Does Your Love Get Dirty?

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Hey everybody, I know everyone is news-weary tired of hearing about the fires. You're gonna hear about the fires, but you're gonna hear what you and I should do about it in a way that you may not have heard before. In fact, you probably haven't heard it like this yet. Stay tuned, you're gonna need to know. 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, thank you for joining us and we're gonna just get down to the nuts and bolts of what's going on in Southern California for sure. And I know that you're probably tempted by now to say, oh my gosh, I don't want to hear anything more about it, but some of you became very, very obvious to us. And that is there are so many people who do not really know or to listen or if they get a sound bite, right? We live in a culture where there's 15 seconds of a news item and then they've had enough. Let's move on because I don't want to get engaged in anything. I want to be a spectator regarding everything. I just give you the news or turn on the program, entertain me. And I want to keep a veneer, a very thin line of knowing about what's going on in the world around us that we have now discovered everyone. That is our luxury. If it is a luxury at all, it could be a curse to not know much about what's going on. So first off, for those of you who know us, what happened regarding the Southern California fires, our response to those comments that I've made regarding them. For you guys who know us, it's normal. You expected that from us because that's how we've been standing for nearly 40 years. It's just that we never really had a microphone like this before. When I say microphone, what happened in the LA fires allowed our voice by God's grace and his kindness and his mercy to become very, very loud and very, very broad. So our comments regarding the fires, our comments regarding the response and our comments regarding politics, everybody in the church, they just like, well, of course, normal. But for people at the daily mail, for example, in London, it wasn't normal to them. It's like, wow, what the heck is going on here? This pastor's like frying no pun intended Gavin Newsom and the California politic and all this kind of stuff. And and then podcasters and influencers began to repeat some of those comments. And it just exploded and and it's just the views of that is in the many millions. And so people are saying, what's this guy talking about? How dare he talk about anything that's relevant in life? He's a pastor. Why does he just shut up and be relevant like my pastor is. And so people have been trying to cope with not only our response, but we've been easily, and it has taken Einstein to do this, we have easily read between the lines. And this is what people are saying. Oh my gosh, I've been able to hide out everywhere from getting involved in everything that's untasteful or unsavory in my life and scary. And then, you know, now a pastor has said this and it's gone viral and all this stuff. And where do I hide now? And that is the point. Up until now in Southern California, people have had the opportunity to hide from reality. Here's how we do that. We lose ourselves and our issues, our problems. And well, frankly, in what I saw on Monday, I was in Brentwood staging to get up to go into the restricted or closed areas of the fires. And so in that staging process, there was an interview taking place. And while I was in that interview, going down the street was a Porsche, a Porsche with skis on its snow skis and snowboards, heading no doubt to the mountains. And two cars behind that Porsche was an Audi that went by with a surfboard on it going going the opposite way. I should say the Porsche was going one way, two cars later, the Audi went the other way, one with skis, one with surfboards. And that is the California, that is the Southern California experience. One guy is going to go ski on a beautiful 74 degree sunny Monday morning. And the other guy is going to go surfing somewhere. On Monday, I experienced firsthand walked through residential areas, went to stood on the shoreline of the Homes in Malibu on the sand gone, gone reduced to nothing. Now don't hold this against me, but I'm going to be honest with you. I was so moved. I felt so odd. How is it that you are standing on the slab of what once was a house on the beach where there's nothing left? I mean nothing, nothing but steel girders that once held up the second and third story. And the Porsche, the Cayenne Porsche, melted to the ground, electrical wires draped over the car and into the house because it fell on the home. That was my experience on Monday. And on Tuesday, because it was my birthday this week, I was at Disneyland with my family. And I was in tune or in California adventure, and it was Route 66 and lightning and queen drove by. And everybody was enjoying it except me. Because less than 24 hours earlier, I was in reality. 