Get Ready To Rumble

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
Listen, christian, this is what God wants you to do when you come to the Lord in prayer and you're seeking His face for something guidance direction. Is it for school? Is it for that guy or for that girl? Is it for what? Go after the Lord and listen. You will wrestle with him in prayer, but don't let him go.

00:29 - Speaker 1
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.

00:58 - Speaker 2
According to the plan of God, romans 8 28,. Mark it down, put your names next to it. This is that famous verse. God has a purpose. The question begs purpose for whom? The answer is to those who love God, and I know I've told you before I share with you the same deficit.

01:16
I love God, and the moment I say that, I'm sick to my stomach as to how little I love God Because he's so amazing. I should love him even more, but I struggle with the fact I don't. I want to. He's worthy, but I find within myself a profound weakness to get as close to God as I want to, because I'm dragging this carcass of my body in this life that gets in the way of my relationship with God. But that's why there's the great promise that someday you and I will be set free from our bodies. That's going to be a great day, and so when that word tells us that we know it is a knowledge of the issues, it means that God knows about the issues of the past in your life. There's no, but there's no. Yeah, but no, none of that. He knows about the issues of your life. Watch's no, but there's no. Yeah, but Nope, none of that. He knows about the issues of your life. Watch this. He knows about the issues of your life now and he knows about the issues of your life in the future, though you and I do not know them yet, he already knows. You can trust him, he knows. And, by the way, mark this down by the way, mark this down by the way this knowledge that God knows all about us and thus we know about God. We can take a great rest in knowing this, that this knowledge is not a cerebral knowledge, it's not analytical, it's not limited by that, it's not theoretical, it's not a dream oh, you Christians and your no. No, it's not theoretical knowledge. It's not philosophical knowledge either, it's not one of those possibilities, it's not a knowledge that is just to be studied. You can get this doctorate degree in this knowledge. We're not interested in that. In all truth, we are interested in the knowledge of God to where it's experiential.

03:15
This book, the Bible, lays the foundation for you and I now to live with our feet, as it were, on this word and live an experiential faith as a Christian that makes a difference in this world around us. We don't talk about Christianity, we are to do it, and there's a big difference in all of that. Thus he says in verse 28, all things work together for good. Everything that is arriving in our lives is ordained by God. We are about to find out. In our lives is ordained by God, we are about to find out. Very important. The Bible tells us it is to those who love God we're talking about this now those who are called according to his purpose. I love this. God's got a purpose for your life.

03:59
So we live in a bizarre time. Right now, we have a world that is rejecting God wholesale, and it's bringing itself to an interesting conundrum, to an interesting point of difficulty, which is this the evolutionary theory has almost all but dried up. Nobody runs around today pronouncing that they're an evolutionist, because then, if they do, you got to ask them why do you think that? Tell me why you believe that, and then they've got to struggle to try to prove why they believe it. The more they talk about it, the more foolish they look. No, seriously, scientists are embracing now, at the very least, intelligent design, but they're saying now that's not even enough.

04:40
There's evidence of a personal designer. You know that right now, all of us know that there's evidence of a personal designer. But if you press it, you've got to come to the conclusion that there's things in this world and in this existence of yours and mine that is not only personal but it is deeply, deeply internal, that there's a whole new world, as it were, inside of us. That is spirit and that is soul. And it's been the long desire of man to find himself. Who am I? And so man goes on his pursuits. Well, I want you to know and be reminded that, according to the Bible, god created you with his purpose in mind. Every one of us who are believers in Christ Jesus are to know the purpose as to why we are living.

05:35
If you say, well, I don't know yet, well then you know what? Then do the Jacob thing. Remember Jacob? Jacob in the Old Testament, jacob, the Bible tells us, was I'll just say it this way he was minding his own business, it was at night, he might've even been sleeping, if I remember right, and the Bible tells us the angel of the Lord came to him. Now, the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is a statement of a theophanies. If you don't know what a theophanies is, a theophanies is a Christophanies, which is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, when Christ appears prior to being born in Bethlehem, it's throughout the Old Testament. And the Bible says he shows up and this is kind of cute.

06:15
The angel of the Lord, the Lord, picks a fight with Jacob. I don't know how he did it. Did he kick him in the nose? Did he poke his ear? Did he take a feather and rub it underneath Jacob's nose? We don't know.

