Are You Sure God Knows You

Real life presents the Jack Kibs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth equip the saints and impact our culture. Are you happy? Are you excited? Are you joyful? Do you have godly anticipation? If you don't have those things it's because you're not doing what he created you together. Hands out! Because when you're doing, when you find out what it is he wants you to do and you do it, the world can fall out from underneath you and you will be happy, you will be joyful, and you will be full. I can't imagine going through life without that assurance. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibs.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 Kibs. God's glory is revealed to you when he knows you. That's why Bible study only takes you halfway because once you study a verse of the Bible, then God says, okay now go do it. The Bible tells us and I love this, the Bible tells us in Luke chapter 10 verse 18 and Jesus said to them, this is the disciples now they're growing that went from 12 to 70 of them. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. That's a great thing. He said, what are you saying that for Jesus? Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. This would have been a great theme verse for 2020. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits or the demons are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Can you imagine? Jesus says, now go and preach the gospel. Okay, here we go and you preach the gospel and communities are getting saved. Miracles are happening and demons are running away from you and you go back to Jesus and you say, it works. It works. Your gospel works. Wow, that was amazing. We not only know you, but while we were away from you preaching and ministering, we discover that you know us. And Jesus says, that's very, very cool, but listen, remember this. Best thing of all. Rejoice, not in that, but in the fact that your names are written down in heaven. Your names. Is your name written down in heaven? Number three, make sure you're being faithful. We don't need to be labor this. Just challenge you on this. Be faithful. He's coming for you. So make sure that you're being faithful. The word faithful means being reliable to what God has called you to do. It means that he can trust you with what he's given you to do. This is beautifully liberating, friend. You, you, you, you, not the person next to you. You specifically, you think about it as unique as a snowflake is. You know, I believe people when they say that I've never looked at a snowflake. I'm told every one of them is different. Okay. I have it. Look, so I'll, I'll go with the science on that if that's science. The hallmark card says you're as unique as a snowflake. Okay. I, I know that's true. You are unique. Here's the thing. God is saying to you, whoever you are, who you know me and I know you, be faithful to why I give you life. See, when we're unfaithful, I don't mean this in any other way, except this is life. This is my life. I want to, I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to, I want to do my things. It's not necessarily something. In fact, let me put it this way. It's not necessarily something evil that they're saying. They don't know anything. They're, they're non-christians. They don't know. And they're trying to look, let's be honest. They're doing the best they can to make their life mean something. Right? Why do people have sexual exploits or drug-induced events or power grabbing? And why do they do that? Because they're trying to find meaning. Don't be so mean to them because you used to be just like them. Have we forgotten that he's rescued us from this? We need to be gentle and kind and loving and we need to reach out to them. Pray first and then reach out to them. The truth is they're trying to get what you have or they're trying to get what Jesus gives for free. They don't know that. So they're trying to figure out how do I feel this void of my life. They're not necessarily the spawn of Satan. They just may not know Jesus. And we can so focus down, oh look what you're doing, look what you're doing. Look, I've told you before church, when somebody I don't know, walks up and says, hi, I'm a Christian. I'm in my mind. I go, hey, nice to meet you. In my mind, I'm going, oh boy. What do we got here? Because you don't know. I don't know. They have named a name. They put themselves in a category. Are they in pursuit of Christ? Are they in submission to his word? If somebody comes up and says, hey, I'm a full blown atheist. Well, I can relax. Are you with me? I don't expect anything from them. If they say, hey, you know what, I'm a full blown atheist that was thinking about going over there and doing this and doing that. And of course you were. That's what I used to do before I was a follower, right? You're going to be faithful to something or to someone. Jesus says, be faithful to me. Be faithful to me. God has given each of you something to do in this life for his glory. You are to find out what it is. And when you find it, or run with it, God made you for a purpose. Listen, don't respond out loud. Are you happy? Are you excited? Are you joyful? Do you have godly anticipation? If you don't have those things, it's because you're not doing what He created you to do. Hands down. Because when you're doing, when you find out what it is He wants you to do and you do it, the world can fall out from underneath you and you will be happy. You will be joyful and you will be full. I can't imagine going through life without that assurance. So find out what that is. And Matthew 633, the Bible says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. So the kingdom of God, this is fine. It's two things. Number one, seek first the kingdom. That's His politics. That's what it means. Seek first the politics of Jesus. What is that? He's king. King Jesus. John Adams always called Jesus, King Jesus. I like that. King Jesus. That's right. He's king. Listen, when kings say things, you do them, right? Isn't it great that the Bible reveals to us that Jesus is king? It doesn't reveal him. It doesn't reveal us president or senator or congress or prime minister king. I like that. See, I like that because I like His politics. His politics is love. His politics is joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, the fruit of the spirit. That's His politics. And this is how we confirm that our faith is correct and that we are knowing Him and that we're on the right path is that we're ready for Him. This is so important yet so easily missed. If we're on the right path and we believe what His Word says and that He's coming back for us and we don't know when it could be at any time, how do I maintain this to be ready for Him? Second Corinthians 13, five says examine yourselves to see or to determine whether you are in the