Have You Been Circumcised?

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. So how bad have you been and you think you're going to get to heaven? Because what are you thinking? What are you thinking? Well I think my good outweighs my bad. So okay, then how much do we take so that you're acceptable? 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. And 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. What is happening in your life? The fact that if you have been circumcised of the heart, you have a very sensitive, very lively, very, very touchy feeling so to speak in the spirit realm I'm saying. Relationship with God that it is active and it's constant. And so when the burning comes, the temptation, well look, James goes on, look at verse 12, picks it up. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. James 1-13, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone, God never tempts you with evil. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires, the burning. You entertain it for a minute. Well, you know, I know, and enticed. The thought comes first, the desire begins to be fed, you're enticed. Verse 15 then, when desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full ground, brings forth death. That is so true. And we all know it's true. So what do we do, pastor? We do this, write this down, this could save your life. James 4, verse 7, therefore submit to God, resist the devil, those two things. Resist to God, number 2, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, notice that to command. He has to go. When you submit to God and resist the devil, he has to go, isn't that cool? He has to go. Verse 8, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Clean your hands, use sinners and purify your hearts, you double-minded. It's awesome. First John chapter 2, you guys okay? First John chapter 2, verse 15, first John 2, 15 says, do not love the world or the things in the world. It's getting really much, it's getting a lot easier not to love the things in this world, isn't it? Right? I mean, it's getting really easy not to love this world. So do not love the world or the things that are of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. If all that is in the world, listen to this, three things. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the father but is of this world. Very quickly on this, verse 16, first John 2, 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the flesh are bodily comforts and passions. It's not wrong to have a good life, it's wrong to live your life for the good life. Did you hear that? Are you blessed? Then thank God for it. But you shouldn't devote yourself as a covenant relationship with God for things. If God has given you things, thank him for the things. But if you live your life to acquire things, love not the world because that's what you're doing. The verse goes on, first John, and all that is of the world, the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes is the imagination, the gaze. When someone just is locked on and their imagination goes filthy, well for that you might need a butcher knife to get that done. That's a little deeper. And then look at the third thing, the pride of life, pride, that's the arrogance of man's hearts for that you need a chainsaw or something. Because listen if you're going to trust getting into heaven on your works, then how much do you cut off to be acceptable? When is enough enough? The Bible says in verse 26 of Romans, therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law. Will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? Does not this person who has no access to the law but is responding to the moral law written in his heart that he begins to wake up to the realization of God and says, I want God. I'm something's happening in my life. Ladies and gentlemen, you have often heard me say because it happened to me and I believe it needs to happen to people and that is you need to have a faith crisis. You need your life. You need to be able to say, I remember when I had my faith crisis with God. And right now, and I pray for him, right now there's a man going through a faith crisis for the entire world to watch. Jordan Peterson is one of the most brilliant minds on earth today, Toronto, Canada, brilliant. He can't listen. His classes are so popular they can't get enough people into his, he's just over the top. Jordan Peterson, philosopher, thinker, atheist, something's happening and he's in the midst of a faith crisis. Take a look what's going on right now. Okay, so you can think about Christ from a psychological perspective and the critic, my critic, this particular critic that I've been reading, said, well, that doesn't differentiate Christ much from a whole sequence of dying and resurrecting mythological gods and of course, people have made that claim in comparative religion. Joseph Campbell did that and Jung to a lesser degree, I would say, but Campbell did that. But the difference, and CS Lewis pointed this out as well, the difference between those mythological gods and Christ was that there's a historical representation of his existence as well. Now you can debate whether or not that's genuine. You can debate about whether or not he actually lived and whether there's credible objective evidence for that. But it doesn't matter in some sense because of this, well, it does, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter because there's still a historical story and so what you have in the figure of Christ is like an actual person who actually lived plus a myth and in some sense Christ is the union of those two things. The problem is, is I probably believe that but I don't know, I'm amazed at my own beliefs and I don't understand it because I've seen, it's happening to him. Sometimes the objective world, and the narrative world, touch, you know, that's the union's synchronicity and I've seen that many times in my own life and so in some sense I believe it's undeniable, you know, we have a narrative sense of the world. For me that's been the world of morality, that's the world that tells us how to act. It's real, like we treat it like it's real, it's not the objective world, but the narrative and the objective world touch and the ultimate example of that in principle is supposed to be Christ, but I don't know what to, that seems to me oddly plausible, but I still don't know what to make of it, it's too, at part because it's too terrifying a reality to fully believe, I don't even know what would happen to you if you fully believed it. If you believed in the story of Christ or if you believed that history and, and let's say the narrative, make meatless, I think, I think you, because when you believe that you buy both those stories you believe that the narrative and the objective can actually touch. You hear that? That's Romans 2, that's what we're talking about. He's one of the