Scars

Real life presents the Jack Hibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Friend, are you suffering? Are you going through something? It's not the end. He has a plan. We don't want to know what it is. He's not going to tell you. That takes faith. If he told you, it wouldn't take any faith. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibb'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 Hibb's. What are you going to do? You cling to Christ. What are you going to do when the doctor makes his announcement? You cling to Christ. And it's not, you know, listen, it's not such a, I understand. None of us want to go through any pain. We're all on the same team on that, okay? And if we could just die, just, and then we open up our eyes and we're in heaven. I don't want needles. I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to get there. But his grace will be there. He's promised us his grace. But you know, listen, we're going to heaven. Now, the Bible doesn't say much about heaven. Just enough. Paul the Apostle, we infer from his writings, it says that I know a man who was killed and who was caught up to heaven and saw things that is not legal for a man to speak of. They were so glorious. It's so amazing. Paul said, I'm not talking about the glory. It's illegal for human words to describe it. It's so awesome. What do you think about that? How can that possibly be? See us Lewis tries to describe such differences from lostness and redemption. And he talks roughly this way. He says, you know, concerning what God is going to do with us, who trust in Christ, he said, consider a cow. How bad can a cow be? A cow, you know, black and white cow? How bad can a cow be? How good can a cow be? This is the cow being bad. It's the cow being good. Looks black and white to me. What about a dog? Can a dog be a little bit worse than a cow? Can a dog be a little bit better than a cow? I think way better than a cow. I don't know. We've had three dogs in our lives. They've all been bored again. Amazing. They exhibit the fruit of the spirit like I've not seen in people. But the more you emanate out from that, the more risk it gets. How bad can an angel be? How good can an angel be? Wait a minute. Angels were not created in the image of God. We were. How good can we be? How bad can we be? When Christ comes back to get us, he's taking us to you and I being the absolute perfect will and express image of God like Jesus was here on earth. He's going to glorify us, the Bible says. We'll get to this later in this chapter. You guys, we have an amazing future. This earth is not you. I'm going to grab one with Gusto again. I can die tomorrow. Let's live it up. Man, you need to get a heavenly perspective. You understand? Living it up with Christ is coming. It's amazing. The Bible tells us in Philippians chapter 3, verse 10, a very dear verse to me personally. I didn't understand it for years until, frankly, I went through a bunch of suffering. And it's Philippians 3.10 and I have to tell you before I went through something, this is how I read the Philippians 3.10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Wow, what a verse. I'm honestly tearing, don't tell anybody. I'm telling you, this is personal. What is the rest of the verse say? And the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. What? What is that? I never read the whole thing. You know what? You know why this verse has become dear to me for life. We were a little home fellowship group in Chino Hills and a couple of houses. And we decided to host a Sunday Easter sunrise service at the park. We had no idea what we were doing. And hundreds of people showed up. We were completely blown away. We were talking about all the stuff that God had done that day. And later that evening we were at Mark and Mary's house and we were talking and said, amazing. And I felt this and I felt this and I felt like I got a beast thing inside my guts. It was like, what was that? And then happened again. And I told these sites, I have to go home. So I just walked across the street for a house. And frankly, I started going to the bathroom. And I didn't stop for nine months. And I was in the hospital and I was going through every test you can imagine. And the pain is increasing and it's not a happy picture. And I lost 30 something pounds. And I was going to mimic. I couldn't keep anything in. And so now they're telling me, well, it looks like you have either stomach or colon cancer. But we're sending you to this specialist and they did this again. And I don't know. You know, doctors do. Doctors do, Dr. Joe does the test on Monday, but Dr. Phil, he's got to have the same test done on Thursday. Because he doesn't trust Dr. Joe's. And so it's like, it's just my body who cares. Just do your, you know what I'm saying? And it's just like after a while, you're just like this. Right? And then you get to the point when you're looking at