No more Religious Rules

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. 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. Hey everybody, Jack Hibbs here and I want to be sharing some things from my heart with you on this podcast. And it's our desire that in all of these things that you might know Christ better and more. And in fact, what we're actually wanting to do is to get you so involved in getting out these segments to other people that may not ever cross the threshold of a church. How about that? Technically, in this day and age, if somebody can tweet a tweet and change the course of a nation, how about you and I teaming up together and you simply sharing this with other people? If it matters to you, if it makes a difference, if it's something that you think your friend or your family member or your co-worker could benefit from, then please do that. And then also this, I want to make sure that we kind of just have a routine down. And we're going about right now to just set up a little bit of a routine. And I was asked, hey, we need like a tagline for our continued moving forward in ministry. And so I thought about this last night. I don't know if it works or not, maybe you guys can judge and let us know. But to me, this makes sense. Does it not? It's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. I think that matters. It's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. And so this is what's on my heart right now. This is what's burning. Because it's something that burned upon Jeremiah's heart. It's something that burned upon the heart of God and still does to this moment. And believe it or not, I am not reading from the New Testament. I am not. I underscore, I am not reading from the New Testament. This is Old Testament. This is Old Testament. Okay, you wouldn't even have a New Testament without the Old Testament. God said, behold, the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not, listen, not according to the commandment that I made with their fathers in that day. When I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. Listen up, everybody. This is amazing. Says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and I will write them on, and I will write on their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer shall every man teach his neighbor, every man shall, his, and his brother, saying, no the Lord, for they all shall know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, I will forgive their iniquity and their sins. I will remember no more. This is amazing. Listen, so many people are bound up in legalism and keeping the rules that they forget that God gave the law in the Old Testament as the set of rules to point us to the fact that we cannot save ourselves, that there is no salvation in the law. Now you, now check this out, nowhere in the Bible can you find in the Old Testament that God says, you'll be saved, you'll experience eternal life if you keep these 10 commandments. He doesn't say that. In fact, what he does say is that in the day that you break my law, you need blood. You need a blood sacrifice. And so that's why this is so incredibly important. Your walk with God cannot be based upon rules and regulations. It's got to be based upon a personal experience with Jesus Christ. Why Jesus? Because he is the one whom God promised in the Old Testament, and it's Jesus, what he did at the cross, and it's what he did by leaving us an empty tomb in Jerusalem, that new covenant is the covenant that Jeremiah was talking about. God says, I'm not going to honor any longer the old covenant. Why? Because it's written on stone. It doesn't save you. It only convicts you. I'm going to do a work in you that is not on stone, but it's going to be written in your minds, and it's going to be written in your hearts. To me, that's an awesome declaration as to why you and I should draw near immediately to Jesus in and through the Old and New Testaments. Why? The Old Testament tells you he's coming. Abraham told us the Messiah is coming. Abraham lived it out on Mount Mariah with Isaac, and going through the entire sacrifice where Abraham lives his dagger to slay Isaac believing that even if I kill him, God promised that he would raise up salvation, the Messiah from my DNA. This is my only boy. So even if I kill him, God's going to raise him from the dead. That's why Abraham's faith is so commendable is because he obeyed God in the face of impossibilities knowing that God must have a plan that even if I offer my son, God's going to raise him up. That's huge. Well, listen, God sacrificed his son on the same Mount Mariah that Isaac was offered up on, but this time Jesus died. He died a real death in the flesh. His body died there on the cross for your sins in mind, and on the third day he rose again from the dead. This is absolutely awesome because the Bible tells us for all of us who call upon the name of the Lord, we shall be saved. The Bible also tells us that if we repent of our sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. So it's not any of you, any of us, doing anything to earn God's salvation. It's looking to him. You know, the first sermon that Charles Spurgeon ever preached, I think he was 16 years old, shortly after