Faith Sharing and What It Does For You with special guest Barry Meguiar

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey you guys we're getting together with our friend Barry McGuire. We're gonna be talking about faith and what is the church's role? What are we doing and are we even doing it? Let's find out. 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. Hey everybody welcome to this episode of the Jack Hibbs podcast and we're gonna have some fun today and first of all before we get going you guys know the jingle right at the end of every program that we say it's time for you to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. That's the whole essence of what we're doing is living out your faith in a real life setting. And so our argument is to you as always it's time for you and I to do that because the world is hurting. The world isn't trouble and it needs you and I to be obedient and I can't think of a man. I don't know a man who's been more obedient longer with the same message. Here's what's key. The message hasn't changed. Consistent, faithful, blessed witness, remarkable. I'm talking about our good friend and a precious man of God, Barry Maguire and so Barry. I would shake your hand and all that stuff but we're two. We know each other too well to do that. Maybe maybe we'll do that all this. That works. That works. The message is the same but the the poignancy of the message and the interest in the message is far greater. That's true. Explain why that's the case. We're worried about to have times. God doesn't he looks at things entirely different. When you and I look around the world, we know that Christianity is growing. People are coming to the Lord in in the highest of numbers where there's persecution. Yeah, that's true. If we're God, we look down and we say, okay, the persecution is working great. That that yep. All that prosperity stuff. That's that's not working so good. Just goes out the window when there's shakes, prosperity doctrine goes out the window. And I dare say whether you're a Trump supporter or not, if Trump had been reelected, it would be easy to say we could have gone on with the with better times in economy whatever one might say that. And there'd be no rush to God. Yeah. But the fact the matter is I don't want to blame any point. I'm just saying that times are bad right now. Supernaturally bad. The people are this is not natural. I hear it. I'm I'm amongst people that don't know the Lord all the time. I'm in car shows. I'm with thousands of people. All I hear it. I hear it. And they're coming up. But what is going on? They want to know inquiring something to whatever that we really do. So I think the Lord is allowing these hard times to bring revival. I think I think the world is getting it faster than the church. The church seems to be still asleep. But the world, I mean, there's this the the scripture of course, the harvest is white for harvest. Absolutely. I think it's white for it's I think it's already there. Yeah. Everybody's asking everybody searching. They really know. I think because he said that 2000 years ago, it's been in the Bible. It's been in the pages of the Bible ever since that it's always the season. I think every generation of every decade of every century of every millennia, the harvest is is is is massive and is ready. Isn't it amazing? What a strange thing is who can figure that Jesus's challenge is pray to the Lord of the harvest. That's the Holy Spirit. Pray and ask the spirit of God descend laborers into the harvest. The lost are there. The need for us as believers to engage the culture with the gospel is a command and yet bury why in your opinion. Why? Why is there a deficit in in people sharing the gospel? Well, that's there's a long list. It is it is read. Yes, send them God. He didn't send somebody to fix us. Is that what we pay our pastor to do? Exactly. That's the pastor's job. Not my job. There's a there's a whole lot of reasons we've talked about those a lot. The fear is certainly one of them. You know, I almost think not caring is at the top of the list. Epathy. Epathy. I mean, if you really concentrate, if you're really thinking about what hell is and it's eternal, you don't want your worst enemies to go through that. I mean, you just don't. And if you come to cognizance, but we don't talk about how you do, you share, you have this balanced ministry, but most churches do not. It's not not popular to talk about hell anymore. It pushes people away. They won't come back to it. We can pay for my buildings. You know, I need to get everybody back. There you go. So the way I look at the gospel is twofold. God is extraordinary, whatever he did. He was an extraordinary reward. And he gave us an extraordinary punishment. And we have the choice. And he gave us free choice. And he goes, hell is so horrible, but he begs that clear. But we've stopped talking about the other side. So most Christians today don't even think about hell anymore. There's no urgency. There's no urgency. And that's the gospel. The gospel is very much, I will talk to him as much about hell as it does about heaven. I mean, it's balanced there. And we need to know those two in the church, not, not, not Calvary Chapel, but, but the church. And I would go to church all over the country. That's not talked about. And I'm finding in fact studies, even show that most