Beyond Religion

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast, with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Your kid needs to know that they can make it through difficulties. Our kids need to be taught they can roll up the sleeves, power through that. You'll make it through that. Yes, there's a thousand obstacles against you. Just keep fighting. Don't give up. You can't quit. It's not even on the docket to quit. You can't do it. Son, you got to keep going. Daughter, don't look back. Keep going. 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. The question is for you and I, are we actually living, breathing the gospel of God in our lives today? So this is a family talk, and I'll confess that it's direct. But I want to put this forward to you. The man that we're listening to, as the Holy Spirit got a hold of Paul, the apostle. This is a man who I'm going to put it to you kind of sarcastically. He had a miserable life. Before Christ got a hold of him, his life was miserable. And let me explain that to you. Actually, let me have him explain it to you. Look at Philippians on the screen. The book of Philippians chapter 3. Listen to what he has to say. This is after he encounters Christ. Beware of dogs is what he says in verse 2. He's not a cat man. When he's saying beware of dogs, you remember Psalm 22 when the psalmist cries out and says, the dogs have surrounded me. It's unbelievers. Beware of dogs. The Bible puts the unbeliever as a dog. Base, animalistic. Beware of dogs. These were violent dogs. These were not like four-footed dogs. Those can... be somehow trained or won over by a treat or something. No, these are two-legged dogs. These are those who are enemies of the gospel. He says, beware of them. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation. I'm not going to belabor this one, but listen, our salvation, our faith is based upon what Christ has done. Can I hear amen to this? It's what Jesus has done. It's not what you do. What you do is the fruit of what Christ has done. That's God living his gospel out of your life, not you trying to be religious. And Paul addresses them. He says, beware of the mutilation. That means those who were teaching and preaching that no matter what you believe, you've got to be circumcised to go to heaven. Well, that's equal to somebody saying today, you've got to be baptized to go to heaven. Now listen, Christians, should you be baptized? You should. But what if you're driving, what if you accept Christ and you're driving down to... Get baptized and you get killed in a car crash. Are you going to go to heaven or hell? Heaven. She said, yeah, but he didn't get baptized. Neither did the thief on the cross. Baptism is an act of obedience because we've had a changed heart. An internal change is displayed with an external display of water baptism. For the Jew, it was circumcision. And they were attacking the gospel. And Paul said, why don't, listen, beware of the mutilation. They were saying, I hate to say it to you this way, but folks, it's the truth. And legalism does this to you. No matter what your faith system is, you've got to add to it. This is what is one of the definitions of the cults. If you are a former member or a member or you know somebody who belongs to a cult, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we love Jesus. We believe in everything Jesus did, but you have to do this also. No, it's faith in Christ alone. And that transformative power actually supernaturally changes your life. But the mutilation taught this. The more flesh you circumcise, the holier you are. Watch out, legalism kills you and it's very painful. For we are the circumcision who worship God in spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. There you go. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, this is Paul speaking, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Concerning the law, Paul was a Pharisee. Wow. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church. Concerning righteousness, which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted lost for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Listen, do you know, as you'll see in a moment, do you know in an experiential way, Jesus Christ? That is the pivotal question of today in this gathering. Do you know Christ as he is saying, and have you experienced him? Very, very important. Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, the word in Greek is manure. No, I'm not kidding. That I may gain Christ. Verse 9, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed or made into the image of Jesus Christ, that is, to his death. That is, by the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, the power has been given to you and I by the word of God the Holy Spirit will use to transform your life. And if your life has been transformed, listen, you know nothing about being a Sunday Christian only. You see how family this talk's going to be today? If you think you're a Christian on Sunday but not on Monday, you're not in the family. You're playing games. But the fact of the matter is, are we really, really a transformed people? Because one of the marked evidences of being a true believer is that you've got to pursue the things of God. The rule of God, the reign of God, the word of God, the will of God for your life. It's what you want. And you and I well know that if that's what we want, because we've been transformed, that you and I are the ones who get most often in the way of what God wants to do. And so the Bible tells us over and over again that we are in this family. We are to bring our flesh under the subjection of Christ. And that's our daily walk with Jesus. But a real family, what is it like? He says in verse 14, Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren. Well, who is he talking about? Well, it's the book of Romans. He's writing to the Roman believers in Italy who he had never met. Church, look at these words. Is he exaggerating? Is the great apostle lying? When he says, now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren. How