 - 17:33) You say, well, Jack, I'm 92 years old. Hey, so what? You can do something radical that God has ordained for you at 92 years of age. If you don't ask, it ain't going to happen. (17:33 - 17:44) And as long as your heart's beating, there's something that God wants you to do. Don't sit it out. There's no such thing as being a spectator Christian. (17:44 - 17:50) I'm going to go with Renew. So here's the deal so far. God, you control the times and the seasons. (17:50 - 18:12) I want you to dial down on my life and extract out of me, not only the season that is before me, but the minutes and the hours of the times within the season. Lord, what time is it according to you? Because I know what time it is according to me, and that doesn't go well. So God, I want you to let me know what time it is. (18:12 - 18:19) By using my life. And I'm going to go with Renew. I'm going to renew my commitment. (18:20 - 18:29) And I'm a big fan of this. You don't have to do this. But I like being connected with some sort of physical memorial. (18:30 - 18:50) I need a physical memorial because I forget things. I also like physical memorials because I like to be able to point and say, right there. So, for example, if you drive down PCH Coast Highway here in Southern California, if you come to Coast Highway and Orange Street in Newport Beach. (18:50 - 19:05) So if you just come over the river, if you're in Huntington and you come over the river, crossing over the river takes you into Newport Beach. The first stoplight is going to be Orange Street. All of my kids, all of my grandkids know that. (19:06 - 19:09) Here's what they think too. I already know this. Oh boy. (19:09 - 19:13) Here we are. We're all in the SUV together. We're all driving together. (19:13 - 19:16) Okay. And we're coming up on Orange Street. And here it is. (19:16 - 19:23) He's going to say it any second. Three, two, one. And I'm going to say, Hey, everybody, look to your right. (19:24 - 19:27) Look to your right. See those volleyball nets on the beach right there? Right there. Boom. (19:27 - 19:31) Right there. Did you see that? That's where I met your mom. That's where I met your grandma. (19:32 - 19:47) Way back in 1878. Right there. When we go to Coronado Island, there's a, there's Bonifacetta restaurant. (19:48 - 20:03) If you've never been there, you have never had Italian food, period. On Coronado Island, Bonifacetta. You can't go to Bonifacetta and have Italian food without me telling you, this used to be my dad's shop. (20:04 - 20:11) This restaurant used to be my dad's automobile shop. It used to be my dad's automotive repair center. Here on Coronado Island, after the Marine Corps. (20:13 - 20:21) There's these monuments. And in Chino Hills, up on one of the high hills is the city. Well, it became the city's logo. (20:21 - 20:29) At the time, it was not the city's logo. It's a giant old two to 300 year old oak tree. It's massive. (20:31 - 20:38) The whole canopy of that tree. You can, you can take my house and put it under that tree. That tree would cover the house. (20:38 - 20:52) It's awesome. And yes, when the city became a city, it adopted that as its logo. But that place holds massive significance for Lisa and I. It also holds significant for me personally. (20:52 - 21:08) When I would go up, open my Bible, seek the Lord, watch the sun come up and ask him, Lord, I need an answer on what I need to do about this, that, or the other thing. Monument places. Are very, very significant. (21:08 - 21:17) Why don't you make this year, maybe January 1st, who knows what? I don't know when you're seeing this. It doesn't matter. Go find a place and make a monument out of it. (21:18 - 21:28) I like that. And then I want to kind of issue this warning before we begin to wrap this up. So the other day I was on a program. (21:29 - 21:42) I forget what program it was. And something popped up in my head that for me was radical. Maybe for you, you've heard this a thousand times, but for me, it was new. (21:42 - 22:06) And the gentleman was asking me about how do we in this day and age decipher what's true and what's false. And I told him, I said, without the Holy Spirit and knowledge of the Bible, you're not going to make it. I honestly believe that. (22:07 - 22:22) I honestly believe that if you do not have the Holy Spirit in your life as a believer, and if you're not reading your Bible, you will not be able to navigate this new year. Here's the reason why. And this is what I think for me is an epiphany. (22:27 - 23:05) What can you believe? What's real out there now anymore? And you see how important this is? Sun Tzu, the great Chinese war philosopher, said in part of winning the victory against your enemy to conquer him, get him to believe that you're not at war with him. When you're nearby, make him think you're far away. And when you are very far away, make him think you are nearby. (23:06 - 23:37) There's a lot of wisdom in that book, The Art of War. But listen to this. I see Satan's plan, don't you? If you don't know what you're looking, hearing, or seeing, watching, viewing is real or not, then the days have reached a point where if it were possible, God's own very elect would be deceived. (23:39 - 23:55) Because listen, Satan has flooded the market with lie, false videos, false. Look, I just found out last night from somebody visiting our church. They were visiting from Holland. (23:57 - 24:08) And they told me last night, hey, did you know that you teach in Arabic in Holland? You're on the radio there. I said, no, we're not. They said, yes, you are. (24:09 - 24:21) And not only are you, but when you're on this broadcast, you never mentioned the word Jew. It's in Arabic, Palestinian. You never mentioned Jew. (24:22 - 24:27) You never mentioned Israel. It's always Palestine. And you never mentioned Jerusalem. (24:27 - 24:51) You always mentioned Ayla Kapitalina, all of it