Pregnant With Expectation

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Don't be surprised if you do not feel God brush up against you or pinch your little arm to let you know he's there. He doesn't do that stuff when you said you that you'd never leave me or forsake me. That's right, but I don't feel it. I didn't say you would feel it. Diddy, he didn't say you'd feel it. I didn't say you'd feel it. Yeah, but I need your strength. You've got it. I need your wisdom right in front of you. I need you to get me through this. I will. The results you got to leave with God. 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. Titus chapter 2 verse 13 says looking for the blessed hope. That's that pregnant expectancy of us being transformed and going into his presence, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious period of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And the words, by the way, and the actions of the believer ought to define a great expectation in our lives. Why? Paul did this. Old, aged, scarred, imprisoned in Rome in a Roman sewer. The mammothin prison. I've been there. Maybe you've been there as well. It's a tourist site where you go in Rome and he was in the belly of Rome underground and in that sewage canal. And he wrote this. One of his last few words, by the way, second Timothy 4 verse 8. Finally, listen to this man. He's looking down the barrel of Nero's judgment. He's going to have his head cut off. Finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day. And not to me only, but to all those who have loved his appearing. Do you love the fact that Christ could appear at any moment? There's a crown of righteousness that awaits you. You and I should be pregnant with this with this expectancy. Colossians 3 verse 4 says, when Christ who has our life appears suddenly appears without warning, by the way. This is not the second coming he's talking about. This is the rapture of the church. Very different. The appearance of Christ. Then you also will appear with him in glory. First Thessalonians, this is how it's going to happen. If any of your technical here, you're going to want to write this down. See, what's the mechanics of that? I don't understand the physics of that. Well, God knew you were going to ask that question, so he gave you this. First Thessalonians 4 verse 13 starts by saying, but I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren. The word ignorant here in the Greek word is, do not be uninformed. It means it's information you can have, so don't avoid it. Get it. Concerning those who have fallen asleep or died in Jesus, believers are referred to as that. They fell asleep in Christ, speaking of the body, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who died in Jesus. Verse 15, for this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are dead. In other words, their dead body is going to pop out of the ground in the resurrection, just nanoseconds before if you're living in that generation and you're walking down the street. It would be awesome if I've told you guys before. I want to be doing a funeral that day at Forrest Lawn. Wouldn't it be great? And now we put brother, Mike's body in the ground. Mike's out here, Mike's with the Lord. Can you imagine we just put the body down in there? The body is going to come up in resurrection and the Bible says we'll read here in a second is that Mike is going to mean his body in the atmosphere. Those who are alive at that moment, not dead, but alive, will be met or more fully. It's that stuff. Listen, it's that thing that you've seen in the movies. You know the left behind movies? You've ever seen those movies, left mind? That's what they're talking about. The pie that's fun, the plane and then he's gone or somebody. Okay, listen, when that happens, only God knows when it's going to happen. Don't think it's not going to happen because it hasn't happened. Hello, it means we're 2000 years closer to it happening. That makes this a very, very good day today. I'm ready. I hope you're ready too. God's God's good. And where was I? Anybody remember? Verse 16, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout. That's John 141, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up. That's the word in Latin rapture or the Greek as Harpazzo caught violently removed, picked up quickly together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord verse 18, therefore comfort one another with these words. And you say, well, I need a little bit more technical instruction on that. Well, look at 1 Corinthians 1550. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You want to know why? This is so cool. We're going, Christian, we're going to an atmosphere where this skin cannot survive. Okay, if you and I went down to the beach right now and we started diving down deep, even with scuba gear on, we can only stay down for so long and we got to come up real slow, right? Why? Because we were not built for that environment. Okay, we're built for here. And we're not even technically built all that well to go too high because after about 10,000, 11,000 feet, you start to get a headache walking in an atmosphere so thin of O2. Are you hearing me? That you're not built for that either. You and I have been built for this earth and that is a scientific and a spiritual fact. But what if we're going to go to heaven? Oh, God's got that covered. He's going to take