could he be confident in knowing their walk with God when he had never met them? He's writing this book that you have opened on your lap from Corinth, Greece. He's writing to the Romans in Italy. And he says, I know about your walk. I know about your life. I know about your faith. Why? Because people were talking about the Roman believers. Look, church, being a believer in Rome in the first century would be like being a believer in New York City, or Hollywood, or Vegas, or Babylon. You're either a believer or you're not. It's black and white. There's no place to hide. And the Roman believers were strong. In fact, you're going to hear in a moment that they were I want to encourage you in the world that you and I live in right now. Let's be honest. It seems like every other breaking news issue is some catastrophe. Some more lawlessness, insanity. What's happening? I hope I express your heart when I say, when you see all these things happening. Yes, it upsets us because it's horrible. And this is the ramifications of sin, but it also reminds us that we've got to be on the last lap, folks. This world cannot continue on much longer unless something happens. And even in your own world, what about your family? The issues of family life, it's harder now to be a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a child, a parent. Would you agree? Would you agree? More difficult than ever. And the temptation to give up on your children seems to be overwhelming. That you can't bring any help to them because their world, I mean, our kids and our grandkids, their world has just exploded light years in technology. We don't even understand their language. Look, I'm an old guy. I don't know how long I'll be in this pulpit. I could drop dead any day. That said, I got to have people around me and I have to ask them, so what's the latest young people talk? So like when I'm doing a podcast, I don't sound like a dinosaur. I had to ask that question because there's so many young people that watch. The vast majority of our podcasting is received by young people, which we're happy to report. But what are they doing? I think I'm wondering, I think they're watching because they might need a dad. Maybe that's it. But I also want to be able to relate to them, but I should leave that to the Holy Spirit, right? That's the Holy Spirit's job. But one of the worst things that we could ever do as a family is that a parent tries to be the best friend of the kid. That is a very sad thing in our culture today because the pressures and insecurities of parenting, we try to think, well, if I make my kid happy, then they'll think I'm cool. They don't need you to be cool, right? They need you to be the loving authority because listen, they'll never make it through a job in life. They'll never make it through life unless you show them loving authority, unless you teach them and show them the world is tough out there. And Paul the Apostle is saying, I'm confident in you Roman believers. Why? Because they had gone through it. They are living their Christianity where Nero himself would be residing the empire. Darth Vader was there And they lived for Christ. We know also in the book of Acts, the Bible tells us that there were those of Caesar's household that had come to faith in Christ. How did that happen? An active, verbal, loving, spirit-filled church. And that's what I pray and hope that is true in my life and in your life. He goes on in verse 14 and says that you also are full of goodness and... Filled with all knowledge. Two profound words. The word goodness, if you remember, we touched on it last time together. Two very powerful Greek words. Number one, goodness is to be godlike. Don't let that trip you up. It doesn't mean that you're going to be a god. It means that you are mimicking the god that is your god. Listen, if the Lord God of the Bible is your god, you will seek to mimic your god. And this is true, by the way, of all things. This is true of all things. I don't mean to be hard on this, but I'll paint this picture as some sort of reminder. People who are into, I mean, you picked the topic, seriously. Hunting. They get hunting stuff. They get hunting apparel. They buy a duck call. They watch Duck Dynasty. They watch Duck Dynasty. I don't know. They have a rifle rack. I don't know. But they intermingle with that culture. And that's fantastic. Maybe sports. Whatever it might be. That's fine. As a Christian, that same truth, but in a divine sense, I am to be associated with the things of God. In fact, what it means to be God-like in action and word, it means that when I speak, I don't have to quote the Bible necessarily. to be ministering to somebody. I can paraphrase the Bible. I can take biblical truth and say it in a different way in our culture, in our day. And somebody might say, wow, you've got so much wisdom, or I never thought about that before. Little do they know, all you and I are doing is regurgitating Bible. Are you with me? That's being God-like. That's being goodness. It's doing the things that Jesus would do. The word also means to put into practice. To do it. And to do it from the heart. Why? Because our true faith in Christ is rooted in the heart. We are not fans of religion. We are fans of a relationship. And there's a great difference. Certainly. And then he goes on to use this word. goodness, and he goes on to use the word knowledge. This remarkable word knowledge is to have an experiential knowledge. A lot of pastors get nervous at this point. I understand why knowledge, the Greek word ginosko means to know by experience. Listen, I'm going to say it. And there's a lot of overreaction because, listen, this is Calvary Chapel, which I could care less about the name of this church, to be honest. I don't care. What I do love and care about is that all of you come from various denominations and walks of life. I love that. There's all kinds of Catholics and Methodists and Lutherans and Baptists and Assembly God. But don't tell the Baptists. All the Baptists think they're the only ones here. But, um, joke. The beautiful