Love God, Live As You Please

Real life presents the Jack Kibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth but equip the saints and impact our culture. Maybe you're backslidden from God, you're a Christian but you've wandered off into the weeds and you're doing stuff you ought not to do. You know what, you get to come back to Christ today. Today could be your day to get your life right with Jesus and come back because of the blood of Christ. Not because of your penance, you can't pay anything, you can't do enough of those and a half dozen of the other to earn yourself no way, it's his blood. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackkibb's.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 Kibb's. Today's your day because of what you're learning. Being justified freely by his grace, listen to the heavy lifting of God here. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation, by his blood through faith to demonstrate what his righteousness is. We talked on that word recreation. Write that down if you would in verse 24, God is wanting you to learn that you need to recreate in God's provision. God has given us this ability that is unique to the follower of Jesus alone and that is rest. Now remember I mentioned that I put up the word recreation or I could have easily used recreation or I could have used the word recreation. Simply meaning this to rest. Dear Christian, it is the will of God that you concerning your Christianity not sweat about it, not labor about it, not worry about it, but that you move with God the Holy Spirit as he works in your life. It is the power of God that does Christianity through you. I can't repeat this enough in life. We've got this thing in our minds, we've got to push, we've got to do, we've got to do this thing, we've got to and people are beat up and people are tattered and worn out. Listen, not biblical Christianity. Our use puts it this way, it's God, the Holy Spirit who fills your sails. You don't go up there and go on your sailboat, do you? That ocean breeze drives that sailboat and God wants that same power to be available to you, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We saw how incredibly awesome that statement is that though God's salvation is free, do you remember church? It is not cheap. It cost God everything and it's so expensive and it's so impossible for us to obtain that it's in an economy that we cannot barter in or trade in that there's a grand exchange. And the currency is blood. And you think about that for a moment, even in pagan cultures, what transcends any form of animal trade or human trade or precious metals trade in a pagan culture? It's blood. For thousands of years, the most precious thing that could be offered to the gods would be virgin or firstborn blood. Many of us have been to Caesarea Philippi. They're at the temple of Zeus and the temple of Pan, Athena, all of the gods and goddesses were represented there in Caesarea Philippi. And the pagan worshipers, which the Jews began to adopt, that they would take the life of an animal and they would throw that animal alive into that pool. And if the blood there was not seen where the animal went down under, then your sacrifice was accepted. But if the animal or its blood came out, then the gods rejected and your sins were upon you. And the pagan world lived under that kind of a sad specter of intimidation and almost voodoo-like belief system. My mom, as you guys many of you know, my mom was born and raised in Hawaii and before she became a Christian eventually, I mean, she was raised in a Catholic orphanage when her parents died at the age of four. But even in that culture, there's almost a thousand Polynesian gods that are worshiped throughout the South Seas, the South Pacific. And there's a god or a demigod for everything. You know, a lot of people love that little movie, a cute movie. What's it called with the Mawana? And it's got Maui in it, right? And he sings the song about being a demigod. That's all true. All these various gods for all these various needs. I got news for your friend. There's one god that meets all of your needs. He's the great I am. I will be the one. I am the becoming one. I will become your peace. I will become your comfort. I will become your righteousness. I will become your peace. Jehovah Shalom. God your peace. Remarkable God. This is what we learn when we read the Bible and we find out these amazing things that God says I will justify you freely. In Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, because he is the one that has purchased redemption. The second thing is power. We learn about the power of God whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. John Calvin, the reformer, wrote, this is his English. There is not probably in the whole of the Bible a passage which sets forth more profoundly the righteousness of God in Christ. That right there whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. Church absolutely awesome. Exodus 26, 31 says, make a veil of blue, purple, scarlet. So remember, they're in the wilderness now. Moses and the children of Israel having left Egypt. And finally twisted linen with cherubim woven into it by skilled workers. By the way, the thread was gold. They pounded gold into thread. Can you imagine? Hang it on gold hooks and four posts of a case you would overlaid with gold standing on four silver bases, verse 33. Hang the veil from the class and the place of the ark of the covenant behind the veil and the veil will separate the holy place from the most holy place or the holy of holdings. Verse 34, put the mercy seat or the atonement cover on the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. This is what the children of Israel carried around in the wilderness until they had a temple built in Jerusalem, the ark of the covenant. It wasn't about the gold. It wasn't about all that stuff spoke of value, but it pointed to the blood. God didn't make atonement for the people based on the gold. See a lot of people today want to make atonement based on the gold. I'll send in my check. I'll mail in some money. I'll do this. I'll do that. God says, no, no, I don't want that. I want blood. Well, I'll give my blood then. Oh, my goodness. I'm not even going to tell you what I just saw before service. That's happening in the Middle East among Islamic worshipers. I can't not. It's so gruesome to make atonement for their sins. What is the deal? Do they not have a Bible? Have they not read the word? What they're doing to their bodies to make atonement for their sins? My dear friend Jesus Christ died on the cross 2,000 years ago. So you wouldn't have to main yourself like that. Your blood can't accomplish anything. It's his blood that does it all. His blood washes you away from guilt and shame. And listen, that's not only for the person who's not a Christian today, but for the believer today, every single moment of your life in my life, that blood, that fountain, that John Wesley, Charles Wesley, that they sang about