In Hot Pursuit

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Jesus walks before us and God says, walk where he walked. Didn't Jesus say, come and follow me. Put your foot in his footprints is the command of God and every true believer longs to live that way thus we are in hot pursuit of Jesus Christ. 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. He says, therefore, let us not judge one another anymore. The word in Greek means stop it, but rather resolve and we'll see what this means in a moment. Not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother's way. And I'm not going to include this in our point because it's too important. It is the presiding, overriding factor in our study all the way to the closing of the book of Romans itself. Mark this down three key words in our note taking. Resolve. He says, resolve this. No more judging each other. Stop it because we're prone to do that. He says, stop it. Just stop it now. When the thought comes up in your mind that you're judging your brother or sister, rebuke that thought, hand it over to Christ, resist that. And do this with the same tenacity, resolve. It means all the more to go beyond, to be extravagant with this. I love this. Listen, in the Bible, we have what is known as the parable or the illustration of the prodigal son, right? We all know this one, the prodigal son. And did you know, listen, it's pretty cool. We call it the section of scripture regarding the prodigal son. Even some Bibles will note it in the in the footnotes. This is about the prodigal son. Did you know that's actually an error? That's not in the Bible. People put that in there. Are you saying that the prodigal son is not in the Bible? No, no. The prodigal son, as you and I know it, is in the Bible. Jesus spoke it himself, but it's not about the prodigal son. I hope some of you remember this from yesterday. It's all about the prodigal. Thank you. You're exactly right. She's got the answer, you guys. Come on. It's not about the prodigal son. You say, no, no, it's about the son who left his dad, took his inheritance early and went and lived like a maniac on all kinds of things and then ruined his life and then crawled back home. It's about the prodigal son because he went out and he lived extravagantly. That's what happened. No, it's about the extravagance of the father's love for his prodigal son. That's what it's about. The star of that illustration that Jesus gives is not the son. It's not even the older son. Remember the older son? He stayed home. He was a good boy. It's not about either one of the boys. The boys are illustrations of how great the father's love is. He's the extravagant loving father. And so is our father above. That's what Jesus was communicating. And when we talk about being resolved, it's an extravagant decision. I, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ today, resolve to do this. Our founding fathers, you can read those documents where Patrick Henry, for example, very famously says, resolved. We will do this. Resolve. We will do the other. It's a declaration and one powerful word. And then the word is stumbling. We make this resolute. And that is this. We will not stumble, our brother and sister, any longer, because we are Christians. We care more about what Christ cares about than what we care about. We are followers and we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I know what I just said a moment ago, flies in the face of the modern day. Please serve me. Please make me happy. Please give me a sermon that makes me feel warm and fuzzy and do all the worship songs that I like, kind of church, kind of churchy entity in America. Why should I go to church? I'm surprised. Maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm missing it. Churches have gotten so carnal and so devoted to pleasing carnality that they, the whole church experience, they boast that it's come, come to our church. You'll be in and out in under 60 minutes. Now somebody might say, oh, that sounds good to me. I'm going to be honest. It sounds good to you because you don't care about the things of God, honestly. So what's going to fruit? No, no, I'm just getting started. No, are you going to say, can you imagine if God said that to you? Can you imagine if you said, God, I need you to protect me and watch over me through this battle of cancer? And God says, I will watch over you and I will protect you through this battle of cancer for 60 minutes. No, the word stumbling is, I mean, this is what we do not do. If we're doing it, we must stop now church and that is, don't set up or create a trip hazard to make an occasion of stumbling, to put an obstacle on a path. The Bible says, don't do this, but how many times do you and I spend on Instagram or YouTube laughing or heads off at people who trip and fall over stuff? Have you noticed that? Let's be honest. I'm going to come on. We are so evil that we will laugh when a 70-year-old man, wait, no, a 90-year-old man, when a 90-year-old man gets on a unicycle, not a good combo, or some 80-year-old decides to ride his grandkids skateboard. And then the next thing you know, he's flying in the air. Everybody, why don't we laugh at that? Have you noticed the calamity? Somebody falls down and we go, oh my gosh, that was so funny. There's some funny to it. This is not funny because it has nothing to do with