Battle Scars Of Suffering

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
Some people wear their scars on the outside, some wear their scars on the inside, but the thing, as believers, we're going to get scarred up and those are not shameful things, those are things of honor. Suffering for the believer is a tool, and suffering ends the moment you and I see Jesus. Are you hearing me when you and I see Christ tool and suffering ends the moment you and I see Jesus. Are you hearing me?

00:43 - Speaker 1
When you and 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.

01:02 - Speaker 2
Listen to what Charles Spurgeon has to say. Now, spurgeon, he's a word craft, just brilliant. Listen to how he thinks. As if we were only meant to be killed and made on purpose to be victims, as if it were as easy and as innocent a thing to slay us as to slaughter sheep. What is he saying? He's saying listen, you can attack us, you can make fun of us, you can slay us. You have no idea what you're doing.

01:34
Paul put it this way to live is Christ, to die is gain. The Christian always wins, always. If we live, we live for Christ. If we die, we go to Christ. The great scholar Frederick Derrick Kinder put it this way, and I love this. This is a great statement, a revolutionary concept to the Old Testament man or woman of God, that suffering may not be a punishment, but a battle scar, the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God. I love that.

02:21
I have a friend that was one of the founding fathers of US Army, delta Force, general Jerry Boykin. This man has got numerous Purple Hearts. He took a .50 caliber round .50 caliber, you know what that is? .50 caliber round through the armpit, and they were able to put his arm back on, shot through numerous times, body scarred, special ops, wars, events From the Middle East to the jungles of South America. And he looks great in a suit, but if he takes his shirt off he looks like he's been put in a meat grinder. He looks great in a suit, but if he takes his shirt off he looks like he's been put in a meat grinder. And I love what Kinder said, that in our lives these are scars from the battle. Listen, don't you want Christian, don't you want scars from being in the battle? You can't challenge General Boykin's patriotism. He doesn't have to say a word. All he has to do is take

03:29
his shirt off. Paul is saying standing there as a believer. You got to remember church, paul the apostle, church history, church history, not the Bible. Church history tells us that Paul's eyes were very close, set together near the bridge of his nose, unusually so, he had a very, very large, beak-like hook nose. He was very unattractive, ball-headed, with hair in the back, very petite and severely bow-legged. Poor sight, very poor sight. This is the great Paul the Apostle. Don't you think Paul the Apostle would have been more like you know, I don't know, like Dwayne Johnson or something? The

04:10
Rock? You're right. Paul walks into town and people come to Christ. Paul came into town and nobody knew who he was. And the Bible does tell us that his voice, his speaking, is contemptible. Can you imagine, you guys? Paul's going to speak. Hey, everybody, it's Paul. He's going to speak. And some guy stands up there. When's Paul going to speak? Oh, that is Paul, he's going to

04:38
speak. That's Paul. You ever meet somebody? They only know you from a radio voice. And I meet them and they you're jack. I envision something different. It's funny. That's paul. And then paul would. Paul would go. I want to talk all you romans here. His speech was contemptible, but the scriptures say he was mighty with the pen. Wow, that's encouraging. Let God establish you. But I want to be in the battlefield of this world fighting against evil. God helped the Christian who sees it as a spectator option. These young people that are standing today. I'm very encouraged. Look these two that are standing against the evils in our public school system. They're under attack. Are you fighting for anything that is worthy of being attacked? The old saying goes like this If you were to be arrested for being a Christian, would they have enough evidence to convict you? Are you guilty of following Christ, are you guilty of association with Jesus? And then the other thing is this church is that we no longer want our way about life. So you're sure about that, yeah, about life. So you're sure about that.

