Are You A ____ Christian?

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Hey, is your life described by a hyphen? What about all of these hyphens? We live in a hyphenated culture, people seem to be absolutely obsessed with the hyphen part more than the reality. Let's dive into what I'm talking about as we open up the Bible. Let's do a little examination. Is your life hyphenated? You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. 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. Here is Jack Hibbs. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Jack Hibbs show. And we are delighted to be with you guys. As always, please share our content with others. That's the greatest thing that you could do for us is get the word out. And we want to bring you the word always. I think I hope you've caught on by now that we just want to get away from the fluff and get to the stuff that makes life matter. Causes our faith to make a difference. And talking about faith, making a difference, we, I think we really need as a culture to take a really, and I mean, Christian culture, take a deep breath and take a deep dive into what does it mean to be a Christian? And I know that today, with what we're going to be talking about, there's going to be some tremendous input and comments. We would love to get those from you. What we do is that we'll look at your comments. And when we do come around to doing our answering questions, we will hopefully get to your comment or your question. And today is going to be one of those days because we're going to be talking about something that is absolutely socially, both accepted and unaccepted. I'll have to explain it to you, accepted in the sense that we live in a hyphenated world. I'm going to ask you to just write that down in your heart, your mind on a piece of paper, a hyphenated world. You see, what do you mean hyphenated? All of a sudden, it seems as though things in life, even in Christianity, which this has no bearing. It has no place whatsoever. And that is to be a hyphenated Christian. So let me back up by saying this. There was a guy by the name of Patrick Henry. For some Americans, they might remember their ancient history. And Patrick Henry was one of the remarkable fire brands. They would call him Patrick Henry had and was known for having one of the greatest voices and ability to articulate. When he spoke, people stopped and listened to what he was saying. He could stop a crowd. And Patrick Henry was a remarkable orator in light of all of that. When it was being debated and talked about and the birthing of the United States, which they did not have in their mind at that time, they didn't know what you and I have come to become really acquainted with or even bored with. And that is there was no United States in their mind. They were practicing, hoping to put into practice, a miracle in human government, which had never happened before. And when Patrick Henry understood the direction that the colonies were headed, remember each colony, 13 of them were greatly divided. Imagine 13 colonies actually being 13 different countries. They all shared the same language, which was extremely unique, but they were as good as 13 different countries. When the vision of the revolution was clearly made, visible and articulated by a guy by the name of Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry said this. He said, I am no longer a Virginian. I'm an American. Isn't that great? Because people were saying, I'm a Massachusetts American. I'm a Virginian American. I am a North Carolina American. And Patrick Henry laid that down and the hyphen went away. No longer did people talk about being a Virginian American. And how many times do we tragically, in the Christian Church, discuss or introduce ourselves with hyphens? I'm a Baptist Christian. What in the world is that? I'm a Methodist Christian. I'm a non-denominational Christian. I am a progressive Christian. I am a liberal Christian. I'm a conservative Christian. I'm an evangelical Christian. All of these things, we're going to call them for what they are hyphenated, hyphenated life. And I want to read something to you from the Scriptures and then we'll get deeper into this. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10, this is what Paul said to the Corinthians. He said, now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. And that there'll be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. I find that fascinating, the same mind, with the same conclusion, same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you, hyphens. Now, I say this, that each of you says, I'm of Paul, or another says, I'm of a Paulus, or one might say, I'm of Cephas, or some say, I'm of Christ, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Christmas and Gaius, unless anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Staphonus. And besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom. But listen, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. Galatians 3, verse 26, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, oneness, unity. It may be that the church is more divided than ever before. And it's been that way for a very long time