evangelicals now are not thinking about hell anymore. And this is tragic. At this moment in time, when we could be at the end of time, that's a huge motivator that we're not even thinking about. Well, you've got a great book that's available to everybody. We want you to get your hands on Barry's book Ignite Your Life. This is an incredibly encouraging book, especially for, it's great for everybody. But for the person who says, well, I don't know if I can share my faith. You need this book. And I'm not just saying so for Barry to sell books. This is so extremely systematically helpful on how you be in a believer. You've been called by God to share the Lord and the love of the Lord among whoever you come in contact with. To thank every day, and I know Barry, his wife, Karen, we all think this way that today when I wake up, God's got appointments for me that I'm not even aware of. So whoever comes across our doorstep or wherever we're at, that this has been ordained by God. I mean, can you live like that? Would you live like that? To thank, hey, my life is under so much control. If he's controlling the waves and the Jupiter and the Mars and the Sun moving, can't he control my life right now? So that when I'm at the store today, that person who our paths cross, could it be a divine appointment? Rather than sit around and figure out if it is or not, go for it. Step out and say, hey, can I pray for you about something or whatever it might be, but show the love of God. It's just not for a few, but I think you hit the nail on the head. I really do believe this as well that there is a neglect in the pulpit from teaching it. No doubt that is heaven and hell, repentance of sin, the glories of heaven. But there's an apathy where, oh, you know what? If heaven is just an add-on to my life right now, okay, I'll sign up. I got my Costco card, AAA card, season ticket holder to this. I'll get my Jesus card. If you don't realize that there's a real hell that costs God his life on the cross, that it is so real and it's so bad that Jesus said it was prepared for the devil and his fallen angels. So for us to fluff that off is to actually, I, this might be harsh, but it's actually a form of unbelief. Oh, what really is? Of course, a lot of people say God wouldn't send me to hell. I'm too good a person. You're already on your way, but they don't understand God. They don't understand God doesn't send me away to hell. It's your choice. It's your choice. Yeah, you wonder if you can, there's only one way to get to heaven, of course. Jesus tries to died for your sins. So when you recognize that, recognize your sinner, we all are. I mean, I have a lot of friends that question that. But my gracious, we all were there in our honesty and to think that he died for his sins, the only way we get to heaven, the only way, there was no other way. You look at there's no other way God could have made a way for we can stand before Holy God in a pure environment. Can't stand sin and we can stand their face to face looking at him, clothing his righteousness because he sent his son to die for us. And that's the essence of everything if you don't, if you don't capture it. But more importantly, we only have a short time. I think people don't understand what face sharing does for them, for you. Right. Because we've been taught all our lives that you got to do all this and have training and you got to recite all this stuff and find one person today. And first off, with all the people you're going to see today, they're going to hell. You pick one. And it's usually the least likely one that responds the fastest. So we just say, move everybody every day close to just move everybody. Just make sure if nothing more than just attaching God bless you, but make sure you move everybody. Don't miss a person, including with your spouse on the order. Okay. You have that. But then it just opens up the door and you just love on people. And it's amazing what what takes place there. But more importantly, the specifics of all that is God doesn't want anybody to be lost. He doesn't want anybody to be lost. He came to seek and save the loss that none be lost. He doesn't want anybody to. But when he gave us free choice, he opens up the door for people to be lost. And quite frankly, more will be lost as the scripture described. And so he treasures angels. That's why the angels rejoice when every every new person that comes to receive Jesus Christ. It's just so huge. And because we're losing most of them, what we got one. But there's another piece. The other piece is when when we now receive our own salvation, what we realize that the number one goal for God right now between now and whenever the time the incomes, he wants to get as many of us into heaven as possible. That's his goal. That's his goal. He is what it's not about how many we do this or this and all these good things. Just how do we get people into heaven? And when we sign on, we say, we're going to help you do that. My gracious, then all the blessings come. So he really says, there's a wonderful scripture, Isaiah 43, 10 where he says, I appoint you as my witness so that you will believe. I would think he'd say, I appoint you as my witness so they'll believe. But he says so that you'll believe. So the primary reason for sharing your faith is not what you think it is. You've been thinking to reach the loss. I need I