falling down and getting a bruise or a broken bone. It's far worse than that. It's doing something in your life and in my life that me as a believer, I think I'm so mature that I'm going to die on this hill. And it might be that eating a bag of potato chips is very offensive to some people. And they can't handle that, but you can. But you know that they can't handle that. So what you do is you go get a bag of potato chips and you eat it in front of them just to exercise your Christian liberty. And you might think it's funny and cool and kind of laugh a little bit because look at that, we should put it on YouTube. Look how offended it is for me eating potato chips, not funny, because it's not about bruising or breaking bones. It's about offending a soul, it's about offending the spirit. It's about the heart and the mind of the individuals that you and I love in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the next word, check this out and then we'll move on. The word fall. It means to bait a trap. To us the word fall means something else. In the Greek language, notice the word. I'm not even going to say it. Do you guys recognize the Greek word? What does it remind you of? Say it. Scandal. Do not create a scandal in your brother's heart or mind. And this goes to all kinds of ways. Listen, can I be direct? In this day and age with sexual, our culture, our nature being sexually charged, everything sexual. You can't even see a hamburger commercial with some girl half naked eating and they're still an hamburger. Listen, this goes both ways. Guys, listen, you need, you need to get control of your eyeballs. You need to control your eyes, look. You say, well, pissed, you're taking so hard, because she just showed up and everything's out there. Yes, ladies, don't put everything out there. Number one, the man falls, he allows himself, even though nobody may know. In his mind, he falls into a scandalous situation before him and God. Why? Because he trips, he's baited, but he trips over the bait. He doesn't say watch. He doesn't say, oh my gosh, there's bait there. I'm going to walk away. Didn't job do that. Didn't job say, I've made a covenant with my eyes, not to gaze upon a young woman. Job said that. And then the young woman, she needs to be careful how she dresses, because listen, okay, you're beautiful. God made you that way, but you're not on sale. You are a daughter of the living God. And listen, guys, control your eyes. You got to do that. And women control the way that you look. Why? Because guys are weak and women are weak. Guys are looking, women know it, women want to feel approved and accepted. And so they bait just enough to think, I'm pretty. Let me tell you, I've never been a woman. I don't, even in California, I do not plan on becoming one. I know it's a bit, I know it's a heavy thought, but here's the deal. I've only been a guy, but I can tell you this. At some age of 12 or 13 years of age, a young man's life changes, and it's not for the good. He sees everything different. He's got supernatural abilities like Superman to have extra vision. And anybody says he doesn't know he's talking about, is lying to you? I'm telling you right now. And the men are going to scold me after service, because they're going to say, what did you tell them or secret? But women, listen, women are more innocent on that end, but it's like, oh, he thinks I'm nice. He's thinking way more than that. Don't create a scandal. We need to be wise. And I'm looking, all you guys are going to write me from both ends, both pendulums, that you were horrible today. It means to pressure or to coerse someone into doing what they believe to be wrong. In other words, I knew I should not have done that. Have you ever heard that? Have you ever said that? I knew I shouldn't have done it. Boy, I got in trouble. People tell me they've stopped and they say, we feel like we know you. As far as I know, I've withheld nothing from you. And here goes another one. Have you ever been at a stoplight when there's no one around? And there's no traffic any which way. And then you're waiting. And then here's my, it's like, it's been like five minutes. And then here's what I do of my justification. I know this. It's very fresh in my mind. I just did this. Any, any, any day now, any day, now, right now, nothing. So I looked left. I looked right. I looked straight ahead. And I looked in my river mirror. And I concluded the city doesn't know that this light's broken. It's broke. I safely, like pulling up to a stop sign. Just like that, hear my justification. City needs to know I should call them. It's broken. I'm doing like a stop sign when the lights go out. But this lights on. I know. But it's not moving. It's broken. And so I go. Forgetting that the Holy Spirit, I mean Lisa was sitting next to me. And she said, what are you doing? I thought it was fine, but my liberty in Christ stumbled my wife. I throw myself under the bus for your edification. The same happens in your life. Maybe not that. Maybe something else. And we need to be very careful about this. This is still the introduction we're in. This is terrible. The conclusion is this, that we need to watch out where we step, where we're walking with God. Listen, the conclusion is this, watch out where you step. Make sure your foot is following in his steps. Put your foot down where his was. We