because knowingly or unknowingly, we have swallowed some sort of carnal, carnal mode, very subtle, but I think very powerful mode of division. We've actually welcomed it in. And here I go, I'm just going to lay it out there and including myself, we're going to have to cope with this stuff. Do you see anywhere in the Bible where there was a gathering of believers that were only those from the region of Bethania, for example, it's a real place. Or there was the church from and only those from Thessalonica. Or there was the church only of Rome or Galatia. You name it in the New Testament. Would they say, hi, nice to meet you. I'm a Galatian Christian. Oh, really? Well, I'm a Bethinian Christian. None of them did that. Nobody did that. They didn't hyphenate their Christian identity because they had died. They had died to their old life. And they were no longer walking around saying those from, for example, Italy, hey, I'm an Italian Christian. Or those from Western Europe, which would have been Tarsius or the region of Spain, maybe even the Isles of Great Britain today. Oh, hey, I'm a, I'm a Macedonian Christian or I am a Tarsius Christian. Nobody did that. It's nowhere found in the Bible. And you know why? I think it was because their identity. They clearly understood that their identity had been swept away by the blood of Christ. And they had come into a brand new relationship with Jesus Christ and all of their earthly tags, markings and identities had been removed from the real source of who they were. Did they say, hey, I'm a Christian and I'm from the area of Asia Minor. I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm sure they talked like that. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm a Christian. I'm from Southern California, but I'm not a Southern California Christian or dialed it down more. I'm Portuguese, half Portuguese, 50%. So I don't walk around saying, I'm a Portuguese Christian. That divides the body of Christ. I don't walk around saying, I'm a white Christian. What is that? I'm a black Christian. Oh, I'm an Asian Christian. There's no such thing. A hyphenated life in the church, that's insane. That just divides people up. It draws lines and it divides us when we ought to be working hard to unify us, of course, all always around the truth. But let me go a little bit more so. And let's let the reality be dealt with. Can you be a Christian with a hyphen? What do you mean by that? Can you be a gay Christian? A gay Christian? I didn't say, can you be a Christian who struggles with gay temptation? I'm not talking about that. Are you a bank robber Christian? I'm a thief Christian. I'm a thieving Christian. Are you tempted to steal? Okay, that's different than being a thieving Christian. You can go down the list and I wrote a very small list and then I'll read one from the Bible. But if you think for a moment that any one of us are going to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with a hyphen, we've deceived ourselves. That is not going to happen. What we're trying to do when we hyphenate our Christianity is that we are bringing in the old and trying to weld it to the new. And that's about as successful as iron being mixed with clay. It's not going to work. It's impossible. Have you ever seen something when you don't read the recipe instructions on the box? Well, and not only well, but I didn't realize this until too late in my life. That even when you follow a recipe, you know how it says first take a bowl and then add an egg and mix it and then add the powder and mix that and then do a teaspoon of oil and mix that. Did you know? I didn't know. Did you know that even the order matters? When you reverse the order, you make pancakes that my pancakes looked like a cluster of grapes. It was insane. It was just all all the bunch of stuff balled up and chunked up because I had all the right ingredients, but I didn't do it in the right order. Listen, everything regarding Jesus Christ, the new recipe is this. We are in Christ. We've died to ourselves in the past life. We are a new creation in Jesus. And so I have to tell you, I'm not a fan of all white churches. I'm not a fan of all Asian churches. All Chinese churches are all Korean churches. I'm not a fan of all black churches. I'm not a fan of dividing up the body of Christ. I think that when God is moving and his word is being presented and the Holy Spirit is doing what he does, I think you're going to look across a congregation and you're going to see what looks like a montage of color and of people from various countries. The church is not divided. I don't know why we do this. Look, if you live in an all white community, that's just the way it is. But if a black man or a black woman comes into that church, that person is the same color to God as anybody else. God doesn't look at a congregation and say, you know what, you guys can be the gay Christian community. That's impossible. And by the way, I just made one of the fundamental mistakes that our culture does. Don't ever mix pigmentation with life choices. None of us have the choice of our pigmentation. But everyone has the choice about gainess. Can you be a gay Christian? Again, if you're tempted, you can