God's Instruction For Living

0:00 Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast, with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. This is my personal observation. I don't care what your religion is, I don't care where you are, what country you're from, what continent you're on. I think a normal person, even if they're in the wrong religion, maybe they haven't heard the true love of God and the gospel of God yet, maybe they're messed up in the wrong religion. If they're normal... They're going to want to live and they're going to want to have life and enjoy life. Human beings ought to want to live and love life. 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.

0:48 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. We learn best, no doubt about it. We learn best by listening, which is also connected to observation. We learn best by listening, which is also connected to observation. and experience, which is the reality that we're going through. That said, I think you'll be accustomed to this. In two specific areas of what is known in Scripture as poetic writings, it doesn't mean it's poem, it doesn't mean it's made up, it's the way it's delivered, is parables and proverbs.

1:34 Remember that. Parables is casting, illuminating truth alongside someone's head so that they might see what you're teaching in an illustration form. Jesus, of course, was the master of it. And then Proverbs is, as I said, teaching by comparison. Little snippet, sentence or two, maybe two verses at the most, illumination. Amazing. So write this down if you would. What is a proverb? Very important. This is what a proverb is. It is a concise to the point way of communicating truth or wisdom by making truth or wisdom mentally tangible.

2:18 That's a cool statement. Or graphically real. Tangibly, mentally tangible. What does that mean? Even though it's a thought in your head, it is so dramatic that you don't forget it. And graphically real. Boy, you and I live in a world that's graphic, is it not? But is it real? There's a lot of graphics. We don't know if it's real. Most of the stuff on your internet, thumbnail, YouTube, whatever, search, fake. Fake. Have you ever, you know what I'm talking about? You see the picture where you go like, let's go deep sea fishing, and then you see this, you see some guy with his rod, and it's a photograph, and the guy's catching like a 5,000 pound sea bass.

3:04 And you say, look at the size of this guy's catch, it's amazing, it's fake my friend, can't you see that? But listen, if you downsize and scale the image back, if it's still photoshopped, so to speak, it's still fake. A proverb will give you and I exactly what we need for this 21st century experience. to expose false from true, to reveal false from true. And so listen, almost interchangeably, Proverbs and the next thing is wisdom. What is wisdom? This is great. Wisdom is the proper use and application of knowledge.

3:45 I'll talk about this in a second, I'll come back to it. Using what you have learned, knowledge, experienced, listen this is important, discipline to make good life decisions. Check this out. It is the proper use and application of knowledge. You could be, you could be the greatest brain surgeon on paper that UCLA has ever produced. You could be the number one, you can get the best grades as a brain surgeon in all of the American medical history of the United States.

4:25 Perfect A's and beyond. I don't care one bit about how smart you are regarding books. I don't care. I want to know if you can work on my brain. Are you hearing me, folks? Have you ever seen people, leave it up on the screen, guys. Have you ever seen people, have you ever heard of this? I've heard of it. I don't want to see anybody like this, but I've heard of it. Have you ever heard of people who are like life counselors, but they've never had children? That was my next statement.

5:06 Or they have never been married, and you got your degree where? USC. Well, USC this right now. If you... If you ain't been married and if you ain't got kids, you're working out of a half deck there, friend. Because you can learn all you want, the experience or the discipline is putting them together. You could, listen, none of us would be happy if the guy gets on. If you're catching British Airways this evening until Heathrow and the captain goes, this is your captain speaking. Glad you guys are all on board. We're gonna be leaving soon. we got the best flight attendants, all that jazz.

5:48 This is a great airplane, super duper. And maybe you'd all like to do it. I'm really excited to be with all of you today because I've never flown this aircraft before. Have a great trip. I want off. I want off. Those of you who have gray hair or no hair, you are so valuable. Lisa and I were just talking about this yesterday. You and I are so valuable because we've got some miles behind us. And we've got young people who bless their hearts all over this campus.

6:32 Young people are getting married, they're meeting young people here on campus, which we don't want this place to be like a meetup place. But it's happening. I'd rather have people meet up here than at Joe's Bar and Grill. And they're having, they're getting, I got to put that in order. They're meeting up here, they're getting married, and they're having babies. We have babies all over the place. This is a baby church. And here's the amazing thing. Seriously, because they didn't have a Christian upbringing, they don't know what to do. And what we need is older people to come along and disciple them like a grandma and a grandpa. Very, very important. Colossians chapter four, verse five says, walk in wisdom toward those who are outside.