need to go out there and do that. And that's not my task. It's about you. Because when you share your faith, the whole dynamic in your life changes. I got to tell you. And when you feel God speaking to you without without preparation, and he gives you the words to say, you know, God, not only orchestrates our lives, right? But but the other person's life brings us together in the most amazing ways. And you know, that's happening in the midst of it. And you know, God's giving you words to say, he gives you the words to say, well, you don't have them. And then the person's changing in front of you. That's an experience you can't have any other way folks. If you've not experienced that, you've missed the joy of being a Christian. You have no idea how excited it is to be a Christian. And about 90% around you are lost. And so you have that opportunity every day. And when you move them, and and don't worry about getting them saved in the spot, just move them closer, just be there and love on them with no agenda. Beary, give us an example for somebody who's asking several times, bearer, you've mentioned move them closer. Give us an example as to what would that look like moving them closer? Granted, you're you may not lead them to the front of the altar at the moment moving them closer. What does that look like? What would be something? Well, first off, you do it with your own countenance. You know, I mean, just you know, when you're doing it, he gives you joy. He said, when you bear fruit, you talked about this just recently as sermon. When you bear fruit, my jaw remained with you and your jaw remained full. If you're if your countenance is heavy, nobody wants to plan on what he has. Oh boy, kind of like, quite frankly, most Christians aren't Christians because of Christians. I mean, it's just sad truth. We're witnesses for the prosecution, right? Yeah. And so we're we're in full time ministry and just love on view. When you're looking and expecting to have conversation, just the presence of that people want to talk with you. They almost want to say, why are you so happy? I want some of that. So you already have credibility with them. And then you just mentioned and it can't force feed it. You know, God is so good to me. I just say, well, why are you so happy? Why are you letting me? God loves me and He likes to love people through me. And then I change the subject. I don't want to be heavy because I can push them away so quickly. And they're expecting heavy. They're expecting heavy. And then I just let go and I start, hey, how about those Dodgers or whatever? And I leave it and I won't go back to it in that setting. That's very wise because you're trusting the spirit of God to take that little bit of that seed being planted. Yes. And let it. And let the Holy Spirit, and let the Holy Spirit, it's orchestrating that. We're not doing our own. It's a Holy Spirit. He, he organized it. And if they're hungry, they'll start asking you questions. There you go. So I say it's like throwing out chum when you go to need to fish it through our chum and that attracts the fish to come to catch the hook. And so I have chum lines going out all over the place. Everybody knows of a Christian. I'm never overbearing. I never preach at all. I never get away from bearing it. I just always talk about God. No, I'm a regular person. I have all kinds of patients. But I always in the middle of every conversation through. I got a little bit just let me go. Everybody knows of a Christian when they're in need, when they're hungry, the phone goes. So let's talk real quick just so you put this in perspective. For some of you, you might be saying, well, I love what this guy is saying. Who is he again? Barry McGuire. Some of you may not be familiar. So it's almost impossible for me to give an introduction into the world that he influences. But we're talking about the McGuire car products that are global. The car, the car guy, the car crazy programming. Listen, I can say this. He's a legend in the car world. And those that are legends, such as Jay Leno and others, they know that they share the same passion with Barry. But what they're learning about is a passion that is greater than that. So for example, somebody like a Jay Leno or somebody like, you know, fill in the blank, they know you. They use their, your products on their treasures. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because there's some guys I would assume it's all over the world. But in Southern California, there are people who have warehouses of cars and all of their products, all of their cars are taken care of by your products. Point being is that's their treasure. And then Barry comes along, talks car with them. But they know that Barry loves Jesus. And so it would it be possible? You can, you can maybe not, not name anybody to protect them. But could you share one of those moving someone closer to Jesus in your world? I can't know with one of the most famous guys. He's passed away now. But yeah, the car guy thing is the credibility. They know, they know that I'm not just, I don't spend all day long in my Bible and praying and come out once about to try to get somewhere. I have a lot of patience. I am a car guy. I love making cars look perfect, you know. But I have sports and politics and food and places. I made it all that stuff. But you just always have this on your mind. But you're always sharing. So there was the most thing I was at the head of hot rotting. I'm going back to the 40s now. I was getting George Bears. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And he he was called the King of Customizers. And I knew him all my life. And his his wife actually was going to church. He had nothing to do with God. He was he was a bit of a caricature. Okay. So I'm always sharing with him. I mean over the decades, always share with him. I see them. Something comes along and I'll send you as a brain tumor. There you go. A crisis. I love crisis. That's right. I've led so many people to the Lord during a crisis. I think God for crisis. We think bad news and bad news is not. God uses these kind of things as a wake-up call to us. That's right. And George bears is in heaven today. He wasn't his whole life. He was he was pushing at the late 80s. And because of his tumor, then he wanted to talk. That's right. He wasn't ready. I couldn't push him. I could not push him. I loved on him. I prayed for him. I shared with him. He wasn't ready. Wow. And at the end of his life, I had a brain tumor. And the last thing he said, his son, his grandson and his mom, they reported the last thing they did. They walked into the nurse and she says, do you know your name? Yeah, George bears. Do you know your age? He gave us age. Then she says, what are you most thankful for? The nurse asked him, what are you most thankful for? He said that Jesus is here saving me. Wow. The last thing he said to us, family, after decades of praying for George. That's right. But I you can't push. You push them. Move away. That's right. And now there's sometimes, there's sometimes when somebody, you got to just give you, you need to be aggressive. That's someone usual. It isn't usual. I mean, only maybe three or four times that's ever happened to me, but each time, boom, they're just waiting to pray. They're already. But most of the time, it's just you just let them take over the agenda. So you're not, you don't offend anything. And I never argue with anybody. I know Paul and Jackson's wonderful. I don't do that. Yes, right. I don't argue with them. I've never had one conversation about Paul and Jackson 50 years of share by faith. The way he said, well, was creation a thousand years? No, no, they stick into this. What they wouldn't know is, does God really love them? You tell somebody God loves them. Most of the time, they can't receive it. That's right. They think of all the stuff they've done and all the stuff that's had to be that they think God's beating up on them. God must hate me. And when you tell God, loves you, no, he does love you. No, I can love you. No, actually, he loves all the say, you know, he loves you as much as he's ever loved anybody. And they're just speechless. They're not arguing with you. They just can't hardly believe it. It's not hard to share the love of God. You just love to share the love of God. It's awesome. What you're saying, uh, where in my family, my, my mom, my dad and my sister, they, they saw the transformation of my life when I became a Christian. They watched it. Years went by and then decades went by. I had shared with them the gospel. Then time comes for us to be doing a home Bible study that turns into a decent-sized church. They watched all this and I would share with them until there was a point where I remember the Lord saying or impressing on my heart, you don't need to share it with them anymore. They know the way. Yeah. And that was like, you know, that's quite of a shock. All the Holy Spirit. Exactly. The Holy Spirit. So what I could not do in evangelism, but I did plant the seed by God's grace. All three of them wound up coming to Christ eventually because of cancers. It was them not being able to defeat cancer that proved to them they were weak, proved to them that they were mortals and then proved to them that they were in trouble. And that's when they came and picked up the phone and said, can you tell me about Jesus again? And my mom, my dad and my sister, three people who are in heaven today because of suffering, the crisis. I'm a, you've heard me preach and speak before about how I'm a real, one of the reasons why I'm a real big fan of AWS Tozer as an author is because he speaks often about people needing a crisis of faith because it's the crisis that drives this luxury of belief or not, urgently down into your heart to faith where, hey, right now if everything's fine and cool with you and you've got the money and you got the health and the youth, you don't really care about trusting Christ for eternity because you think you've got the world by the tail. I had a US Army general tell me, notice that we send young men into battle first because they don't think they're going to get shot. It's the old guy who's way in the back. He knows how fragile life is. But if you're young and you're just like, I got it, I got it. I don't need to hear this. I understand that. We all live that way. But eventually, mortality is going to catch up with you. And when Barry talks about somebody hearing about God and they feel like they're getting beat up, I do believe, even if no one has beaten up on them, I do believe that there's that flinch that people feel because Jesus says that the Spirit of God would be convicting people of sin. And that's an important thing because people know