be a Christian that's tempted in these areas, but you don't follow through with that. Can you be a pot smoking drug-taking Christian? You can be tempted, but you can't live that life. You can't practice that life. You cannot hyphenate that into your Christianity. Well, can you be an alcoholic Christian? Can you hyphenate that into your Christianity? My argument is you can't. You may be tempted to drink, but that's no longer in control of your life. That's not what you live for. Can you be a pornographic Christian? How about that one? Can you be a porn Christian? What is your hyphen? I would suggest that you and I take whatever hyphen we think we're entertaining and we nail it to the cross because it's an offense to God. We cannot be hyphenated people. What about greedy? And we doctor that one up. Well, I just have a knack for making money. We will spin all kinds of things. Well, I give a lot of it away, you know? But you know, down deep inside that you've justified it where you know what, I'm an entrepreneur Christian. That's a fancy way of making it go down a little bit better. It's nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur, but if you're greedy, can you be a greedy Christian? Can you be a greedy new creation? Can you be a gay new creation? Can you be a drugged up new creation? Can you be an alcoholic new creation? Can you be a porn new creation? How about this? Can you be a choice Christian? Well, hi, you know, I'm a Christian. I'm pro-choice. No, you're not. That's not how can you do that? But that's one of the most ridiculous hyphens of all. I'm a pro-choice Christian. That's impossible. Unless you understand what pro-choice really means, pro-choice means that you have the ability to choose. Once you make your choice, you're responsible for your choice because after you choose a choice has been made. So if I be in a Christian, choose to get a burrito that has got habanero turbo hot sauce on it, and I eat it because I chose to eat it, and then later I have consequences from that. I can't blame anybody. I made the wrong choice when I had the time, and now I got sick from eating that burrito. People who say that they're pro-choice Christians regarding babies and pregnancy, they're playing mind games with themselves because you make a choice when it comes to reproduction. You make the choice to act out how people are reproduced, how humans are made. But then when you make a human, then you want to exercise choice. You already exercise choice. This is the consequences from your choice. You chose to have sex, and the result is a baby. You chose to have a turbo-spiced habanero burrito, and because of your choice, your stomach is sick. You see, well, you pro-choice. You know what? I guess I am pro-choice, but I'm also pro-results, pro-consequences. You hear what I'm saying? I am pro-choice because I'm going to eat lunch today. I don't know what I'm going to eat. I'm going to choose, but we don't like to deal with the consequences. So when somebody says, I'm a pro-choice Christian, can you have sex with somebody? Of course, biology is real. Of course, you can. Can you abort that child after you're pregnant and hyphenate your Christianity? I'm a pro-choice Christian. You cannot be that. Just like you cannot be a pro-porn Christian. It's impossible. You're lying to yourself. What about this? This is a big one. If the Democrats will not allow God to be in their platform, if Democrats try to silence Christians, by the way, let's be honest, Democrats try to silence Christians. They'll sometimes tolerate Jews. They will never criticize Muslims. Ever. Democrats are always talking about separation of church and state, which where is that? I'd like you to put that in the comments section, please. Show me where that is in our founding documents. Where is that in the Constitution? Where is that in the Bill of Rights? Where is that in the Declaration of Independence? Where is that in our nation's birth certificates? I'd love to see it. But I tell you what, while the Democrat Party attacks Christianity and gives Islam a free pass, you got to make your bed and sleep in it with somebody. And I find it amazing to me that Democrats have no problem sleeping with Muslims. I don't mean sleeping with them. Talking about a Democrat will never criticize Islam or Muslims. But boy, they'll go after the Christians. You want to know why? Christians don't fight back. That's why. A Muslim will cut your head off. Christians were easy because you guys can do whatever you want to us because we believe that God's going to take care of it in the end. And he does, he does a way better job. Listen to this from the Bible. