Living In Liberty And Freedom

[Music] Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Like a gas tank is filled with gasoline, you were filled with biblene, right? Biblene and you were filled up. That's what he's referring to. Your body took in the Bible, the form, the scriptures, the doctrines were poured into you and your skin on the outside but your Bible on the inside when you bleed its Bible. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibs.com/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 Hips. I'm gonna tell you straight up, these verses are personal to me. These are my go-to verses. When I need them, they're there. And I'm gonna I want you to have them. These are my trans-verses. Get that transverse. Transverse, transverses, transformation. Here it comes. Ephesians 2.10. For we are His workmanship, the Greek word is poem. We are His poem. Created in Christ Jesus for good works, righteousness. righteousness, which God prepared before in that we should walk in them. Is that awesome? How cool is that? The tennis shoes I'm wearing, somebody made them. I didn't know the guy. I don't even know where they're made them. I just got them and put my foot in them. And my feet could say these shoes were made before you knew it. This is true. God says, "I made you before you knew you." And I gave you a life to live that's waiting for you. Wouldn't you unwrap it? And I love the fact that God uses the word poem, poema, in Greek. I am the songwriter. I am the poet. And you, you're the one I'm working on. But he'll never knock down the door to get that work done. You got to open the door. You have to invite him in. Ezekiel 3627, this is awesome. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. And you will keep my judgments and do them. Man, I love that. Look at just the way that he talks. There's no baloney with this. I hear it like this because this is the way, this is how he speaks to me. Jack, listen up. I will put my spirit within you. I'm doing that. And I'm going to cause you to walk in my statutes. my statutes, I'm going to cause you to walk on them and I will keep or you will keep my judgments. I'm going to give you the ability to do that Jack and you'll do them. I can't do those things but because he's working from the inside out relationship versus religion he does it. I remind him of this all the time. This isn't, listen, I'm so happily enslaved is freedom? Ezekiel 37, 14, I will put my spirit in you and you shall live. Wow. Isaiah 118. This is awesome. Love it. God says, come now, let us reason together. Says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red light crimson, they shall be as wool. And all All of that's beautiful, but you know what word I love the most is the word reason. Come let us reason. The word in Hebrew means come. Let's go at it, you and I together. God has seen. You want to argue? Come up here. Let's go. Isn't that just like him to say to us? So you think you're something, huh? How much you bring your big guns up here? State your biggest argument, Jack, let it rip. And that verse implies that you're going to lose. And the greatest thing you can do is to lose your fight with God. Stop. Well, stop. By the way, please read your Bible more. You'll have less questions to trouble you. It's really true. But God says you want to reason, you want to fight about it? Just know this. I know how to handle sin. I wash it away in the blood of my son. Second Corinthians 5, 20 and 21. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. I implore you on Christ behalf be reconciled to God. Here it comes for He that is God made Him that's Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us. That we might become the righteousness, get the word, righteousness of God in Him. That's awesome. The righteousness of God at work. I'm gonna read this to you. It's a note to myself, but if it blesses you, then so be it. Slaves must do the bidding of their master. Their master is sex, drugs and rock and roll, money, pride, power, manipulation, greed, lust, anger, violence, hatred, brutality, perversion, then you will easily be able to tell who the master is if that's going on in your life. The remarkable thing is that your master or my master isn't some remote outside of us dressed up in a cloak or some fancy armani suit. When we look in the mirror, we are looking at the representation of the master we serve. So Paul's challenge to us comes down to what kind of a life are you living? And if you're saying today, I'm living a life, I mean, I'm, but I don't know if it's worth having. And God would say to you today, I'll give you a life of value. Yes, he's holy and yes, he's pure and yes, he cannot have sin in his presence, but he's He's also the God that says, "You come to me and I'll wash you clean." He's amazing. When you see a frustrated little kid, he doesn't know what he wants. He's filthy dirties, been climbing around on the backyard. He's stubbed him's toes or something. Snots running down his nose. His hair is whacked out. Right, he's just a mess and he's also hungry and tired of the saying, "He's just a mess!" And you see a mom or a dad just deal with it right then and there. They just get the towel out, they're washing, or hose it down his face and cleaning them up and getting them all ready for bed or whatever it is. Don't you see us like that with God? He can handle it. Servitude of sin leads to prison. I mean, it could lead to physical prison, but it's not the prison I'm talking about. The prison of being stuck with yourself and nobody else stuck with you. I'm not talking about being lonely. I'm talking about being in a crowded room, but you are alone with you because you've never let him in because you have these shrines set up of sin. And he wants to break those things down. in the Old Testament. How many times in the Old Testament do you see God telling a king of Israel, "Go and tear down those high places." You ever read about those? The high places. The Bible is being very nice to you and it uses the word "high places." That word "high places" is a very pornographic word. Go and tear down those centers where people gather and do all kinds of perversity. God says, the land is cursed so long as this is happening. Go clean that up. And so Josiah does that or David does that. But also, servitude to Christ is that incredible forever freedom. When he says what to do, I know it sounds like when he says in the Bible what to do, it sounds like he's telling us. I've now surrendered that too to God. I've learned to just stop fighting and And I don't hear God telling me anything. I hear God saying things to me. Because you know what I'm going to tell you this and it's kind of like there's some resistance there. So my prayer is Lord, I don't want to resist you in any way. If there's anything in my life that's resistant to take it out, that you might be able to speak to me and I'll follow you. Einstein said in his latter years of life that he actually discovered that he hardly knew anything. Einstein. I would like to know what he thought he didn't know. But isn't that sure as a believer, the further along we get, it's kind of like, you know, that's okay, God. You take the will. I'm talking about Jeremiah 29. You know this verse 11 and 12. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and pray to me and I will listen to you. The next thing that we have right here real quick is verses 17 and 18 and that is his grace commands us as his children. I won't belabor this, his grace commands us. It's beautiful as his children. He says in verse 17, "But God be thanks that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form cast mold, die of doctrine." In other words, Bible doctrine was poured into your life and it filled you up. Bible doctrine was poured into you, went in through the ears and the heart of your life and Bible. You were filled with, like a gas tank is filled with gasoline, you were filled with biblene, right? Biblene and you were filled up. That's what he's referring to. Your body took in the Bible, the form, the scriptures, the doctrines were poured into you. And your skin on the outside, but your Bible on the inside, when you bleed, it's Bible. To which you were delivered, verse 18, And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. How leader that? Yes, I want to be under the command of God's grace. How laul you to that? It's absolutely awesome. Galatians 4 verse 19 says, "My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you." God's grace commands you. So listen to this, that God's grace given to me that I might go synopostorm. It's God's grace whereby some temptation knocks on my door and I can say, "Get off my property. Get out of here." Whatever it might be, you know those routine things? Maybe in your life there's this stuff that you've just, you've just decided this is just the way it is until I die. This sin is gonna be a part of my life. It's a dark spot on my soul. I want you to know today you invite Jesus Christ in on this because he is your master and you are his slave. And none of his kids have to put up with that. All we need to do is cry out to him. And listen, when you do, he's gonna say to you, okay, this is what we're gonna do from here on out. He'll lead you and guide you. Listen to what Jesus said, this is strong. You guys okay? John 8/34 says, and Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Let me help some of you out before you panic. Whoever commits sin, the word is just plans on sinning. It's just you're looking at your watch right now, sin. When's he done? I got a thing. I got to go do. I got some sin in to do. Guys, what are you taking? An hour of my sin time. Jesus says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. See? I love that. A son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. You want to be a child of God? Yeah, then become. Listen. Become one who's under his command. And then, third and finally, it's this verse 19, "His grace shapes us into his instruments." This 19 tells us, I speak in human terms because of your woickness or it should be weakness, but it's probably the same meaning. If you're of your flesh, for just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. Present your body to God. We had no problem presenting our body, our members, that's the word members. The word in the Greek actually means parts. See what parts? Old parts. Public parts and private parts. Parts are gods. Parts. If you're a believer, your parts belong to God. What parts? Public parts and private parts. They all belong to God. Are you a Christian? Yes, I am. Then your public and private parts belong to God. See, when I can, he have my public parts and I have my private parts. No, he's your master. So if you haven't decided to stop coming to the church yet, you will in about three seconds here. This implies very strongly that we cannot have a life of sin determining that as a Christian I will keep this even though he has said no that you're going to do it anyway. Hang on. The dangerous, horrific truth is that when he starts giving you over to that thing, you hear him less. You can't. He used to say to you, stop this, then it's, listen, stop this, but it's not that he's changing his tone. It's just that he's changing the volume. It's not even him changing the volume. It's what the Bible says where our ears have become thick or callous. He's still speaking the same volume, but we don't hear much because we've calloused our hearts against that thing so that when he says, "Don't do this! I want you to be free!" We have shut him out. Christians do this. It's my prayer as your pastor to ruin your life today in this area, that you as a believer, that you want to find out what it's really like to be absolutely an instrument of his grace and take the shape of God's grace in this world. We live in an amazing moment of time. I save this every week now, but it gets more amazing every week. First John chapter 1 verse 6, almost done. First John 1 6 says, "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. He who says, 'I know him and does not keep his commands as a liar, and and the truth is not in him. Whoever has been born of God does not sin. For his seed, his God seed, born again, experience remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. That means you can't practice sin. Do we sin? Yes, do we want to? No. Today I say I'm a Christ follower of Jesus. I want to follow him. Paul would say, I wrote a book on this. And it would mean this, that we're being shaped, sculpted, carved, crafted, fashioned, the word is translated, chipped. I like that. Chipped away. Have you ever seen a sculptor chipping away? Have you ever seen, I don't know if you've ever been to Italy and Tuscany and you've seen David? You stand in line for hours to see Michelangelo's David and you stand in there and it's supposed It must be the most anatomically perfect human being ever carved. And he just, it took him years and he just chipped, chipped, chipped, chipped, chipped, the Holy Spirit's doing that to you and I, chipped, chipped, chipped, chipped. What are we supposed to do? Stand still. Let him do it. Final word, and I mean it. [laughter] I have this equation that works for me and maybe to work for you. And it's this, the correlation between me, desiring to be used by God, is indirect proportion to the magnitude of my yieldiness to be controlled by God. The outcome of this correlation is an action, and it's called discipleship. And so for me, this is it. It's on the screen. Final verse. This is it. You can get a tattoo if you want on this. We should maybe spray paint this on your car. Galatians 220. You want to talk about an amazing statement. Seems like a bizarre contradiction. But it's talking about enslavement to his freedom. I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh. I lived by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to me. This Jack Kibs podcast, as well as all the broadcast out reach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibs.com to learn more and stay connected. [MUSIC]