7:17 That is the non-believers redeeming the time. That's a beautiful statement. Walk in wisdom toward those who are unbelievers, redeeming the time. There's two commandments. Walk in wisdom toward the unbeliever. Walk in such a way that you're redeeming the time. This is amazing. By the way, the word walk, look at this beautiful meaning. Walk in wisdom. To behave. Or conduct yourself toward life. No, look at that. Toward life. Living. To walk forward to the finish. To live in a way that occupies the day. Implying day by day. Every day until the end of life. Wow. One word with that incredible meaning in the Greek language.

7:58 Walk in wisdom. Beautiful and powerful. Jesus said seven times in the book of Revelation. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says. We have to listen. Wisdom is teaching by discipline, not by punishment. But the time we have remaining, and I want to make sure I get through this. Church, listen, this is going to be heavy. Again, all because of introduction. Next week we'll get into the verses of it all. Listen to this. I was reading some old stuff.

8:40 I say old stuff, so much has changed. It was about 1954. I want you to see this, and I'll read it to you on the screens. In our nation today, as a culture, we have forsaken wisdom, teaching through discipline, and have instead defaulted to punishment through ignorance. One of the tragic results of that is the complete and total failure of what a family is and how it works. Which has led to the unraveling of our society. Because we have adopted the wisdom of the world, we have forsaken God's instructions.

9:25 For example, why do we have overcrowding in our prisons today? The answer is that we have adopted punishment over discipline. If a father instructed his child by discipline, according to the scriptures, listen to me. Some of you are already starting, the hair on your arms or whatever, you're starting like, mm, father's discipline, mm. Whoa, whoa, whoa, just because you and I had rough experiences doesn't negate the authority of God's word, the Bible. Don't let our life's situation interpret the Bible.

10:08 God says this. I mean, I think he agrees with this. According to the scriptures, that child would grow up understanding his or her proper place in the world and how to flourish in the world, no matter the condition that the world may be in. We need that today. When that fails to happen, we substitute discipline with punishment. In doing so, we have failed to properly discipline, instruct, and educate our children in how to be a God-honoring witness with their lives. That is tragically insightful because, listen, according to the Bible, and I'll read some of these passages.

10:51 There'll be more in the future. We are instructed as fathers and as parents to discipline our children. The Bible says so. you're feeling the pushback to that because this culture has swallowed you up. The Bible says a child left to themselves will grow up to be a reproach to their parents. The Bible says that when we discipline our children, we drive evil far from them. Did you know that? The reason why we have an adverse reaction to this encouragement to be scriptural and biblical lovers of our children, most often in the areas of discipline, is because that's the way God has intended it, but it's to always be done God-like by believers who love their children, who don't respond in the flesh and in a carnal way where they beat their kids.

11:57 God never said, beat your kids. But see, you and I live in a culture of abuse. Why? Because we've been brought up in a culture where we've been taught wrong and we've not been told the Bible. But when parents ignorantly, I say, cutting them slack, punish their children, I want you to know right now, nowhere in the Bible is a parent authorized to punish their child. Did you know that? Did you know that God punishes the ungodly? That's his preview.

12:38 Did you know that God disciplines his children? Boy, is there a big difference. Here's how God does it. Jack? Yes, Lord? You know, you saw what you just thought in your head a moment ago, didn't you? Yeah, but you know, we're all human. Yeah, well, that's why I came and died. And that gets in the way of you and I in our fellowship together. And to be quite honest with you, Jack, I can't stand to be separated from you. I want to be with you in every moment of your life because I love you. And so I'm warning you, don't let that happen again.

13:20 Arrest that thought, rebuke the temptation, take it to the cross, and move on in power. Yes, Lord. Why would he tell me that? By the way, I just paraphrased several scriptures. Why would he do that? Because he loves me. But listen, if you're growing up and you're a kid and you don't exactly appreciate nor know what's right or wrong yet... and you cross that line, you do something wrong, and the next thing you know, you've got a pair of knuckles slapping you across the room. That's called punishment, and it creates, listen, it creates chaos.