24 hours later, I was in non-reality. One is called to muse where you think this through. And I'm asking you to do that now. To think this through. We need to divorce ourselves from avoiding to think things through. I'm going to give you the word for that in a moment. On Monday, I was in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Brentwood. And the reality was being assimilated into my total being. I was listening to people. I could smell the strange bifurcation, if you know what that word is, the split off into of like that Porsche, like that Audi, one with skis, one with surfboards, I could smell the amazing Southern California saltwater air coming off the water. And it was spectacular, beautiful. Literally, we saw dolphins in the water. And then the next smell was this metallic burnt. I all I could tell you, the smell of like a burning fire frying pan. So strange. This collision. What was going on? When we muse on something, we assimilate it. We take it in. We are two, for example, muse upon the Bible. The Bible calls this stela. And it means to meditate on this. It means to take it in to become, we would say, died in the wool. It means to be having the moment completely gone through you. And that's how we're supposed to ingest the Bible. The Bible speaks to us. And we can be guilty of reading it because it's what I'm supposed to do. And I got to get out of here. I got to hit the road. But I did my Bible reading, punch my Christian Bible reading time card and out I go and five minutes later, you can tell yourself what you just read. That is not musing or marinating or meditating. And we're guilty of that. We're all guilty of that because we all live in a pressured life. And the alternative of meditating and musing is ah ah ah ah muse to amuse is to detach from reality. Don't tell me about reality. I don't want to hear it. That's too much. I can't cope. Amuse me. And so this this week I was shocked by the world I live in in Southern California. We are so incredibly amused here by both things made by God and things made by man that I can go to the Pacific Ocean and enjoy the spectacular beauty of it. And I need to find God in that. If I don't, then I'm just going to be entertained. But it is it is beautiful. And there's nothing wrong with that unless I start to worship that. And so I can take the things that God has made and focus on them and thank him for them, the blue sky, the blue green ocean, the sound of the waves, the sand, or we live in an awesome place people if you'd ever been here. From the ocean up to eight, nine, 10,000 foot peaks in our either sear and Nevada mountains, the San Gabriel mountains, the San Bernardino mountains. I mean, they're epic and they're spectacular. What am I talking about here? The things that God has made, we need to muse upon those things but be careful that we're not amused while doing it. Well, regarding life, we are living life and in one of two arenas. We are either living life demanding that we be amused, make me dance, make me happy, play me music, keep it perfect. Set the thermostat to 75 and don't change a thing because that's the way it's got to be. That's non-reality folks. And wow, the city of Los Angeles, I think, has 4.5, maybe more city of LA, close to 5 million people. I think I may be wrong about this. The county of LA, I believe, is 13 to 14 million people. Southern California is about 28 million people. Our state has some 40 plus million people and all of a sudden, half the state's been baptized into reality. And already, the fires have, you know, it's been a week and a half and people don't want to hear about anymore. And I'm saying to you today, we need to all grow up, take a wake up pill, a dose of reality and realize, it's time for us to roll up our sleeves as humans and certainly as Christians to get involved. This kind of stuff could very well not go away. We have not had rain here in now eight months. We have had record-breaking catastrophic, what is known as Santa Anna Wins or Santa Susanna Wins or Santa Anna's. We in Southern California call them the devil winds. Nothing good comes out of them. Never has for, I don't know, 500 years as long as I don't know. Long time record indicates these things have always happened. All of a sudden, we've had a mega, mega dose of these horrific damaging winds, which leads us to the reality of all that's going on. I get it. People who don't know God, they don't want to hear this. You've already turned me off. There are people who are taking this strong pill and this strong coffee and you're saying, what are you going to say next? And I want to say this next. I want to say that I have never in 36 years having started this church that I passed her in Southern California to today. I've never seen it shine more beautifully. Oh, don't get me wrong. It was illuminated during COVID when the governor demanded that we shut down and not only were we open, but some 13, 14 maybe close to 15,000 people would come on a Sunday for quite a few years during the COVID experience because Northern churches were really open. And so I was so proud of this staff, so proud of this church because they just rose to the occasion. Why? How could they do that? Because they were taught the Bible and all of their assimilation of the Bible in a situation that