06:25
But the Bible says that Jacob got up and they started wrestling. You say, oh, that's ridiculous. Oh yeah, have you ever wrestled with God? Are you wrestling with God now? And they're wrestling and the Lord could have killed them. The Lord could have done anything he wanted, but the Lord had a plan, the Lord had a purpose. And the Bible says that they wrestled all night man. What is this Jacob made of? And the Bible says that they wrestled all night man. What is this Jacob made of?

06:53
And the Bible says, seeing that the angel of the Lord could not prevail against Jacob, that the angel of the Lord struck his hip and his hip went out of joint and he limped all the days of his life from that moment on, but he still wouldn't let go. And then the angel of the Lord says I've got to leave. The day is coming, I've got to go. And Jacob said and this is what I want you to have. Jacob said I will not let you go until you bless me. I will not let you go until you favor my life. Okay, listen, are you hearing me?

07:28
Everybody, this is the angel of God, the Lord himself allowing himself. First of all, the Lord picks the fight. The Lord comes in, picks the fight. Jacob's fighting with the Lord and here's what happens the Lord allows himself to be in this entanglement with Jacob because God's got a plan with Jacob or for Jacob, and then for Jacob to say I'm not letting you go, so wait a minute. Who started this fight? Well, the Lord did, but who's in control here? Well, the Lord is in control, but he allows Jacob to take the upper hand.

08:00
Listen, christian, this is what God wants you to do. When you come to the Lord in prayer, you're seeking his face for something, guidance, direction. Is it for school, is it for that guy or for that girl? Is it for what? Go after the Lord and listen. You will wrestle with him in prayer, but don't let him go. He allows himself to be caught, he allows himself to be in this dialogue and he allows himself to have you. And I say to him Lord, I will not let you go. I think God loves that when we say I'm hanging on to you, jesus, and I'm not going to let go. I think God loves that. And God blessed Jacob. And you need to remember that God's got a purpose in your life and if you don't know what it is, then it's time to go wrestle with God and get an answer. Don't let go of him. Don't answer out loud. Are you a born again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you say yes, then it's incumbent for me to ask what is the purpose of your life? And if you cannot answer, it's time for you to go wrestle and God will give you the answer.

09:09
The Bible says in Galatians, chapter 1, verse 15, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb? This is Paul speaking and called me through his grace. Why? How come? To reveal his son in me. That's a tremendous statement. Look at that verse, look at all the pre-existing mechanisms that have to be there. But when it pleased God, that is, in some point in history past who separated me from my mother's womb? Paul's now an old man saying this. God had a plan back then, and not only that, it was God's call that he placed upon me, through his grace, to do what Paul To reveal his son in me. God wants the world to know that through my life, jesus is Lord and Savior. That's true for every single one of us.

10:00
If you're a computer engineer or a contractor, a stay-at-home dad or mom or a rocket scientist, it doesn't matter, do you understand? God's got a purpose for your life and we need to get hungry and passionate to pursue him. As to what that is, last service, we had two awesome, beautiful men of God in their 80s. Us Marines fought in Vietnam and they came to service. I got to meet them and it just led me to think about how God has a deployment for the believer. God's got a mission for the believer. You learn, you read, you pray, you talk out to God. He talks back into you and you say Lord, here I am, send me, and God will commission you. He'll deploy you Right and by the state of our nation. God needs a lot of you to be deployed into this country. This whole nation has become a mission field now.

11:02
But I have to tell you there's a verse that somebody gave me. I was a brand new Christian and they gave me this verse because they had heard my story that I had been a survivor of an abortion in 1957. And they heard me say that. And they came and they said listen, you need to look at this verse, and I remember marking it in my Bible and keeping it forever to this moment and it has served me well for these years. And it's Jeremiah, chapter one, verses four and five.

11:30
Now I'm gonna ask you right now to wrestle with God, as it were, and grab this verse and tear it off the video screen and make it your own right. Do this. Then the word of the Lord came to me. Jeremiah is saying behold, this is God speaking. Behold, or before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you, I ordained you a prophet to the nations. That verse is for every single human being, not just Jeremiah. Are you hearing me? You say I don't know how God would. Don't talk to him like that. Don't define how he's going to do it. Just say, lord, this verse is in the Bible. If you want to live that verse out in my life, here we go. Can you do that. Can you just be there and say, lord, I'm asking you to do whatever that means in my life and God will go to work in your life. A purpose called according to his purpose. God's got purposes, he's got an absolute plan. That is charted In Ephesians, chapter two, verse 10,.