faith, test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Isn't that awesome? The word in the word examine means this to put yourself through the test. Watch, it's to put yourself through the test. The word means to challenge your authenticity. If you've ever been and if you've never been, I encourage you to go. It's absolutely amazing. Go to Bodhi, California. Have you ever heard of Bodhi? How many have you been to Bodhi? Raise your hands. Oh, well. Well, those of you who haven't, you've got to go. Bodhi, California. Northern California, just east of the 395. It's way up there. It's like 8,300 feet high. So dress warm. In that location, by the way, everything's still standing. Everything's still standing. There's even letters and there's even, at the assayers office. This is my point. At the assayers office, when you took your gold, you took it to the assayers office and you put in the guides. It's all still there. You can read it. It's been there some like 1849, 1853. Whether the guy brought in, by the way, true. I forget his first name, but Mr. Levi and Mr. Strauss. Yep. That's where they lived. They moved from San Francisco to Bodhi. Why? Because people at Bodhi working at Bodhi, maybe they were the richest people on earth at that time. Bodhi was producing more millionaires per week than any other place ever in human history, from mining gold. It was so prolific that they didn't have will barrels. So some guy invented a will barrel that would work a lot better than what the carts that they were using. You know what the guy's name was? Stoodabaker. Pants were wearing out because they were made of cotton. And so two guys, two Jewish guys, moved from San Francisco, gave up their careers and they went to go mine for gold. And this doesn't know what the Bible says. They were mining for gold and they wore their pants out so fast that they went back to San Francisco and invented denim. And they're called Levi Strauss. Levi's today. Zippers wouldn't work right. So they did button ups. Levi Strauss. Then they kept breaking tools. They were finding so much gold they were wearing out tools. Pants and will barrels. So some guy, listen, some guy talked to his friend about we need to figure out how to build a new shovel, a different kind of shovel. And if we only had a thing like this, it would help a lot. What do you think, Mr. Robuck? Well, I think we should do this, Mr. Sears. Bodhi California. Why did I bring that up? Someone help me. I have no idea. Oh, when you found gold, you took it to the assayers office and they poured acid on it. And they acid washed everything away. That wasn't gold. And the gold just became brilliant. And they said, congratulations. That's one nugget you have there. That's tremendous. The Bible says, examine yourselves. Pour the acid. Look, pour the acid on my life. See what's real. No one can do that except you. The believer in Christ Jesus will do this to themselves. They will look at themselves and they will say, when he comes, is he coming for me? I want to make sure because I'm going to pour the acid of his word on my life to see what needs to be washed away and I'm willing to see what's true and let it stand. That takes faith, friend, in him because you're willing to get that report card from him. You'll be ready. We don't have to worry much at all about anything regarding his coming if you examine yourself. And then we end right here. Make sure that you're found by him. And I'll just end with this. I wish I had the time. But to be found by him, I did a little bit of study on sheep and goats. You know, goats will not follow easily or if at all the shepherd's voice. You know, goats are independent. They do their own thing. Did you know that goats will eat anything that's in front of them if they want to? You know, they're very non-selective, non-critical about what they consume. Let me read this to you. One of the many differences between sheep and goats is how they eat. Sheep are grazers. They ramble slowly among particular plants close to the ground. Goats, on the other hand, are browsers. Internet browsers. They look for almost anything when leaves, twigs, vines, and scrubs are not on the menu. They will consume just about anything that is convenient. Contrary, sheep are slow, methodical eaters, while goats can be agile in the pursuit of food and indiscriminate with their diet. Jesus said, you're the sheep or a goat. Listen. Sheep, sheep have to be fed by the shepherd or they have to be eating under the shepherd's approval of a field or a hillside. Scientifically, factual sheep prove scientifically that God is the creator because evolution could never be true because we know that sheep cannot exist without a human being. Did you know that? Sheep cannot live without humans. They'll die. And just that argument alone debunks evolution because you couldn't have had sheep before humans. You can only have sheep because of a shepherd. A goat, on the other hand, they'll eat your purse. They'll eat your wallet. But when you're found by him, it means this. It means that he knows you by name. That he knows you by name, my friend, and the tragic thing would be that at the end, can you imagine, you die. In fact, I wrote this down. It sounds kind of terrifying, right? Watch this. This is what I wrote. As I look across the sanctuary, I see that every single one of you will be meeting Jesus Christ in person in just a few years. Think of it. You say, I don't know, I like the way that sounds. It doesn't matter because even if you live to be a hundred, it's only a few years compared to eternity. So it's true, as I look across this sanctuary, every single one of you will be meeting Jesus Christ personally. And so you want to make sure when he sees you, will he see you with your name tag on? Hey, I know you. Can you imagine being in line? And you're going up to the gates there and there's Peter's got a little clipboard. I don't know where we got that from. It's not in the Bible. But can you imagine, what's your name? I had a name tag in life. I don't know where my name tag is. I had it when I was living. Let's see what happens when we get up there. But you look around and there's other people's name tags. Can you imagine? Mike, come on in. Welcome. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Jack, come on in. What's your name? Fred. Well, how do I know? It's Fred. There's no Fred here. Where's your name tag? I don't have one. I had one in life. But I noticed as soon as I died, I didn't have one. I'm sorry. I can't come in. Jesus gives you that name tag. The Bible says in the book of Revelation, he will give you a new name. I'm really glad about that. I'm done with Jack. I'm tired of it. Let's listen. Let's pray right now. But listen. Are you going? Listen. He's coming for you. You will enter eternity in the next few years. What do you do about that? 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.