Arabic. Someone has stolen our broadcast in Holland and has put it up somewhere and is making me say things that are not true in an act of deception. All the enemy is doing now is flooding the market with information. (24:52 - 25:15) If it's false, who cares if it's false? Because if everything is somewhat false, how are you going to find the proverbial needle in the haystack and the needle being truth and the haystack being false? How are you going to find that truth? You're not going to be able to find it. Only the Holy Spirit will be able to find it for you. Folks, we live in a dangerous day. (25:16 - 25:42) Moving into this new year, assume what you are looking, hearing at is false, but you've got to find out where the truth is. It doesn't mean you quit because, listen, Satan flooding the lies that are out there makes it harder to find the truth. Because when somebody does find the truth, they've been conditioned to think it's a lie. (25:43 - 26:04) Does that make sense? I hope it does. And then finally, this, I mentioned it a little bit earlier, and that is leaving our past truly behind. You see, Jack, you know, I heard you guys talk like that before, leaving the things that are behind and press forward and in the pursuit of Christ. (26:04 - 26:15) Yes, yes. I'm not asking you to become ignorant of your past. I'm not asking you to deny your past. (26:16 - 26:41) When the Bible tells you forget those things that are behind, the word means stop letting the things of the past control you. Forget means to put off to the side, not forget like it never happened. If you were beat up, divorced, molested, robbed, hurt, bruised, broken, battered this last year, you'll never forget that. (26:41 - 26:52) You're going to always have to seek to forgive those who did that to you every day, maybe. But it means don't let it control you. Don't let those things control you anymore. (26:53 - 27:00) It doesn't mean deny them or act like they never happened. Yeah, you Christians just sweep stuff under the carpet. No, no, no, no. (27:00 - 27:20) That is not true. Bring it up, deal with it, and learn from it, which takes us forward. The greatest way to experience success this year with Christ is to have learned from our mistakes of this last year. (27:21 - 28:11) What is it that I almost fell prey to? What is it that I felt was the right thing to do? Boy, did it turn out to be the wrong thing. How did I learn not to listen to everybody's voice, but to be still and calm and listen for that still small voice? What about this in the economy or this regarding sports or my children or activities or family or marriage? What did I learn? What did I learn from last year that I want to bring into this new year? And certainly things that I want to leave in the year behind and not bring forward, but renew. You need to think these things through. (28:11 - 28:30) I know that as podcasts go, this is a short one. But if you actually played this and hit pause and wrote things down, that would really help. In fact, I want to encourage you right now as we begin to wrap things up, I want to encourage you to subscribe, please. (28:30 - 28:46) By subscribing, you really help us out because it has a lot to do with the algorithm and how the electronics, or I should say, the brains of the social media world works. Just subscribe. I'm not asking you to love me or to send me money. (28:46 - 28:54) Just subscribe means, hey, gotcha, I'm listening. Or I responded to your request. It doesn't commit you to anything. (28:55 - 29:13) And then I would just love, I've been very derelict to tell you this, but I'm going to try to make sure this happens more and more. I would love for you to download the Real Life Network app on your device. Just download the Real Life Network app. (29:14 - 29:25) It's completely free. And there is great content that we have there for you 24-7, 365. And I've brought a lot of my good friends in on that app. (29:25 - 29:34) And there's some great teaching. And I think you might like it. Go ahead, download Real Life Network app. (29:34 - 29:41) Open it up. Take a look and see. And there's some kids programming there as well that you might really, really enjoy. (29:42 - 29:49) And so just wrapping this up, folks, listen, we're going to pray right now together. We're going to dedicate. We're going to dedicate this year to God. (29:50 - 30:10) All right, are you ready? Here we go. Heavenly Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus, in the name of the Word of God, in the name of the Logos, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. We come to you, Lord, praying your word, your Bible. (30:10 - 30:28) And you have told us in Psalm 65, 11, that you will crown the year with your goodness and your paths will drip with abundance. So, Lord, we want to walk in obedience. We want to walk as the old era used to say, we want to walk under the spout where the glory comes out. (30:29 - 30:43) Well, Lord, we want to walk with you where you're at. We want to do this. When you said, come follow me, we're asking you, Lord, to make sure that we are doing exactly that. (30:43 - 31:22) And if this year our hearts become tempted to not be willing to do that, we're asking you in advance to stop that for us and let the will of our heart be changed, that we might be in hot pursuit of you, the living God. As we dedicate ourselves to you in this new year, we ask you to come upon us with the power of your Holy Spirit, to fill us afresh with your spirit, the Epi, Anointing, the E-P-I in the Greek language, the coming upon of the power of the Spirit of God, that we might live for you, Lord Jesus. And it's in your name we pray and all God's people said, Amen. (31:23 - 31:27) Amen. God bless you. Happy and Holy New Year to all of you. (31:31 - 31:46) This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to Jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.