was dynamic and terrifying. They knew what to do. They knew what to do and they followed God through it. They obeyed the Lord through it. And now, you know what? Our church is known around the world for the church that baptized over 3,000 people during COVID and just by God's grace just grew, grew so much. And we get no paths on the back for that. We simply obeyed the Bible. Now we are going through these recent days, skipping a few things to get to the point, the fires. And I just want to encourage you. If you're going to take a vacation, why don't you take a vacation to Southern California but make an emissions trip? Instead of going to some part of the world or instead of going on a mission trip to Ghana or to Brazil, I encourage you to come take a missions trip to Southern California and join with us for the next several years of rebuilding the lives of people who have been devastated in a land of amusement. Because we can go to Nutsbury farm, we can go to Disneyland, we can go to Sofie Stadium to watch the Rams, or we can watch the Chargers, we can watch the California Angels, or we can watch the Dodgers, we can go down south and watch the Padres, or we can watch the ducks play hockey, or the Kings, or the Lakers, or the Clippers, or I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. I don't mean to. All within driving distance here, within a month, within an hour less, amusement. And now we've had a wake up call. So what do we do? People are saying, what do I do? What do I do? Now's the time to find a spirit, biblically based community to worship God. Now's the time to worship God. God, what do I need God for? Because listen, reality showed up and people have been reduced to what foundations do they have? What strengths do they have in life? And all of a sudden, the simple things have become the most valuable things. And what they did own is no longer important to them because they're still trying to find one of their daughters a week after the fires. They're still trying to find their dad, or they're still trying to connect with their grandparents who they haven't seen since a day or two before the fires started. That's what concerns them now. This is why we as believers, listen to this. The epistle that John wrote, first John, listen, first John 3, verse 17, but whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother or sister, of course, in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? In other words, you cannot really be a real believer, truly a Christian, going to heaven, knowing Jesus, you can't be like that and not get involved. If you say, I'm not going to get involved because it makes me sad, then how dwells the love of God in you? In other words, it doesn't. So watch people who are affected immediately by the fires. Their lives are being tested, but my friends listen up. Everyone in America right now, their lives are being tested by what happened here in Southern California. You say, well, Jack, go to the stretch. Is it now? Where were you? I know some of you may not have been born yet, but what did you do? Where were you on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001? Where were you? I know exactly where I was. I can tell you what I was wearing. The next thing we did was, within a matter of hours, people without announcements showed up at the church, started praying, then teams were formed and went to New York. Where were you throughout when Katrina hit? Did your church, did your life, were you responding to the needs of those in Louisiana? The church community that I'm involved in, the family that I'm involved in, this church mobilized immediately. In fact, it was amazing. My goodness, this is TMI, but I was speaking to, at the time, the governor, Bobby Jindel at the time, and my good friend, Tony Perkins, there in Bobby Jindel's pickup truck. FEMA was there making sure people didn't get any help or food. We literally had people in our church slaughter some of their cattle here in Southern California, turned it into steaks and hamburgers. We had two refrigerator trucks that made it across all the way to the state line to Louisiana and FEMA stopped them and the governor of Louisiana by order had our trucks get in there to start feeding the people around FEMA because FEMA was holding up the food because you didn't have a food service license. The food had not been respected by the FDA while people were starving. That's what government does. They screw everything up. Okay? And so thank God that when the time of crisis came, there was a believer as governor of Louisiana who said, shine the federal government. There are a bunch of buffoons. They're just going to starve everybody. We've got tens of thousands of motor homes, barbecues, and all of this stuff that's going on that we can't use because it doesn't have a special transportation label by FEMA. There's vehicles that have been donated, but they haven't have the particular operator's license tag craziness. And we had to go around that. But my point is this, God's people rise up and get involved when people hurt. And this is what we must do. And this is what we're doing. I encourage