Philippians 3.10 and I remember saying, I'm good. Whatever you're doing. I'm good with it. Everybody sprayed for me. My company backster. They were amazing. They broke all kinds of rules to keep me still employed because I missed months of work. And I resigned. That's it. God, you're so good. You're amazing. And he spoke to my heart. I didn't hear a voice, but he spoke to my heart. He said, you love this verse, but you've never read it all the way through. This is what I'm doing in your life. And then it dawned on me right then and there. Lord, if you're putting me through this suffering, then you have a plan. Friend, are you suffering? Are you going through something? It's not the end. He has a plan. Who I want to know what it is. He's not going to tell you. That takes faith. If he told you, it wouldn't take any faith. I want to see everything. I'm not going to happen. Abraham went out following God, not knowing where he was going. How's that? Abraham gets an A. Sarah gets two A's. Can you imagine Sarah following me? Where are we going? I have no idea. And she followed him. So both of them amazing. He says also regarding verse 18, is that we have to have the right perspective. And the word there is, are not worthy. These difficulties are not worthy to be compared. The word worthy is Axios. And here it's in the negative sense, obviously, if you look at this. But the word is announcing that what heaven awaits us to enjoy, that there's nothing on earth that you can compare it to. It's not in the same league. It's not weighty compared to where we're going. So as we wrap this up, you need to be thinking, are you going to heaven? Where are you? Listen, if you're inside your head, if you're today saying, I think I'm good. Don't think you're good. The Bible says you are to know that you're good. I don't mean good, good, secure. And know this. You can't get to heaven by any good deeds of your own. The Bible says. What about all the nice stuff I've done? Good, good. That's it. Good, good for you. But doesn't that get me into heaven? Nope. You can't get to heaven by being good. You get to heaven by being washed in his blood. You get to heaven by trusting him and leaning upon him. And then he goes on and we'll wrap it up here. This is where we'll end is that we're to be looking forward to what I call the beginning. What God has in store for us, he announces here, with the glory which shall be revealed in us, the glory. What an amazing thing, doxa. It's where we get the word doxology. You've heard that term. Give us or present the doxology. Allogy, words by allogy, words about bio. Allogy is the study of or you could say words of doxa, the words of glory. We should be talking by the way about the words of glory, the things of glory, the book of glory. Because that's where we're going. And what is going to be revealed in us, this world cannot cast a shadow upon us. Cast a shadow upon in its most grotesque suffering. I speak to you by faith. I don't understand what I'm about to say. But I believe the Bible. How in the world will God make right somebody who brutally rapes a one-year-old child to death? If I were God, I know exactly how I would deal with it before that event even got started. Are you hearing me? What does any do something about it? Is our earthly question. I get it. Can you imagine weight? It's not just him. Can you imagine God holding the angels back at bay who they would delight to kill that perpetrator? In a second. And God says, wait. I don't understand it. Somehow, some way God is going to be glorified and that those who have been victims, God is going to vindicate. I don't understand it. But we're talking about heaven here. But it's so horrible in the now. Listen, it might get worse. Well, it will get worse according to the Bible. It's just going to make heaven all that more weighty for us. We need to stop looking at the here and now as the terminus. We're all hurting some ways regarding something. But this I've learned in a very tiny way, what I've gone through in other areas, it was necessary for what he wanted to speak to me about. And then he always lays this on me because he's really loving. Are you willing to go through this, Jack? That somebody might get saved. Are you willing to go through this right now so that others might grow in Jesus? How do you answer him when he says that to you? Yes. No, I have to confess, it makes things beautifully, perfectly and prospective. Are you willing to suffer through this so that others might know? Yes, sir. The glory of heaven, I want to remind all of you, heaven is going to be awesome. According to the Bible, I probably should put it this way. Some time ago, somebody was listening to our program on the radio in LA and they came and they were horrifically offended and upset and they'll never be back here again. You want to know why? Because we had drums on the stage. And everyone knows that Satan lives, see that little