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Again, remember, we're talking about there are no such thing. There isn't such thing as a hyphenated life. Do you not know, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. So he's going to give us a list of those who are not going to heaven. Do not be deceived near the neither fornicators, nor adulterers, or idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, or sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. Do you see any hyphens in there? No hyphens. No dual existence. In this world today, and in the age of a very, very weakened Christian witness, it's no wonder that the cults, it's no wonder that the Marxist, the communists, the socialists, it's no wonder why the progressives, the liberals smell or taste blood in the water, because the church on the surface anyway, the bulk of the church air quotes is all of these things hyphenated. And we wonder why the church has no power and we wonder why the church has made fun of and mocked and the world doesn't respect nor have a reverential awe like the church used to have in the culture. The Bible says that the church is the ground in the pillar of all truth. But when was the last time you saw a church make such a difference in the culture that it was the ground in pillar of all truth, and people either loved that church or hated that church dependent upon their hyphenated life? Isn't it interesting? There are those who may hate the truth, but they fear it because down deep inside they know it's true. There may be those who have no regard for the truth whatsoever, because they're going to do what they want to do no matter what, because they've misunderstood the truth. How does that happen? Where does that come from? From entertaining the hyphenated life, friends listen, be aware of this. What I'm speaking to you about is so dangerously common that we probably all deal with it in some way, shape or form. And we need to get back to the Bible purely, so carefully. We need to slow down and we need to realize, is Christ divided? Is there the church of Paul the Apostle or a church of Peter the Apostle? That's insane. And look, church denominations in Christianity. Look, cults can be cults. There can be the cult of this, the cult of that, the cult of all of the above. I don't care what they do. In fact, Walter Martin, most of you do not know who that is. That's okay, but you ought to buy his book Kingdom of the cults. It's a Christian classic by Dr. Walter Martin, the Kingdom of the cults. It's a great book. I actually, what I'm about to tell you, I actually heard him say it in person. I get to see this in person. Walter Martin said, you should thank God for the cult that's down the street from your church. And everybody thought, what is crazy? What is he saying? Walter Martin said, those people that attend that cult, they have a real hunger for religion, but they don't have a hunger for the truth. And so they gravitate toward a cult because that's where they feel at home. That's where they belong because they do not want Jesus. They want something else. And Walter Martin said, if those people were not at that cult, they would be messing up your church. They would be in your church messing things up. Isn't that a wild way of thinking about it? But live at Dr. Walter Martin, I think you might be able to go to YouTube and check them out from the 60s and 70s, maybe even the early 80s. That said, I want to, I want to, I want to invoke my pastoral position as a pastor and say, I'm asking all of us who named the name of Jesus to examine our lives and to ask ourselves, are we tempted in the area of stupid Democrat decisions? Are we tempted in the area of choosing to take life and abortion? Are we dealing with the temptation of being greedy? Are we dealing with the temptation of porn? Are we dealing with the temptation of alcohol, the temptation of drugs or pot? Are we dealing with the temptation of immorality, homosexuality, you name it? That is called the Christian battle. That is normal. You fight, you fight, you fight, you do not give in and you crucify the flesh. The scripture says that these these temptations, these lusts are no longer in control of us. And we have victory through the Word of God. We open up the Bible and all that stuff that might be your stuff is pushed back down and held back at bay. That's why you read the scriptures daily to slay the old you. You have to reckon the old man dead on a daily basis. The Bible says in Galatians 2 20, I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet it is not I that live it, but it's Christ that lives in me in the life that I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. You have a new life. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 says, we're new creations in Christ. The old us have gone. But if you think you can bring the old you and put a dash hyphen and then staple on Christian, you're deceiving yourselves. Galatians chapter 6 verse 7 says, God will not be mocked. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man does, that Shelley also reap. Wow. So no more hyphens. No more hyphens. I'm very, very happy and blessed that the church that I have the honor of past strain. We just teach the Bible. Some people think it's too simple. They can't they don't want it. That's fine. Some people come because we just teach the Bible. And when you look across the congregation like I get to do, especially in Southern California where there's a heavily populated Asian culture, Asian. So there's Japanese, Chinese. There's liotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Filipinos. There are those from Thailand. They're Taiwanese. They're Koreans. Japanese. You feel it. They're all here. They all come to church here. And in no other situation would you get all of those different people groups together. They will not come together for a Tupperware party. They're not going to come together for Amway. They're not going to come together for anything else, but they come together for Jesus. And it's beautiful. They serve Christ together. And listen, we do not have a Korean Christian greeter's ministry. We do not have a white counseling ministry. We do not have a black Christian worship team. That would do nothing, but harm the very heart of Jesus. And so I wanted to point this out to you because the other day, I'll wrap this up right now. The other day, I was driving, listening to something I don't know, could have been a podcast, probably was, could have been talk radio. I don't know. But I was shocked at how many hyphens I was hearing in the conversation. And now we're going now, and we're speaking to Joe. He is a blank hyphen American. So this is a white, first of all, nobody says white American. How can we don't see that? We don't even say, I'm a, hi, I was born in California. I am a, I'm a European American. But why do we say I'm a black American? Why do we say I am a Korean American? Why do we say I am a Norwegian American? We don't say that. We joined in with Patrick Henry and we say, I'm no longer a virginian. I'm an American. Well, how about we apply that same simple logic to the truth to the church in our identification? What are you? Who are you? I'm a Christian. So I land this by, by telling you that this morning, Lisa and I were watching a, well, first of all, we were reading the newsletter from Voices of the Marders, VOM. Go to vom.org and support them. Give them your money. They do a great work. We do. They're amazing. Learn about the persecuted church and in the world. And Jesus is everything they have. And so we were reading amazing testimonies. And then there was a video and we clicked on that video. And there are people who get up in various parts of North Africa, for example, various parts of even Southeast Asia. And they literally get dressed to go to church. Listen to me. Listen to me. If I could grab you by the ears right now. Oh, I just lost, just lost Jesus. They literally put their shoes on or their sandals and they put on their most colorful clothing that they can wear and they go to church. They have, and they're telling you about it, they have no idea if they are going to survive church. While we in America and in the West, we lick our finger and test the wind to see if we should go outside to go to church. It might be too hot. It might be too cold. It could rain. So we're not going to worship God. We're going to stay home. They, it's never a question for them. They get their kids dressed. They get themselves dressed Sunday best. They walk. We read, we read today in the magazine because we get the magazine, we support them. Some people walk 20 miles to church one way. They go to church in the morning, they walk, they spend their whole day at church and then they walk back before it's dark. And you know what their big concern is? Their big concern is being ambushed by Islamists that have been just hacking Christians to pieces in Rwanda, in Nigeria, in and in various North African countries. Did you know that? And you know they're going to go to church. It's not even a question if they're going to go to church or not. And to them, to them hyphens are insane. They're Christians. They're Christ followers. How can you staple anything of the flesh onto that? Friend, listen, we need to examine who we really are. Have we gotten sucked into and allowed the social media world or our culture to get ourselves to label ourselves? It must never be ever said that we are a hyphenated Christian because that self-deception and it cannot happen. Listen, if this matters to you, I hope that you share this with other people. I know this is a strong cup of coffee right now, but it's needed. We'd love to know what your comments are. So give us a review. Let us know. Share us with others. But listen, be looking up. Be looking up because just like you can feel right now the change in the seasons. There seems to be a change going on in the atmosphere of this spiritual realm. And I pray that you're ready to meet Jesus. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is who he said he was? Jesus said of himself that he is the way the truth in the life and no one can come to the Father. But through me, do you believe that? Do you believe him? Jesus said, if you were to die, believe in me, yet shall you live. Jesus said, I'll be crucified, but on the third day I'll be resurrected from the dead. The Bible says, repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Jesus wants you and his family. He wants you to come and experience forgiveness of your sins. He is for real. He's coming back, but in the meantime, it is incumbent upon every human on the face of the earth who hears the gospel to repent of their sin and to come to Christ Jesus. You're not going to do that by becoming a Baptist or Calvary or Lutheran or Methodist or Presbyterian. There's none of that stuff in heaven. The only people in heaven are Christians. God bless you until next time.