he got saved. He preached a sermon out of Isaiah and it was, look unto me and be saved. And he stressed the challenge, look unto me. Look, Spurgeon said, anyone can look. It's available to anyone. All of us have the option to look, but will you look? If you're focused on the stone and the law and the legalism, that can be the trappings of religion? Listen, you can't look because your heart is so burdened, your head is down. I mean, you're bummed, you're carrying a load that you were never supposed to carry. Jesus comes along and announces, basically I'm paraphrasing this, Matthew 11. My load and the weight that I put upon you, if you follow me, it's easy and it's light. It's not burdensome. What is he saying? Look, look to me. And when you look to him and you understand that his salvation is written in such a way that it is embossed upon your heart, then what happens is God, the Holy Spirit, does the work of saving you and the work of discipling you and the work of growing you up in such a way that God does it all. You cooperate. Listen, friend, what you and I are to be doing is cooperating with God in what he wants to do. We need to cooperate. Agree with him. You know what? The technical word is obey him. If we just obey him, there's so much liberty and freedom in all of that. So what is so important about experiencing no pun intended, but it's why we named our programming this, real life, is that real life is not found in some sort of religious routine that you practice every day and you do the prayer and you do the reading and you do the thing. And this is how it is. And I just put in or pay my dues. And that's it. Friends, no way. In fact, I am so glad that the world that you and I are living in right now is disgusted with religion. Don't be offended by that. Don't get upset about that. The fact is, we should be disgusted with man-made religion. What we need to do is get all excited about what God invites us to experience and that is personal relationship. I think we all need a repent, actually, of having so much fun and so much activity with the friends and family that we know. And we never afford God to have that same relationship with us. So listen, at the time of us getting together right now, the Super Bulls coming up, a friend of mine texting me the other night, hey, come on over. We're going to have a great, great time and I had a text in back saying I'm going to be traveling that day. It's not going to work. Sorry. And he gave me a little sad face. Why? Because we're not able to get together. But it's normal to get together. It's normal to fellowship. It's normal to even be as Christians to watch a Super Bull game together. We love this stuff. Do we not? When you go out, of course you can go out by yourself. But what fun is that? You go out with your wife or with your husband. You guys even call friends and say, let's go out. Why would we enjoy the Coenania, the fellowship of one another and not allow God that same beautiful atmosphere? Listen, it should be with him first. So listen, this morning I got up and I was dark and I didn't want to turn any lights on. So for me personally, I just thought I'd sit with my coffee with God and I had a blank slate and I was listening. A couple of times I talked to him, waited. Said a few more things, waited, had a couple of thoughts, had a couple of I think directions from God given to me. And in a way I actually sat down and had a cup of coffee with God alone in the dark as the sun came up. And it was interesting because when you wait like that, you wind up becoming very attuned to the simple things. I began to hear the very first bird of the day in my yard make the first cheap. I remember hearing it because why I was still, I was waiting, I was listening. And you know when you're saying God speak to me, God speak to me. When you hear things that herald the morning, in this case, one bird. And then it was five birds and then it was 20 birds and then it was a whole, what's the word? Cocophony, there's a big word for you. A Cocophony of birds singing the praises of God. It felt so right to me because I beat them to it. I got up before they did. I was talking to the God that made them. But you know what, I didn't look out my window and see some birds. All in a line wearing little black bird suits, right, with little black robes. And some other bird trying to get them in line and just right at the exact same time. They were free. They were liberated. They were doing what they were created to do. Christian, listen, why do we make things so stupid, difficult? What's wrong with us? If we just walk with God, then all of a sudden every day is an incredible open opportunity because we're going to be listening from the start of the day to the end. What's God saying? What is God doing? What's happening now in this thing? You'll always be in the mindset of what God wants to do through you in that place or at that moment. It's absolutely liberating. You won't have to walk around all stressed out, oh my gosh, what's God's will for me today? Oh, did I pray long enough? Did I read the right verses? Did I have a gun to church enough? Oh my gosh, friends, listen, that's tyranny. Get away from it. What you want to make sure is that you have an active