you wherever you're at, find out how you can help or in your community get ready to help when your community gets hit because it eventually our love is going to be challenged. We've got to do this. So just really really quick. The mobilization of people, I just want to encourage you with this. Since the fires hit, I know this church, I can only speak for this church, but I'm sure there's other churches. There is the response by the faith community. And I say faith, I'm being generous right now. I've only seen Christians responding. I haven't seen... Maybe it's happening, but I haven't seen a Muslim-led group of people bringing relief. Maybe it's there. We've not seen it here. Maybe there's a Jewish contingency of relief efforts happening here. Maybe there is. I've not seen it. Let me tell you awesome awesome the overwhelming response on street corners. We were looking at street corners where there were people that pulled up trucks. It was great to see Southern California monster trucks, right? These these awesome trucks that people drive raised up gnarly. These trucks got to be $200,000, $250,000 trucks. They never see dirt. They don't even allow them to go out in the rain. They're so perfect. They were filled up with chairs, with diapers, with water, and these gnarly looking guys getting out. I saw this with my own eyes. It was so cool. Tatted up guys. I mean, if I saw them in any other situation, I'd say, stay away, man. That's like, that's a gang. These guys were climbing out of their rigs. They're four three fifties, four two fifties, GMC Chevy Sierra's, whatever they do. Oh my gosh. These guys pulled up and all of these guys had their LA hats bomb backwards and they're just doing it. And we're saying, how do these people? And it's just one thing going on. And it turns out these are believers. These are believers. Listen, if people, listen, if you think Christians have got to have a cross around their neck and the women's hair is back into bun and the guy's got to have, you know, his hair shaved off or whatever it is and his shirt button up to the top to be a Christian. You know, listen, you're going to be shocked when you come to Southern California because people that you see is like, what in the world is that guy? That guy looks like he'll tell your head off. And then the guy, the guy's given people stuff and he's crying. And then you ask him, how are you doing? I'm doing fine, man. Jesus awesome. God is great. I got to tell you, I love this place. But get involved either with what's happening here or something. But Christian, how do all of the love of God in you when you see your brother or your sister in need and you shut up your heart, your life of compassion? How do all the love of God in you? Well, the Greek demands the answer is it doesn't. You say, Jack, this is, this is strong. This is strong. What you're saying? Where's the fault in this? This is called exhortation. It's never even said today in churches anymore. Exortation means means this. Watch. It's a it's a smack in the rear to get you up and going. And Paul the Apostle Peter also was great at that. And so the world we live in now is a world of opportunity. So I'm not feeling it. Our company's closing its doors or the taxes or the this, that's not what I said. For the believer, you and I live in a world of opportunity right now. And listen, there's things that have gone horribly wrong. I'm not going to get into that. I've already done it. You can find that out later. The exposing of the governor, the exposing of mayors, the exposing of Southern California Edison, the exposing of various institutions and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. They're all busted. They're in the hot seat. They're getting fried and they're getting they're getting basted. And so there's people doing that. And so that's great because it needs to happen. There's so much wrong, but we didn't even know it was so wrong, but the fires exposed this. So that's good coming out of the devastation. There's so much being done right. The private sector. And you don't have to be Christians to pull this off. Crystal Geyser. I don't know anything about Crystal Geyser water company. But man, did they come through? What about organizations right now? For example, like in and out burger, in and out burgers responding with their trucks, I was told last night to the National Guard to feed them. What about home depots, certain home depots? What about certain things? Look, people got upset with me because the the first responders they asked for monster drink. And I got rebuked for us. We went and bought about, I don't know how many thousands and thousands and cans of monster drink because that's what the first responders wanted. People told me that that's a satanic company. They wound up donating just more and more and more to the fire effort. Listen, what's wrong with people? This is ridiculous. Listen, I don't know anything about monster drink. Well, don't you know that the M stands for Satan? I didn't know that. But I don't really care about that because if a Christian can take a monster drink, how about this? We'll circumcise