hole right there? Have you read your Bible? Of course. Have you read the Psalms? Yes. How about Psalm 150? Have you read Psalm 150? Psalm 150 is really a loud psalm. There are symbols slamming, there's drums beating, there's sound singing, the voice of people shouting, it's like an ocean waves roaring. God speaking, the Bible says that when Jesus speaks, it sounds like a gigantic rushing waterfall. Heaven is loud. What do I like loud? See, we get this thing. Rest in peace. May he rest in peace. Who? Our brother who just passed? Well, he's not resting in peace. I mean, let's be honest. He's not resting in peace if he's a brother of mine. If he's a brother or sister of yours, they're not resting in peace. They're parting in praise. They're worshiping God. The praise, the angels are singing. It's loud and noisy. So I don't want that. Well, it's your choice. We're going to have a great time up there. And it's going to be amazing. I want to leave you with this picture, everybody. You can close your Bibles. We're all done. It's pretty amazing. We're on the Mount of Beatitudes. Now, when you go to Israel, there are locations where you are in the vicinity of. Archaeological evidence when we are in the area of Gideon Springs. We're pretty sure that this spring, no doubt, has been here for thousands of years. We have all kinds of records of it. But where did Gideon and his 300 kneel down? We don't know. Or when we're over at this site, what about this? What about that? And this coin was found right here. Now, when we go to some sites like Magdala, now you're standing in the synagogue where Mary of Magdala, Mary Magdalen, stood. They've in a flood on Earth the old synagogue. And it's beautiful. You'll see it when you go. But when you go to the Mount of Beatitudes, up in the country in the Galilee, it's gorgeous, by the way. And it's very much untouched. And there's one spot up there where it is well known and documented that that's where Jesus gave them teaching of the Beatitudes. And one of the things that's remarkable about it, you can talk right there and the sound just goes forever. You can talk to a huge crowd, not that he needs help. But maybe Jesus used the acoustics that he created. But the Bible says there are thousands there listening. So we were taking our tour and teaching the people and we got done. And there was a back over by the road. There was a backhoe, like a case or a John Deere backhoe tractor. It was all locked up, shut up. But we noticed that there were two dogs tied to the tractor. In fact, if I remember right, John Strasch and Morgan Lawrence, my son-in-law, they saw the dog and they went over there and the two dogs, one dog was in a bad way. It was chained to the tractor, but the other dog was loose. It was free. But the other dog didn't want to leave the chained up dog side. And the dog that was chained up, if you know what a German short-haired pointer is, and the dog had been there so long, I think either the worker died or went away for the season or something, but this dog has chained to this tractor and the other dog must, I'm guessing, how does this dog live? There's no food, there's no water. And so I think his buddy was bringing him food, I'm guessing, but when they showed up, the dog ran away, but the other dogs just chained like this mortified. And they began to calm it down and they realized the chain had grown into the neck of the dog. So it must have been there as a very young dog in the chain. So just getting that chain off is going to be a bloody mess. But those guys, they broke into the tractor cab and they got out tools and they started prying the ugly, horrible chain. I'm talking about a construction chain, not a chain like, oh, yeah, cross at the end. This is a brutal, this is a chain that you chain fences with and that dog is just there mortified and they got in his blood and all this, but it has the incredible scar of links around its neck and they got him and he took off running. And then his buddy came up and they got together and they look back at everybody and they took off running and really everybody in the bus says, yeah, it's... And so you think for a moment, how that dog get like that? I don't know. What was going on in that dog's mind? I don't know, but that dog was not made to be tied up like that, but a stranger came along and set him free. He still has the scars I'm sure to this day of that chain around his neck about his past. Scars are still there as a reminder, but no longer controlling them. That dog probably won't get near a chain again. There's the scars, been set free. Do we not all bear the scars, but we've been set free? Don't let your scars determine your liberty or not, your freedom or not as a believer. Oh, my life's been so bad. Scars that he converts into displays of glory. It's true about his own body, it's true about our testimonies and stories as believers what God has brought you through. Is it not?