greatest thinkers in the world today, having a faith crisis. He can't reconcile the part of the sin and the message of Christ, but the world has got evil in all of these things. If you've ever listened to his podcast, you've ever watched him. Five years ago, you never would have gotten that out of him, it's amazing, it's awesome. Genesis 15, verse 6 says, an Abram believed in the Lord and he that is the Lord accounted that is thought it, it means the Lord thought it, the Lord did it, the Lord made it so that Abraham became righteous, God did that, God's working on Jordan Peterson's life. And I love that, Genesis 22, 18, for in your seed that's Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. This was before Abraham was ever circumcised. This was before Abraham ever went legal or legalistic. He was a pagan worshiping, idol worshiping Gentile that got awakened out of his coma. And you watched it on the screen right now, that's a faith crisis. Have you had that? You need to ask yourself down deep inside, have you had this happen? Have you had this struggle with God and lost? It's got to happen. And to assume that it happened, may God stir your heart so much that you will not rest day or night until you find out about this crisis where all faith and belief and everything else is settled in its place, Christ reigns supreme. He's not number one on the list of 10, he's number one on the list of one. Galatians 5, verse 1, Galatians 5, 1 says, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again in a yoke of bondage. Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. He's speaking to Gentiles because they were being told, believe in Jesus, but you've got to be circumcised and Paul says, no, you don't. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace for you through the spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Listen to this, for Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Next on this, we're almost done, bear with me, verse 27, we learned this that let God, let God cut away the stronghold or the strongholds of your life, let God do that, verse 27, and will not the physically uncircumcised if he fulfills the law judge you, the Jew. You say the Jews says, I know God, I've got the Bible, I've been circumcised, we've got the temple, we've got, we were the custodians of God's word, and you don't live a righteous, holy, blessed life that honors God. And then some Gentile like Jordan Peterson shows up. Are you going to tell me that that video did not bless the heart of the eternal God? Let God cut away the strongholds of your life. You can't do it. And we'll end on this point, verse 27, let him cut away the chains of your life. You who, even with your written code and circumcision, he's speaking to the Jew, the legalist, are a transgressor of the law. Laws, written codes, rules, commands, regulations, the beautiful, precious, holy, ten commandments. If you intend to get to heaven on keeping any of the rules, you have to know something. You break one of them and you're done. You see, I've kept eight of the ten, you're it. You are done. You are done. Psalm 103, verse 11, this is the Psalmist. This is a Jew writing to the Jews, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us? I ask you how? If you're rejecting the cross and if you're rejecting what happened 2,000 years ago on the temple mount and just north there at Golgotha, then you tell me how God does that. You stick to your theology and your legalism, you've got to tell me how does God take my sin, your sin, and separate it from you as far as the east is from the west. And what basis? You've got to have atonement for sin on what basis? Listen to this, Isaiah 53-1, who has believed our message into whom, as the Lord revealed his power by his arm, my servant grew up in the Lord's presence, tender, like a tender green root, like a root or shoot out of the ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, listen everyone, acquainted with grief and our deepest grief, we turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care, yet it was our weaknesses he carried. It was our sorrows that weighed him down and we, through his troubles, were his punishment from God, a punishment for his own or for his own sins. It was not, verse 5, this is the new living translation, which is why I don't use it very often. But he was pierced here to his punchline, he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten as we could be whole so that we might be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed, all of us like sheep have strayed away. We have left God's path to follow our own, yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Think of it. So I leave you with this problem, just so that you won't forget, okay. If you're going to deny going to the cross and believe in that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and trust in Him fully and to recognize that there's no self-justification anymore. If you're going to reject that and you say today, I'm just going to be a good person. Then you're really talking about being accepted before God on some form of merit performance. And the Bible calls this trusting in the act of circumcision. So I have a scalpel here, it's got the blade is covered, I have a scalpel. How big of a sinner are you? So you'd say, I'm not so bad, I'm better than the people around me, okay. So you know what, how much is enough? How much do we cut off so that you are now acceptable? I want to know the answer. Think about it. If God spoke to you today like he's speaking to Jordan Peterson and would say, how much do I cut so that you think you're acceptable? Well, I've been a pretty good person, God. Then I'll cut a little bit. Now in your delusion, you're lost. But what about us who, now some of you don't like the way this is going. I can understand that, you're a little bit more, you're worse of a sinner. So how bad have you been and you think you're going to get to heaven? Because what are you thinking? What are you thinking? Well I think my good outweighs my bad. So okay, then how much do we take so that you're acceptable? I know this is graphic, but if you're going down that road of denying the cross and leaning upon human performance, where do we stop? Apply the reality. God is taking Jordan Peterson's heart and ripping it out of him and God is completely shaving the dead skin of his heart off and putting it back in his chest. You think it has anything to do about his bodily parts? But if you're going to try to work your way to heaven, how much do we take? Just tell me. And you say, listen, all this stuff's good for you pastor, but I don't need any help. Can you imagine I'm so good you have no idea, listen, listen, then how much do we take? Do you see how silly but graphic this is? It never ends. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supporting. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.