that they're not perfect. Even the ones who tell you and I, I don't need you guys. I don't need the message you're preaching. I'm good. They don't know that we know that they're lying about themselves. We can see right through that. But listen, when suffering hits, then then you start grabbing for things that are hopefully firm and nothing's firm except him. And fear. I love fear. When you find out the abyss of Americans are living in fear. It's a great motivator. It's a great motivator. How do I escape fear? And we have the answer. Because when you're living with God, of course, we know God's in control. And then all of his promises, it's just we live in peace. You and I live in peace. Nothing can help into us because it lets God allow us it. That's right. Because we're living for him. So to get an even for Christians, when you share your faith, when you share your faith, it opens the door to like Romans 8, 20, he says, when you live for my purposes, purposes of seeking save the lost, when you live your life to seek and save the loss, he says, that's when you live in my favor. And I will make everything your life worked together for good. So you start getting into that zone. So if you're a Christian today and you're not shared your faith, you're probably on your way to heaven. But you may not be enjoying yourself very much. You may not be having joy. And you may not be having the fun of having God speak through you and having this personal issue. I got to tell you and it'll ignite your life. That's the way this book that we're talking about. It's 50 years. We've been sharing. I've been sharing our faith for 50 years on a daily basis. And we have more stories in there and there. But it's mostly scripture. The most important part of that book is you know, is the scriptures that lay it down in very clearly how God will speak through us and use us and bless us and you get the whole package. But it will ignite your life. So if you're going through life and you're a Christian, but you don't feel a role ignited right now and you're wondering where God is and you're praying as much as you're as you're worrying. This is a way to escape all that effortlessly. The bottom line is to feet fear effortlessly because when you step into this zone, it just it changes everything in your life. And it's it's a pretty good way to live. And Karen, I've been married for 60 years or we're we're having the time of our lives. Well, I love what you're saying because if you think about it, if we could snap our fingers and we're walking with Paul the Apostle right now somewhere. We're in Macedonia or we are somewhere in Syria. If we were walking with Paul right now, guess what would would be on our mind because we're walking with Paul? Well, we're going to be watching Paul because he's going to be sharing Christ with people along the way. Then that rubs off on you because you learn that by example. And one of the things that you can do in this world, you may not be able to have Barry McGuire sit down and coach you through this, but you can get his book. And more than this also in getting the book, which by the way, where can I get the book? Oh, Amazon.com. Amazon.com. But also you can tune in. I know you can tune in to Barry McGuire's programs at the real life network, which is free for you to download. It's free. All of it's free. Free for the broadcaster. Free for the subscriber. Real life network of app on your device. But Barry, you also have an ongoing program podcast. What is it? You can you can be viewed by going to your network. On the podcast, yeah. Yes. I do it myself. I do it with people that are that are incredible shares of their faith. It's not stories about how I got to say but how people are having so much fun sharing their faith. It's incredible. And it is it is contagious. And we're just starting a new site now. In that year world, every time you share your faith, you put it on there. And we're about to have a long list where you just and when you're when you're trying to find something to occupy your time on your phone, you go here and you see one amazing, exciting story after another of people talking about how they've been sharing their faith and that's what gets us to their God stories. That's their stories that you're you're recording and archiving what they're doing. They're doing they just recorded themselves. Like a public journal. Yes. Exactly. So that's just turning. We just launched that. That's going to be great fun. That's awesome. Well, you guys, it's always a joy to be around Barry McGuire and he's like this on and off the camera. I promise you this. And it's just absolutely precious. What God is doing. And so listen, like always, it's time for you to live out what it is that you believe in. It's time for real life. When we live our lives for real for Christ, then he gets the glory. You get the thrill because you'll see the spirit of God show up. You'll see gifts that the Holy Spirit will bring up and out of you that you didn't even think that you had. Step out. Watch what God does. And so until next time God bless you. Be bold. Step out. Let the Holy Spirit ignite your life. Get a copy of Barry's book. Read it. And then go out and do it because this book is full of scripture and full of great examples. So God bless you. Thank you, Barry. Thank you. 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.