06:04
Yeah, listen, the longer we live, the more sure we know this is that we are counted, accounted, as sheep for the slaughter. Don't let that throw you too far off at all, because you actually know exactly what that means. He's quoting the 44th Psalm, as I said earlier, but Jesus put it to us this way Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. That is God. Good morning. This is Jack. I'm asking you to live your life through me today. Please, god, keep me out of it. I mean, help me to hang on, let's go whatever's coming, but don't let me mess it up. So I'm getting out of bed now, god. So let's live the life that you have for today for me to live. I don't want to do my thing, and the longer you walk with Jesus, the less you want to do. Your thing Doesn't go well. I take the application this way In the world that you and I live in, it looks like we're outnumbered, it feels like we're dying, it sounds like we're losing, it seems like we're alone. That's all through the human perspective and that's a normal thing to feel, but it's not accurate. I have this question written down in my notes. It's on page seven. Has God worked a work in you enough so that you are both unwilling and unable to walk away from him. Let me explain what that means. Has God, can you say today that God has worked enough in your life that you cannot walk away from him? This is a very, very Kairos moment for somebody that might be here today. You would call yourself a Christian, but you have no testimony of God's dynamic working in your life and you're troubled by that, and so you should be. You know enough that you can't go back into the world and say I'm an atheist now. You know enough that you can't go back into the world and say I'm an atheist now. You know enough, but you've never gone forward. And I want to say to you today that God, the Holy Spirit, is saying let's go forward now. Let's go for it. You yield to me and let's go.

08:22
The man, the woman, the teenager is blessed in this moment where they might be in doubt or they might be in fear, and you speak to them and you question them and you're talking with them, and then you say to them listen. Then just put down your Bible, walk away from God, never bring his name up again, forsake everything that you've learned, never go back to church again and go live your life. And you know what? You'll always spot the believer in a second. When that happens, they'll say I can't do that, why can't you? And I have to say it for them because he's done enough in your life for you to know that he's real and I'm asking you, let go and let him take you the rest of the way. He is so good to finish what he begins John, chapter 6, verse 65,. Jesus said therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my father, verse 66,.

09:23
From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him. No more, they just quit. Then Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go away? You got to love Peter. He's the best. Simon Peter answered him Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Okay, isn't that amazing. Jesus just got done preaching a very hard thing.

09:55
In chapter six of John, basically whittled it down to this hey, you're either with me or you're not. It's time to get up. Let's just get going. You've got to be one with me or you're not. And people heard that and they went um, yeah, no. And they left and they're watching.

10:17
The 12 are watching people walk away and Jesus they're just walking away. You know what's awesome about Jesus? Jesus never went and ran after the person that was walking away and said did I say something to offend you? Can we talk it over? Listen, church leaders, church pastors, boards, whatever. Listen, when somebody says I'm leaving. Don't ever talk them into staying. Don't do it. It may be a blessed subtraction that they're leaving, but don't try to convince them. Trust God to speak to them. But when Jesus said so, are you 12? Any of you guys gonna go away too? Let's just finish this. And you could just see Peter. Jesus, you alone have the words of eternal life. This is the best deal in town. No one's ever said this stuff or has done this stuff You've done. Where do we go? There's no place else to go. I mean, we've got all kinds of places to go, but there's really no place to go. It's him.

11:45
Psalm 138, verse eight, tells us the Lord will perfect that which concerns me. Your mercy, o Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. Is that precious? And then finally, this verses 37 to 39, is the fact that your suffering. Listen up, we're gonna end with a bang, your suffering, my suffering, our suffering, under the watchful eye of God.

12:06
Pick it, listen. Don't say it out loud, but what is it in your life that's causing suffering? Is it the past? Is this the memory of something? Is it currently? What's going on? Is it financial? Is it legal? Is it relational? Something's going on in our lives, but we're believers in Christ. He's our God, which means our suffering is only a tool. It's a tool. Michelangelo picked up the mallet and he picked up a chisel and he had a big block of granite and he went to work and he created some of the greatest sculptures that have ever been produced in humanity, of course, david being the pinnacle. But think of the chipping. God is chipping on your life.