it from all of its evil and we'll hand it over to the National Guard or the LA County Fire Department. I'm okay with that because you know what? There's some people that just sit around and Twitter with their theological thumbs until everybody either starts to death or the crisis blows over eventually. And then they feel better because there's nothing to respond to. And I'm not into that. And I trust you're not either as you wouldn't be following this podcast. We are Christians. We follow Jesus. Didn't Jesus say when all of these people, and I got to wrap this up, when all of these people were following Jesus and it was getting late, Jesus seen the need, said to the disciples, why don't you guys feed them? Hey, you 12 feed those thousands of people. And the guys were like, what do we do? And they said that. We don't know what to do. And Jesus said, make them sit down and and divided up small groups. Have them sit down. And then Jesus picked up baskets and he held them up and he prayed to the Father of bread and God supplied the bread. He took an impossible situation but because he was invited into the situation, God knew what he was going to do. But he loves doing it with his people so that his people who see the miracle happening and service are freaked out and blessed. And the people who are in need are freaked out and blessed because when God rolls, when Jesus rolls everybody's blessed. But I'm encouraging all of you to take inventory and ask yourself this question, do you have active love? Does your does your love get dirty? Does your love smell smoke? Does your love smell flesh? Does your love smell? Does your love get into the mess? Because Jesus does. And that's what we must do. What love is this? John would say to us, you know, wait one more thing before before we go is there's always a Pharisees online or in the camper in the group. And these are people that don't do anything. They just criticize everything. Let me explain. Somebody might say something like they can say it but it doesn't stick here because we do something about it. Why don't you guys do something for the Caroline as they were devastated by the horrible storms? Well, if you ask the Samaritans purse organization, we sent nearly three million dollars to help them. So there you go for that. Well, you guys are talking about the fires in LA. But what about Maui? We've sent help to Maui. We've directed aid from other organizations to Maui. We have friends in Maui. So what did you send to Maui? Or what did you send to fill in the blank? See, here's the point. I happen to be blessed to oversee a very large organization and the church, which means we have and we get the opportunity because this is what God gave us, faithful and little faithful and more to give to others. But this is the key. There are people that are literally in the epicenter of their community's needs. So for example, the churches in Hawaii have they all banded together to help Maui. Help first your own Jerusalem. Then Judea, then Samaria, then the outermost parts of the world with not only assistance, but of course with the gospel. Those people in the Carolinas have all the churches in the Carolinas come together or are they sitting away, sitting around, waiting for people from California to send their money. You see what I'm saying? We have the opportunity to do both. You have the opportunity to do something. So if you want to help, we promise, we promise, we promise, we promise. 100% of your assistance. If you donate water or donuts, a dollar or a million, 100% of it is a tax write-off by the way for you. Thank God we still have that in America. So take advantage of it. But 100% of it will go to those in need. We don't take 5% off for administration costs. We don't do that here. 100%. Guaranteed. God is our witness. And we promise you that. But stay tuned because the next two years are going to be critical. And we do need to throw people out of office. Everybody's working on that by the way. I was going to say we're working on that. Everybody's working on that. And there's actually a movement among Democrats actually to remove Democrats from office. I think that's hilarious. That's how bad it is here in the realm of politics. But you know what? Politics come and go. But the word of the Lord of Bites forever. The Lord loves and the Book of Job. The Book of Job might very well for this time and season be a book that is suspended over the fires of Southern California because at the end, Job turned out better than he was at the beginning. And what was taken from him was restored tenfold. I believe that God is going to do a remarkable, awesome thing in California that has never been seen before and I for one will not miss it by his grace. Listen, we believe that it's time obviously it's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. And that's what we're all about here. God bless you guys. Share this with somebody. Let us know. Like it, hit the notification bell and make sure that we can stay in touch with you and that we are united together. So until next time, God bless you guys. 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.