your resurrected body. He's going to rearrange, which I really appreciate this. He's going to rearrange the molecules. That's why we believe in resurrection. The Bible teaches resurrection, not reincarnation, not resuscitation. He's going to take, and those of you that's even basic physics, he's going to take, for example, your cells and he's going to keep you, you, but he's going to rearrange them ever so slightly and he can change the entire environment or the theater in which you live. He can do that. He's the great physicist. It's remarkable because we cannot in this body. We've got to be changed. Fleshing blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit in corruption. That's another topic for another day, but it's beautiful. Verse 51, Behold, I tell you a mystery. The word mystery on in Greek means it's something that has always been, but it has not been revealed. It's not like a mystery like I'm going to tell you a trick. It means this is eternal truth that has always been, but now is the time that God has revealed it. Oh, yeah, well, what is that? We shall not all die, but we shall be changed. And in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, 18 to 25th of a second, the debate about a twinkling of an eye, the point is it's going to be fast. At the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised, incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Church failure, I just got my Social Security thing from the IRS, or is that who it is? You know, you're this age now, you've got to plan for your welfare, whatever the thing is called. I look at all this stuff, and it's so technical. And it's like, what? It makes you want to die. It's like, really? Wait, if I have this and then that and a portion, 3% of this on top of this, 21% of that, and then you, you can only see that doctor for a certain amount of time, then you got to go to, and it's like, no, this is killing me. It's all complicated, and you're going to get, you know, $1.50 a month after inflation, all this stuff. It's like, oh, boy. Hallelujah. Our retirement program, according to God, he said it is immortality with him. Versus 19 to 21 is the fact that we're looking at a hope that is increasing, and again, we touched on that as well for a moment, and that was we are experiencing a hope that is not a wishful hope. It's a knowing hope. It's a hope. Because the hope is a tough word for us to unpack as Westerners. When we hope, it's like, oh, I hope the sun comes out today. You know, we've had two days of clouds here in California. It's like, what do we do? What do we do? When summer coming back? So, whether people, they say something, and then you hope, or somebody goes somewhere, they hope that they get a room, or you hope they reserved your car, or whatever it is. No, this is the word for hope is not that word. The word for hope, the hope that God gives is, you know, we would say it in our modern tongue, is a hope that you can take to the bank. It's a hope that when God says it, you can grab onto it and say, God, you said it. So, and by the way, that's true faith. God, you said it in your Bible. You said, you love me. I don't feel very loved. This is happening. That's happening. This marital issue, this relational issue, this family or corporate problem. God, I don't feel your nearness. God, listen, don't be surprised if you do not feel God brush up against you or pinch your little arm to let you know you're here. He's there. He doesn't do that stuff. What he does is, he'll remind you in your head, what did I tell you? What did I say to you? Well, you said you never leave me or forsake me. That's right, but I don't feel it. I didn't say you would feel it. Did he? He didn't say you'd feel it. I didn't say you'd feel it. Yeah, but I need your strength. You've got it. I need your wisdom right in front of you. I need you to get me through this. I will. The results you got to leave with God. The results we leave with him, knowing that even nature itself is waiting for the redemption of man. Look at verse 19, for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits. It's kind of an interesting thing for the revealing of the sons of God. That's us, children of God. It doesn't personify nature. Nature's not a person. Nature's not Gaia. It's not a God. Nature is God's creation. What the Bible is announcing is that nature suffers because man sinned in the garden and never since then the world has suffered. I think you know that just by observation and you even feel that. You look around in this world and you realize, wow, things are wrong. I'm not talking about politics or social cultural things. Just naturally. You'd be looking outside like in my backyard. People, it's my backyard is like a zoo. That's not true. It's not true. No animals are in a cage. It's like Jurassic Park. You look out in the backyard and you go, look at that beautiful squirrel. It's so beautiful and then a red tail hawk. It's like, okay, kids look over there, isn't that a nice snail? And there's all kinds of things happening. And if I had the time, I could have showed you my backyard. It was early in the sunny morning and I heard something out back and I looked out the window and there was a cat. Somebody's cat just frozen because a skunk was walking right by him. This is right outside my door. And while that was going on, out in the yard was a possum eating an orange. And it was like, we