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You might be able to say well, you know it came about this way. Or, pastor, I did it to myself, I did this horrible, I made the biggest mistake. God is gonna use that as a tool. He's the only one that can convert either the world attacking you or you attacking you into a tool, because nothing shall separate you from the love of Christ, not even yourself. You're thinking about you. Grab the wheel, I'm gonna drive now. I'm gonna drive now. Don't do that, let God drive. But even as a Christian, you can crash the car and listen. God will see to it. You learn.

13:37
Suffering is a tool that should be a tattoo. I'm not endorsing tattoos, but if you have a tattoo, whatever, suffering is a tool Crossed your chest. I don't know. Suffering is a tool from God. How do we know? Because it causes us to rise above. Suffering, allows you and I to rise above Verse 37.

14:08
Yet, in all these things, we are more than conquerors. Through him, who loved us, more than conquerors, a conqueror is being. I think a conqueror is good enough. He says no, no, no, more than that. Isn't that amazing? By the way, the word conquering means an overwhelming victor. It's not that you're a victor, you overwhelmingly won.

14:29
A warrior, having been victorious in battle, standing over the enemy. Wow, could you imagine, christian, if we understood that the dark forces that were in our world today are demonic activity type of forces, and we stand over the enemy in Christ, we stand in full and total victory. That's what the Bible teaches us. Scarcely do we believe it more than conquerors. So I'm putting this together with the scars of the battlefield and we're more than a conqueror.

15:02
I want to stand before God. I pray, I stand before God at the end and my armor is all dinged up. I want my armor oily, bloody, bent, dented. I'd love to have a helmet on with this big dent over here and my shield is just. In fact, it's a great. God got me out of earth just in time because my shield was about ready to be worn through. Don't you want to die like that? I want to die like that as a Christian.

15:29
See, I understand, listen, scars, all that. Listen, look, some people wear their scars on the outside, some wear their scars on the inside. But the thing as believers, we're going to get scarred up and those are not shameful things, those are things of honor. Like I was mentioning General Boykin. But I got this in Somalia. I got this, listen, he was the one that got the phone call from Bill Clinton himself. Bill Clinton said go in now. And he said, mr President, we never attack during the day. The operations forbid it. We're going to lose too many people. Do you remember that? In fact, they made a movie of it called Black Hawk Down? That's him, and I got this in Somalia. I got this in South America in a covert CIA operation. I got this.

16:18
Remember Jaws, the movie Jaws, where they're talking about where'd you get that scar? I got this when Susie threw a pencil at me. Richard Dreyfuss points this one out. The other guy puts his leg up there and says I got this. A shark bit me right here, and what's his name? Robert Shaw says I got this in the war and it's some big, bad scar. Can you imagine being, as a Christian, standing there in the day? Where'd you get that? Oh man, we got this battle in the orange school board, right, right. Oh, where'd you get that? Oh man, that was up in Sacramento. It's fighting for the unborn children. That one, right. What about that one? That's when we sued the governor over churches having to pay for abortions. Yeah, real stuff.

17:16
The Bible makes it very clear that suffering also, listen. Suffering prepares us for what's about to come. And this is okay. Don't freak out, don't get up now. Ushers lock the door. It's not the time for you to panic. It's like is this where the ride drops off? All the way down. Suffering prepares you. Listen.

17:32
You don't know this or not, but you love being around people who have suffered. They just don't tell you about it. I'm talking about Christians. I love being around new believers because they're like bring it, they're the best. You know what? It's? The mediocre Christians. I cannot, I'm sorry, I just can't hang around. I can't.

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New believers they're like like, come on, let's go down the forest line, let's raise the dead. Yes, let's go. They're amazing. And the only other group of people I'd like to be with are seasoned saints. You know why we all love it. You know bedtime. Can you tell me a story, papa mimi? Can you tell me a story? Papa Mimi, can you tell me a story? Kids love that stuff. We love that stuff. Well, on the other end of that pendulum is somebody saying you know what you asked about my life. This is what God's done in my life. And they tell you a tale of this incredible battle. Suffering for the believer is a tool, and suffering ends the moment you and I see Jesus. Are you hearing me? When you and I see Christ, our suffering ends.

18:54 - Speaker 1
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