thing is this. We never take your pulse to find out what flavor you are. We want you to be focused on the word of God. And having said that, there are denominations, there's issues that people have had with certain groups maybe where the experience was bad. They went into a church service, and it was crazy weird. People speaking in tongues, running around, swinging from the chandeliers, and they're like, what is that? That's Christianity? I don't want anything to do with it. There are people who have come out of very, very bizarre, almost shepherding movement types of churches where you couldn't do anything without asking the pastor. That's sick. Jesus said, by the way, that's Nicolaitan, and I hate it. Did you know that? Jesus said that. And so when you see the words to know by experience or experiential knowledge, you push back because your experience has been ugly. I want you to know that God wants to wash that out of your life and have you experience the Lord Jesus Christ in an actual living, breathing way where you live with him on a continuous basis. And friend, it is real. It is reality. And honestly, I'm glad that you're here, but you don't need Sunday church to experience that. This is just a cherry on top of the whipped cream coming together like this. It's every day and you experience him. And so as a family, I wanna ask you, I realized that my alone private time with God was eaten up by very, very good things. And my private time with God started to shrink because I was doing all these really good things. They're good things. But are they good things really managed well when they begin to take away private time from God and me alone? It's not a good thing. The world has its stuff thrown at you. I think you can identify it. But sometimes I wonder if Satan doesn't wrap stuff up with a really shiny bow on it and try to distract you with it. Because God is never into tempting or confusing you or me. Why? And that alone time does not a child long to have that quality time with mom or dad. Do they not? My grandson last week, he loves airplanes. Everything, the youngest one loves airplanes. It's just over the top. I love it. That's how I was when I was a kid. And I told him, I said, listen, before anybody else wakes up, let's get going. Let's get on over to John Wayne Airport. We'll watch airplanes take off and land. And he said, what, what, what? And I said, yeah. He goes, just you and I? And I'm like, exactly. It's so cute. Just you and I? I go, yeah. He goes, yeah, okay. And he was very excited that he weren't going to tell anybody. Okay, let's go. So we had to go through Starbucks. He's all set up. And he's got his little flight radar app going. He's got his camera out. Two times he said to me, we're doing this together. Isn't that great? That's a big oh. We're doing this together. Like he's reminded me. But I'm the one that engineered it. And then on the way home, fourth and final time, he said, why did you do this with me today? I said, because I wanted to. Did you like it? I loved it. If we can do that and experience that, how much more, God, with us? When we get alone with him? Listen, sometimes we are maybe tempted to be afraid when we get alone with God because he might say something. I want to encourage you. You know, I understand that, but after you get to know Jesus for a while, you long for him to say something. It's like, Lord, best I can, I'm not leaving until you say something. We learned that from Jacob, right? We'd grab onto his foot and hang onto it. I'm not leaving until you bless me, God. And so many times in those moments, God will speak things, listen up carefully, this might reach one person or 100. In those times, God will say something to you that you don't understand, you better write it down. You seek God alone and he'll tell you secrets. There's a great book by A.W. Tozer called God Tells the Man Who Cares. And the man who cares is the man who takes the time to be alone with God. And God will tell you things. And sometimes the things will seem crazy. Write them down. Watch what he does. And you'll have confidence. And those believers in Rome, they were confident because they had learned how to follow God. In James chapter 1, verse 22, the Bible tells us, James 1, 22. But be doers of the word and not hearers only. Watch what happens. Deceiving yourselves. Translate. If you're only hearers of the word of God and you don't do it, you're deceiving yourself. You know that? Before I read verse 23, issue of a warning. Remember, this is family talk. This is a very direct message today. If you don't intend to do God's word, you don't need another sermon. Amen. How is it that in our culture we think, I'll listen to a sermon today. In fact, I might listen to three on the road. For what? Stop doing that. Don't listen to any more sermons if you don't intend to do what the Bible says to do. Does that make sense? You say, man, that's kind of harsh. That's not harsh at all. It's basic. It's family talk. This is us. We're not of this world. What if we listened to one sermon and determined to do what we learned? Wow. Verse 23, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. Natural face. Do you know what that word natural face is? Unkept face. Natural. Not supernatural. Natural face. You know your natural face? Have you seen your natural face lately? Yeah. James is warning about the man who looks in the mirror, and instead of him saying, wow, that's revealing. I got to get that fixed. I got to brush those more often, or I got to shave my nose. The guy looks in the mirror and goes, whoa, what a mutt, and then walks away and acts like he's not. He's not. The Bible says, listen, look into me, look into this book, and I'll show you who you really are. And I'm not going to condemn you. And I'm not going to leave you ugly, spiritually speaking. I'm going to make you brand new. I'm going to make you new all over from top to bottom, from side to side, from the spirit inside outward. I'm going to make you beautiful in my sight. God will do that. 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