and wrote about, that salvation and redemption flows from the manuals of aims. That's not only keeps the believer going every day if you think about it, but maybe you're backslidden from God, you're a Christian, but you've wandered off into the weeds and you're doing stuff you ought not to do. You know what? You get to come back to Christ today. Today could be your day to get your life right with Jesus and come back because of the blood of Christ. Not because of your penance. You can't pay anything. You can't do enough of those and a half dozen of the other to earn yourself no way. It's his blood. So watch what happened about that veil. Matthew 2750 and Jesus cried out with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. He's on the cross. Verse 51, then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And I told you last time I think I love the fact that it's ripped from top to bottom. Well, you know, somebody tore it from the bottom up. No, somebody would have climbed up 60 feet high with some sort of an amazing grip to separate linen woven together. That's four to six inches thick. And when Jesus died, he cried out, don't tell us, die. It's finished. The Bible says, and you know what's finished. He paid for mankind's sin. It's finished. And it says that he yielded up his spirit. Isn't it amazing? It's finished. Okay. I'm going to die now. He's done by stick around. The work was done. Get out of there. And the Bible tells us the moment that that happened, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom and exposing the Holy of Holies. Can you imagine? Can you imagine because a legalist would run around trying to stitch it up and block it? No, nothing going on here. Please moving. No, nothing to see here. Just keep going. Why? Listen, religion was blown up at that moment. Earthly efforts done. God rips it open and says, now the veil, the presence, all of this now is made clear for you to come and deal with God personally, which we learned this by the way. We learned in verse 25 about the publicity of God, if you think about it, what we're learning, verse 25 says, through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. There's nothing hidden about what's being said here, through faith. You know, you've heard faith is a verb. It's an active. You can talk about the, I have faith. Be quiet. No, I'm not, I'm actually paraphrasing the book of James. James, the book of James would say, be quiet. Don't tell me about your faith. I don't want to hear it. He's not listening. James would say, don't even tell me about faith. James would say to us today, I'm going to move in your house. I'm going to live with you for 30 days. I'm the Apostle James. I have the authority to do this. I'm going to move in your home, and at the end of 30 days, I'm going to tell you if you're a Christian or not. That's kind of sobering, right? If James moved into your home, would he conclude at the end of 30 days, it's a Christian home? I didn't say it's a perfect home, but when it's not, here's what's beautiful. When it's not a perfect home, does it make amends when it's not a perfect home? When that wife insults that husband or the husband hurts the wife, is there atonement where it's, honey, I'm so sorry, I was tired. I'm not making excuses. That was not the Jesus part of me coming out. That was the, I'm not going to use my own name, that would be bad. I'll use Bruce's name. You sat in the front row. You know what's great about our God, even when stuff like that goes on, our God is glorified because he's honored in such things. First John 1.9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and declenses from all unrighteousness. I love how practical and usable our God is. Isn't it great that we don't have him on his shelf somewhere? We don't have to go to some man told or some shelf and say, I really need your help. I saw somebody not too long ago driving and they had a statue of Mary on their dashboard. And I thought, because I don't think normal, I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, this is all wrong. Because Mary was facing them behind the wheel. They should turn Mary around so she's facing the road. Right? No, it's all the publicity of God. Everything God does. He does publicly. And I mean that. Everybody Jesus invited to follow him. He invited them publicly. You say, no, no, I got a loophole. Nicodemus that he came by night. No, no, no. No loophole. Nicodemus came and spoke to Jesus at night. But shortly thereafter, Nicodemus is publicly on Mount Moriah, on Mount Calvary, asking for the body of Jesus to take down him and Joseph took the body of Jesus to the nearby tomb. Everyone who is called by God to trust and believe in Jesus must go public. Jesus said, if you confess me before man, I will confess you before my father, which is in heaven. Think of it. And God goes public. That word demonstrate means to point out, to stand or to signal to, to display. It's amazing. It means to make public. John 18 verse 20. You guys okay? John 18 verse 20 says, Jesus answering said unto them, I spoke openly to the world. They're trying to condemn him. He says, I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple where the Jews always meet. And in secret, I have said nothing. This is Jesus speaking. Isn't that awesome? Well, there's some hidden truth that we have found. And if you just join our little group, we'll lead you into a greater light. No, everything that you and I needed to know, Jesus did and said publicly. Does that come for you? Come for it's me. Demonstrate. It's God the Father that publicly promoted Christ's son, maybe not in the way that we would think. Not down sunset avenue on the grand buildings with the big poster or in the sky written or no. The demonstration of his son is at the cross. I find it comforting by the way that all around the world. If you're in some hostile territory, we don't appreciate this in America. We don't have to live through this. But you know, if you're in some dangerous part of the world and you see a missionary station, there'll be a cross there. You'll see a place that's a hospital. There'll be a cross on top of that hospital. Do you know that? Remarkable. John 5, verse 36, the Bible says, Jesus is speaking, but I have a greater witness than John's. For the works which the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I do bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me. The Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You speak into the religious hierarchy. There are scribes and Pharisees. Listen to this. This is Jesus speaking. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. But you do not have his word of biting in you because whom he sent him, you do not believe. You search the Scriptures. You study them. You're a master of the Scriptures. Old Testament. For in them, you think you have eternal life. And these are they which do testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. For those strong words, those are strong words coming from Jesus.