living, breathing relationship with the Lord on a continuous basis. Always. Frankly, why let it end? You say, well, Pastor, doesn't my experience with God start when I show up at church and then it ends when we leave the church parking lot? Nope. Church is only the place for you to get refilled. You fuel up your spiritual tank. You interact with other believers. And I know at this church, by the way, you're always going to be tested regarding what you're learning because you got to be in the spirit just to get into the parking lot here. And then you got to be in the spirit leaving. And that's where a lot of people's faith is tested in the parking lot. But in all honesty, your faith is tested everywhere. Why not just embrace the fact that the Lord has, for me, whatever He brings to me today. And in fact, I want to kind of wrap this up. I'm going to begin to wrap this up anyway by saying this. So I stuck with a friend and he and his wife were traveling and there was an appointment with a chauffeur company, not a chauffeur like you think, but you know those black SUVs. Kind of like an Uber type thing, but this is different. The company was hired by his company to make sure that he and his wife are picked up at the airport at an exact time. They got off the plane. Their flight was delayed two hours. They get off the plane. They get to the curb. They look around and there's nobody. There's no car. In fact, there's no police. There's no other passengers. There's no buses. There's no taxi. There's nobody. And they looked at each other and they said, I wonder what's going on. And he said to her, you know, God's got a plan. We'll see what happens. So he let his office know there's no driver for us. Then they looked around and they realized, gosh, you know what? It's one o'clock in the morning now. This airport doesn't open up. There's a small airport in New York, upstate. This airport doesn't open up until 7 a.m. But there's two benches right here to sleep on. There's nobody else sleeping on them. It's where we're going to sleep. So they put their carry on luggage and they set them on the bench and they got ready to bed down. And a car pulls up and it's the driver who had been terribly delayed. The guy was apologizing and he thought for sure that they wouldn't be there but he came anyway. They got in the car and my friend said, sir, what's your name? I'll make the name up now. I don't remember. Mike. He said, Mike, there's a plan going on right now. And he says, there is. And he said, yep, he goes, we're here to tell you about Jesus Christ. The guy broke down crying and he said, part of me being late is the fact that my home has fallen apart and my wife told me today she's leaving me. My whole day has been absolutely off the rails. And I asked God to show me a sign if he cared about me. And my friend said, Mike, I'm here to tell you, God cares about you. Our flight being delayed, you being the one who picks us up at this curb is the one that God wants us to speak to. Mike, listen, and my friend gave him the gospel, exchange phone numbers, and the guy committed his life to Christ before they got to the hotel. That's the way you live your life. That's the reason why we should not panic in any way shape our form. So listen, you guys can really help us out on this podcast by really making sure that you share this with others. If you would write us a review, that would be really great. A nice one. Be nice. Write us a review. And that helps. That helps get the word out. Also this, we want you to go to the subscribe button and smash that or pound that or tap it. Subscribe. Why is that important? Listen, it's all free. But why subscribe? Because if you subscribe, number one, you'll be updated and given a notification that we're dropping our next podcast. So be ready here. It comes. But also this. It sends a message to these platforms that people care about this content. You and I know that we're living in an age where bad guys are centering the good message of God's word. And they're playing all kinds of games. So money talks. And I'm not asking you for money. But to them, it's money. If a lot of people are watching this Bozo give this podcast, then we'll tolerate this Bozo because we can sell ads or put up thumbnails or whatever it might be or run some sort of a tag to buy tires at this location. And we'll make money off this idiot that's talking about God because he's got a lot of followers. I honestly want you to subscribe, hit that button and subscribe for that reason. You see, Jack, I don't believe you believe this. We're not asking you for money. We're just asking you to care enough to smash that button. And it sends a message to the bad guys, people care to listen about this type of content. And in doing that, you help a whole lot of our other brothers and sisters who are doing the exact same thing. So you guys were excited. I want to keep rehearsing that tagline that we're going to try to develop. It's time to live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. And we believe that we'll all with all of our hearts. So until next time you guys, God bless you in Jesus' name. This Jack Kibs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibs.com to learn more and stay connected.