are followers of the Lord Jesus. Just like you go to the beach or maybe on a trail. You see the footsteps you follow in. Did you know that today to this very day? You can visit parts of Montana and Nebraska and Wyoming. And I believe it's still Eastern Oregon State where the ruts are still in the ground from the great migration when people migrated out west from the east coast. That the the wheels so many was so much weight with so much of their life and so many of them left and noble scar upon the landscape of this nation and now it's a historical spot. Listen, they followed one after another. Jesus walks before us and God says, walk where he walked. Didn't Jesus say, come and follow me. Put your foot in his footprints is the command of God. And every true believer longs to live that way, thus we are in hot pursuit of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray put my foot where your foot was. So I please you and honor you and all that I do. Psalm 63 verse 8 says, my soul follows close behind you. Your right hand upholds me. I love that. I love the old King James by the way. The old King James says, my soul follow with heart after the I love that where you have this passion in a drive. I want to follow you God. I don't want my foot to fall anywhere else but where Christ prints are laid out before me. This is this is being a Christian. Did you know I like to look at this way? Did you know that when you leave this building today before you Christ has his footprints for you to follow him tomorrow when you wake up? Put your feet down every day. You think about that. At least tonight we're on vacation some years ago. We're up in northern California and we're in the redwoods and there was this little shack and supposedly this guy has seen more sass squash than anybody else. Bigfoot. And he had these feet that had straps on him and they were giant supposedly bigfoot feet. So if you believe in bigfoot, so you know, okay, look people we didn't know guerrillas existed until like the 50s. Did you know that? Did you know that we did not know that guerrillas? The silverback guerrilla did not exist until the I think 1950s. I'm not saying bigfoot exists. I'm saying that there's people that have really big feet that could run around the woods. Unshavin. I'm describing a lot of people out of the 60s and 70s right now. But this guy had these giant fake sass squash feet that you could strap onto your own feet and run around the woods. And I just thought I want to buy those. I mean isn't it just kind of cool to think? It's like freak people out. But the thing is it's not your feet. It's fake. His footsteps are real. And he says just come with me. Let's go. Let's walk. And we walk with him. Isaiah 41 verse 10 says fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. That's the promise of God. And then I want to read this to you. So, as those who name the name of Jesus, notice the name name here, the word name is capitalized. So it goes this way. As those who name the authority of Jesus Christ, that's what that means about his name. We are very aware that how we step and where we step leaves a trail of footprints, footprints of evidence, evidence of faith that others will follow. Isn't that what we do as a family? Isn't that what moms and dads are doing and big brothers and big sisters are doing? Isn't that what we're doing with one another? We are leaving footsteps. What we hope to be footsteps of faith? Paul the Apostle put it this way. As I follow Christ, follow me. Man, that's bold. Is it not? Can you imagine saying that? As I follow Christ, follow me. That's awesome. We should all be able to say that, but I don't know about you. Sometimes you get a little insecure. I'm saying something like that. I would just rather tell my kids, follow Christ, because I'm afraid I'm messing it up. Mom and dad, you know what I'm talking about? We can live for Jesus. 99% of the time to make that one goof up and oh my goodness, we feel horrible. And then we have to tell our kids, which is still a powerful act of redemption. Hey, that one percent thing I just did by losing my temper or going across the light when it didn't turn green yet. Jesus is not like that. We can even redeem those areas in our life where we went south on the issue or the moment and we can tell our kids or our husbands or our wives. I did this and it was wrong and I repented just know this. That was not Jesus. That's a very powerful church. Romans 12 verse 4 tells us Romans 12 forces for as we have many members in one body that's called the church, but all the members do not have the same function. So we many, being many members are one body in Christ and individual members of one another. What an amazing statement of what the church is. And everything that we do should be led by the therefore I will no longer live my life in such a way that I would be putting in front of you a stumbling block by which you were put in the place of a scandal in your mind that you were so disillusioned by how I lived or how I dressed or the words I used or the things I invested in my time or energies. This is what being the disciple of Jesus Christ looks like is that I'm going to follow him because we want to bring with us as many men and women and boys and girls into the kingdom as we possibly can. This Jack Kibb's 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.