should sell tickets. Subsidized. The ministry would be amazing. Nature though dies. Nature gets hit by cars. Nature is subject to all the things that plunge it into destruction. And the Bible says that is a result of Adam and Eve and sin. And we'll get more into this. But it was almost like an epicenter happened in a shockwave, went throughout all of God's creation. We saw in verse 20 that knowing that a plan is unfolding by the beautiful power of God to redeem. So here it is. We look at verse 21 and it's this. That we know that there's an ultimate makeover that is coming to this world. This is in verse 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption. This is good news for everybody. Just be a believer. Enjoy this. Well, you don't miss this in the glorious liberty of the children of God. He's talking about the end game. This might come as a shock to some of you, but when you read in the English Bible that when God comes back and judges the world that he's going to implement his kingdom and part of the kingdom is that which follows the reign of Christ on earth. The Bible says first that Jesus will politically rule from Jerusalem. It's called the millennium. You've heard this before. You've read about it. It's one of the most documented things in the entire Bible that finally the world is going to get a political leader that is just holy and pure and it's going to take none other than the Son of God himself. Okay, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen in Sacramento. It's not going to happen in Washington or at the Hague. It's not going to happen in the EU. It's going to happen by God in Jerusalem. He talks about that. The millennial reign of Christ. That's where you've read the home mark cards and stuff where it says the lion will lay down with the lamb. That's right. That's right out of the Bible. You think home mark? Make that up. They stole that. It's plagiarism. They took it from the scriptures. God's going to restore things and what you might find shocking is the Bible says, be hold. They saw a new heavens space and a new earth. That's how you read it in English. Both in the Greek and Hebrew. God is not going to make a brand new heavens and a brand new earth. He's going to take the heavens that have been tainted by sin and the earth that has been ravaged by sin and he's going to restore or recreate. You know this from the great flood of Noah. The Bible says, Noah, get in the boat. I'm going to destroy the world. Did God destroy the world or did he scrub the world? He scrubbed it. He said, Noah, I'll never flood the earth again. Next time I'll burn it. That's what he said. I won't flood it anymore. Next time I'll fry it because it needs to be purged. It needs to be cleanse medical people in here. God's going to autoclave the earth. He's going to purge it from all poisons, diseases and he's going to recreate. He's going to restore forests and rivers and lakes and mountains and animals and it's going to be amazing. I love reading the Bible. There's so much hope. But the Bible tells us and we must agree that nature itself looks forward to that day. It's remarkable. Also, we know this as well is that when God does this beautiful work. It's so much like our nature. Listen. Remember, we've been creating the image of God. Now, you go to church all the time. You take that for granted. But you know how many little kids are growing up in this world today that do not know that? They're being told that they are nothing. They're an evolutionary byproduct. Hey, June, you're guess what? You can do anything you want to do because you're not responsible for anything because you are just a result of primordial goop. You've evolved to this point and eventually will evolve into something else. You're just an animal. But you're at the top of the food chain. That's not exactly true, by the way. We're at the where the apex of evolution. Really? Once you go to Catalina and swim around the island and see if you're at the top of the apex of some of the biggest great whites in the world are on the east or the west coast of Catalina Island. You're going to go in and say, oh, excuse me, I'm the evolutionary apex. And that shark's going to say, what? No, you're not. Evolution is a religion. It's not backed up by science. It's what people cling to when they don't want to believe in God. I get it's convenient. But the fact of the matter is God said, I make creation and I'm going to fix it. And part of God, listen, you down deep inside the little effervescent that's left over from us being created the image of God. Don't you like to restore things to some degree? I mean, some of us just like to just get it over with and buy a new one. But some of you are amazing. Some of you get a piece of junk car and you actually look for it. I want to find the biggest piece of junk I can find. What are you thinking? I'm going to restore it. Why? Because you get such a deep satisfaction of taking something from destruction and putting it back to its former glory. You know, God's going to do the same thing. He's going to take what we crashed, right? So to speak. And he finds it in the junk heap of the universe and he's going to restore it to its former glory. And a little bit of him is in us that way. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast out reach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? 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