Enough, Is Not Enough

Real life presents the Jack Kibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth equip the saints and impact our culture. We need to stop pointing our finger at other people and own our own sin because you cannot repent. You cannot repent of your sins and be right with God while you're pointing your finger at other people. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibb's.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 Kibb's. Today in this room, you are either one who is following Christ by faith and you've surrendered to that fact or you may be here today and look, you may be thinking that you're on your way to heaven. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. You may be very moral, very religious. You may or may not be on your way to heaven. But if you're asking yourself today, you tell me pastor just how much do I need to perform? What do I need to do to earn the favor of God? That question stands and he's looking at it, Paul is in verse 25, how much is needed for enough to be enough when it comes to religion? And so it says there in verse 25, for circumcision is indeed profitable. It's a great thing, qualifier, if you keep the law, you should underline that in your Bible. But if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become un-circumcision. Now church, before we dive into this, Paul the Jew is speaking to a predominant Gentile church in Rome, but it had a great population of Jews that had come to faith in Christ. But there were still on the outside those Jews who were upset with the gospel and they were attacking the gospel. And they were saying, no, you've got to do these things and do the other things and you've got to follow Jesus but keep the law and they had all these rules going on and Paul says something and thank God, the genius of God, this could only come from another Jew. He speaks about things that might turn your face a little red, but I have a feeling today that you won't forget that God is calling you to a relationship to him with faith. The word circumcision, we'll talk about it later, but just make a note of it this way, circumcision is an institution, it's a sacred calling that God placed upon Abraham's descendants, both Abraham that came later on in life with Abraham, but with his descendants as a marked out people. Listen, you should write this down, this might shock you, but there were other pagan religions that practiced circumcision before God told Abraham to be circumcised. I don't know if you know that or not, but there were other religions. In fact, there were certain groups in Egypt that practiced circumcision. Why did they do that? Because it was to identify with their gods. If you worship Zeus or Athena, it was not uncommon for you to be marked with the name or names of your gods. Well God called out his people and the right of circumcision, watch this everyone, God took that which was in practice among pagans and he converted it to mean truth. Genesis chapter 17, verse 13. It says there, he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised and my covenant shall be in your flesh for a never lasting covenant. God is speaking that to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation and the father of all true believers. Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 10 says, to whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear behold their ears are uncircumcised. See where I'm going? Nobody circumcises their ears. But God is speaking, you need your ears circumcised, you're not listening. They cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it. Whatever's keeping you from hearing the word of God, you need to have that thing circumcised out of your life. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 16, therefore circumcised the foreskin of your heart and be stiff necked no longer. Do you hear what he's saying? Now by the way, every time you hear me use the word circumcised, you should insert the word baptism or baptized. You can do that today in the 21st century. It can be the same difference or maybe you were confirmed or maybe you went and you received your approval or sign off on some form of catechism or some form of real keeping or some sort of standards, whoever you are today, in the listening of this message, insert whatever you have trusted in and look to be acceptable to God. For the Jew, it is circumcision. So how much is needed, number one, we look at this in verse 25, how much is needed to keep the law? Can you write that down? For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law. So the law is to be kept. We'll agree on that. God's laws perfect. God says keep it. And He makes this declaration and so the question is, how much of it needs to be kept? And I want you to analyze that question because it's a flawed question. Are you with me? Listen, how much of it needs to be kept if I'm going to keep the law? How much? See, this is how humans think about things. How much of it do I need to keep? All of it. If there's ten commandments and I break one commandment, am I still okay? The Bible says you are not okay. You are no longer okay. So circumcision right from the get-go is an announcement that this is an individual who has made a covenant with me, God, that they will keep my law. All of you need to remember that. My Jewish friends, listen for that matter, Muslims, whoever you might be trying to work your way into heaven. God says keep the commandments. Oh, and by the way, in the day that you break a commandment, you need to bring me innocent blood. So when God says circumcision is regarding you keeping the law right from the start, you realize I'm in trouble. But when we're, listen, when we get confronted as humans, we try to justify ourselves in things. We always try to justify our own position. So we ask silly questions like, well, how much of the law am I supposed to keep? So that's why Paul says if you keep the law, I love that. But if you could highlight that, circle it, you can put your initials next to it. But this hour display is to display faith and devotion to God. But it's an exact call. God says I have a zero tolerance on sin. It's not accepted in my presence. Circumcision. Listen, Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1, in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up in the train, or that is his glory of his robe filled the temple. Imagine this for a moment. Above it stood a seraphim, these angelic type creatures, they're different. Each one of the seraphim, by the way, had six wings. With two he covered his face, that's in the presence of God, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to the other and said, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. Verse 4 says, Isaiah witnessed this, and the post of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. He's seen this heavenly vision of God's temple above, God's throne, verse 5. So I said, woe is me, for I am undone, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, oh please mark that. Isaiah, why are you so distraught, why are you so undone, why are you in the midst of a radical spiritual crisis, and he would say my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. One verse 6 tells us, once Sarifan flew to him, having in his hand a live coal, a burning coal which was taken with the tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth with it, and he said, behold, this has touched your lips, your iniquity has taken away, and your sin purged. Church family, I don't know if we're going to get any further today than that. Are you kidding me? In the year the King, Uzziah died, that was by the way, Isaiah and Uzziah were best friends, and a lot of scholars believe that Isaiah's problem was, he leaned too much on that wonderful