14:02 Chaos in the home, chaos in the child's life, fear, and an ungodly way of fear. There should be a reverential awe that children have for their parents. And by the way, they're kind of born with it in a way. They think mom and dad are the greatest thing on the planet. That's why even a parent who abuses their child. Did you know that child when they're young will defend the parent? Wow. Wow. When we love our kids, we will discipline them in a godly way. Solomon is going to be teaching us this, instructing them. Now, a great thing is God tells you what's wrong.

14:44 Now let's say it's God, now it's time for God to discipline. God says, I told you five times not to do that. You've kept doing it. So here's what we're going to do. In the following days, I'm going to put you in the penalty box. Don't whine about it when it happens, Jack, because... You won't listen, so I'm going to deal with you this way to get you to pay attention next time. And then we go like this. No, God, please, I'll never do it again. He knows better. You will do it again. Man, I'm trying to get this done. Remember when Jesus said, I've got 99 sheep.

15:24 They're all fine. There's one missing. You little obedient sheep, you stay right here. I got to go after that one. And Jesus goes after that one. And when he gets that one, he brings it back. Jesus did not tell you what many of the shepherds did in those days. If that little lamb ran away, they would bring it back. If he ran away again, he would bring it back. If he brought, if he ran away a third time, have you ever heard the word third time is the charm? Charm. The third time, the shepherd would go after the little lamb. You know, listen, God will go after you. You know what? If you belong to God, here's what he'll do.

16:05 He'll go get you. But on the way back home to the flock, to the fold, he's going to pause. And you're going to be, oh, good. We can take a break. Yeah, we are going to take a break. But you are the one that's going to be broken. And the shepherd stretches out the back leg of that little lamb over two rocks. with space in the middle, he takes his rod, not the staff, the staff for rescuing the little lamb, the rod is for disciplining the lamb. And the discipline is this, I love you little lamb, you little, you little lamb chop you.

16:52 And he breaks that bone of that back leg. Lambs, terrified, of course, hurting. He puts now, because he can't walk, he puts now the lamb on the back of his shoulders and he walks all the way back home. And for weeks, he'll carry that lamb on his shoulders. A sheep who grows up on the back of its shepherd's shoulders because of a broken leg has a proximity of nearness that the other sheep do not have. He knows the shepherd's heartbeat, the shepherd's sweat, scent, sound. Everything about the shepherd becomes intimate to the lamb that had the broken leg.

17:32 That's a lesson for all of us. Proverbs 3, 12. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father, the son in whom he delights. Think of that. By the way, I think that's the verse behind this. Son, I'm gonna have to discipline you now because of your disobedience. And I gotta tell you, buddy, it's gonna hurt me much more than it's gonna hurt you. When you're a kid, you think your parent is lying until you become a parent. As a parent, wouldn't you rather be the one disciplined if your kid would get it? Think about it. If the option was this, if the dad would wind up being injured for the child's disobedience, the dad would do it if he knew the child would learn from it.

18:16 Are you hearing me? Anybody who doesn't have kids yet, listen up. What I just said is a painful reality of what it means to grow up. Your love for your kid is so much so that you would take anything and that's part of us having a hard time of letting go. We want to bubble wrap our kids and we think we're doing them a justice. We're doing them an injustice. We got to prepare them now. I don't care if your kid was hatched yesterday. We got to prepare them now to grow up. The day that baby's born, you are rearing that child to be let go.

18:57 Wow. The parents delight in the child. They want them to prosper and to live and to go out and walk with God. Next verse, Ephesians 6, 4. And you, fathers, do not provoke your child to wrath. Don't taunt them. Don't pick on them. Call them dummy. Loser, of course you can't. Your sister can throw it farther than you can. But bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Wow, don't provoke them. Encourage them.

19:38 Dad, mom, you guys have almost divine voices to the ears of a child. Hebrews 12, verse 7. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? Proverbs 19, 18. Chasten your son while there is hope. And do not set your heart on his destruction. Remarkable. Powerful. I'll leave you with this.

20:21 God's instruction to us from his Bible is that we might live. Isn't it amazing today that God's word to us is that he wants us to be wise. 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.