12:41
The Bible tells us that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Listen, the good works come out of a life that is now under the control of Christ. Okay, very, very important, these things that are for the purposes of God, bring God honor, advance the gospel and bring reality and meaning to your life. And then that word good, all of these things to be worked out for the good. The word in Greek for good is generous. The ending, listen everybody, the ending is to be generous.

13:22
If you're a christian, you and I are going through troubles. We're going to go through more troubles, don't worry, don't, don't be afraid of that. In fact, as a christian, the more you learn about how god brings you and I through troubles, the more you look for God-ordained trouble. It's a good thing. Difficulties draw us close to God and it's in that moment we see the power of God.

13:47
I've noticed that people who criticize Christianity and claim to be Christians and they think it's boring, are people who've never gotten off the couch. They've never made off the couch, they've never made themselves available to him. But he's got a generous plan and it's good. It's generous kindly. The word means only that which is a good thing. Even in your marriage that might be breaking up. Or that note from that physician, or maybe that grade you thought you were going to get into Stanford. Thank God you didn't. You wound up not getting in, by the grace of God, to protect your life. Only thing worse than that would have been Harvard.

14:30
But the exact same reality of God's purposes. You and I love to read about them and know about them. So what do you mean? How about this God's purposes? You think God had a purpose for Noah. You would never doubt that. But did you know that Noah is no different than you? And I See, do you believe that the Bible says that all of us, that there's no one greater than the other, that we are all just like Elijah? We have the same passions that the great prophet Elijah had? The Bible says that God doesn't esteem one man higher than the other. That means we all come to the foot of the cross level. I love that, by the way. That's the message that needs to be shouted across this nation right now, to shut up this talk about racism and division. No, come to the foot of the cross. There's no color at the foot of the cross. If there is, it's red. It's the blood of Christ, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We all come. There's nobody better than the other, lesser than the other, lesser than the other. And so think about Noah.

15:44
I wrote down Job. Job, by the way. You know all of us that sometimes will have Job moments in our life. That's why God put the book of Job in the Bible. Joseph, what about David? And what about Peter? I thought about Luther, the great reformer, luther. George Whitefield, one of my heroes. Love George Whitefield. Read everything I can about George Whitefield. Charles Spurgeon, a big fan of mine, a guy that I just think the world of. I'd love for you to read about him too, to find out who he really is. Samuel Adams not the beer guy, by the way, that was his dad. Samuel Adams was a malt brewer. Samuel Adams Jr was an incredible lover of God, profound insights into the word of God. He just happened to be not only one of our founding fathers, but the Bible or I should say our nation's history tells us that without Samuel Adams, there never would have been a revolution at all, because he understood that liberty came from God and could not be taken away from man.

16:57
What about Billy Graham? Did God have a purpose for Billy Graham? By the way, did you know that Billy Graham found his purpose not far from here, in the San Bernardino Mountains? Billy Graham took a midnight walk, not knowing what he should do, if he should quit ministry as a young man or not, and God spoke to him just miles in the Southern California mountains. And God told him that you're going to be an evangelist and you have the gift of evangelism and go do it. And he said from that moment on, his life was never the same.

17:30
Wow, I think of Chuck Smith, who wanted to be a medical doctor, and God said you can be a medical doctor, or I can call you to be a doctor of the souls of men. And Chuck Smith said I'll go with the souls of men. What about Dr Ed Heinsohn? What about Charles Stanley? And those are the guys that have passed on. I didn't want Chuck Swindoll or David Jeremiah to think I thought they were dead, but I threw them in the group, all the dead guys. Chuck Swindoll, david Jeremiah, what about us? What about you? God wants to use us. Write this down, if you would.

18:12
1 Corinthians 3, verse 21. This is a cool statement. Don't boast in men, meaning men cannot give you anything. That is going to translate into what God can give you. All things are yours in Christ. That's this, that's what that means, and it's going to say it here in a moment, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, in other words, words we're apostles, but don't listen to us, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come. All are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God's. What a beautiful statement that is. Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse 14. The Bible tells us, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you, for all things are, for your sakes, the purpose of God in your life.

19:11 - Speaker 1
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.