godly King, Uzziah, and when Uzziah died, Isaiah had a faith crisis. He was distraught, he didn't know what to do, and in that crisis he saw in this vision, the throne of God, and he saw the holiness of God, and I want everyone to think, you think for a moment, you're going to work your way into heaven, you're going to get to heaven by being good, you're going to work your presence into heaven by your merit, keep this in mind. Isaiah, the prophet of God, saw the Lord, and he says, whoa is me, I'm completely undone, whoa, meaning there's nothing good in me. That is what happens when you see the Lord of hosts sitting upon his throne, and you can see him sitting upon his throne if you want to by just waiting upon him in prayer. Read the word, close your eyes, think, pray, call out to him, and imagine for a moment what Isaiah is saying. God will show you his glory in the way that you need to see his glory, and what's absolutely awesome to me. Mark this down to everybody, because it makes no theological sense if you're going to work your way into heaven. A seraphim takes a coal off the altar of sacrifice, the altar of burning, and this hot white coal is placed on the prophet's mouth, and the angel announces your sins been taken from you. Excuse me. If you're a good Hebrew scholar, you would say stop, not possible, that's the whole point. Isaiah, are you going to work your way to heaven? No. Are you going to be good enough to get to heaven? No. I'm undone. Well, how did you get put back together after you fell off that wall? God declared me sinless, God declared me holy, God declared me forgiven. In that Isaiah moment of Isaiah chapter 6 is a New Testament truth. Dear friends, listen up everybody. Our New Testament gospel is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise. Nobody made this stuff up. This is the fulfillment of what has always been true. God declares you righteous by the works that he has done not you. And when that's true to transform your life, when that's true to transform your life, the second thing we see in verse 25 is when enough is not enough and we ask that silly question, how much is needed to start over again? Isn't that the big drama about us coming back to Christ? How much do I need? What do I need to do to start over again? Okay, pastor, you got me. God's holy, I'm not. Isaiah was amazing, I'm nothing like him, but Isaiah's sins were purged by God. Okay, I used to walk with Jesus, but I'm not walking with him anymore, but I want to come back. So what do I need to do to start over again? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. It says, but if you are verse 25, but if you are a breaker of the law, listen up. Your circumcision has become uncircumcision. The uncircumcised means sin is still upon you. But how much of that is in practice, how much of that is in the record of heaven? How much? Where do you parse that out? Where do I start again? If I failed and walked away from God or maybe if I think I sinned the unforgivable sin, but now I'm convicted and I want to come back. Where do I start? We all and always start at the exact same place every single time. That we understand that it's not by any efforts. Oh, pastor, just tell me, I'll gather together whatever I need to do to come back to God. Maybe you're somebody today and you're saying I need to come back. I need to get right with God again. I need to return to my first love, John put it. We have to approach the Lord and are returning to Him, owning our sin. I'm going to say something that's very unpopular today and it needs to become popular. We need to stop pointing our finger at other people and own our own sin because you cannot repent. You cannot repent of your sins and be right with God while you're pointing your finger at other people. When it all comes down to Jack and God, I must not care about anybody else. Give me Ron, I'm to love all of you and I'm to love the world that hates me. But when it all comes down to it, I'm to honor and to please Him in Him alone and you turn to Him and you come the same way you came in the first place. Lord, I'm a sinner, forgive me. Wash me clean. No, see, we've got this mentality, in fact, in the words that there are mortal words nowadays, the great philosopher Arnold Schwarzenegger said that no pain, no gain, no pain, no gain. And I want you to think about that for a moment. Every year, Muslims make a hodge and in part of their religious practices, I have one of the implements. It's a handle with chains on it and has razor blades about 12 of them. And they flog themselves on the back and cut themselves open and hit themselves on the face and bleed themselves, all to make atonement for their sins. And listen, if that applies to you, if you're somebody watching now in the world and that you're alive, Jesus died on the cross so you would never have to do such a silly thing. Jesus, listen, it's not your pain that gets you the gain, it's his pain that gets you the gain, it's his salvation, it's what he's done. But we've got this thing about religiosity that I've got to do something to reestablish hope. No, you don't, you turn back to Christ. The Bible says, but if you are a breaker of the law here, your circumcision has become an uncircumcision. It means that the outward symbol that you have been devoted to God in a covenant relationship, the Bible says, is now broken. So how do you reestablish it? Honestly, listen, if cutting off of the skin made me right with God and I break the law, what do I do? You see, what brings us to this and I wonder if you're going to, if you're going to catch it is at the bottom or at the end of verse 25, how much is needed to keep the law? So let's put them up on the screen, didn't I say that earlier, is that point number one? So is that a, is that a, is that a typo? No, not at all. Number one was the same as number three and that's the cycle. Do you understand me? Everybody, listen, this is the cycle. How much is needed? How much of the law do I need to keep? Then you fail, all of it, then, then you fail, then you make some sort of amends. You do some sort of penance, listen, please, I mean this with all affection. When someone turns to you and says of religious authority, I tell you what, you got a problem? You do five of these things, three of those and seven of the other. And if you do that, listen, listen, this is painful, but with no gain. You go through this and you go through this and you go through this and you do like Martin Luther did and going up the steps and the knees of those going up the steps for atonement on their knees, bloodied, worn and calloused. He wakes up to the realization, what works can man do to get right with God? And God spoke to Martin Luther, the Catholic German reformer and the awakening came to him that the just shall live by faith. And the world was changed, but listen, in your life, you could be sitting here right down the 21st century and be very religious and be very lost because you're still thinking on a merit based, what do I need to do to keep the law of performance? And you've got to come to a stark realization that you can't keep the law. It is holy, it's pure, it's awesome. And you try with all of your might, but the bottom line is this, the day that you break it, you're going to need blood. And if you come forward and you say, no, no, just cut off more flesh and I'm going to get right back at it. I'm going to win this thing. I'm going to conquer myself and I'll present myself before God. You just wait and see, you're going to need the atonement of the lamb, or you're going to think that you need to give more flesh. I'll give you a hint, only one's acceptable to God. This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcasts out reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.