Thanksgiving Special: Rejoice Always

00:00 - Announcer (Announcement) Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. 00:09 - Jack Hibbs (Host) Hey you guys. We're going to be talking about why you should be thankful. Here's the quick word on how to nurture a thankful heart, why it matters and how you and I can experience rejoicing in every situation. Stay tuned. 00:23 - Announcer (Announcement) You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com 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. 00:52 - Jack Hibbs (Host) Hey everybody, welcome to this special, special, special, special podcast, as we present to you just an encouragement. We're going to keep this short. I say that right now. We're going to keep it short because it's Thanksgiving and you're probably out and about at least in America. This is our one and only holy day. For our nation, it is literally a holy day not a holiday exactly, but a holy day for the American here in the United States because it is Thanksgiving. It is 100% founded upon a faith-based group of people, the Pilgrim Fathers, who responded to God's goodness for all that he had provided. They gathered together with the local and native Indians in Massachusetts area, most specifically Plymouth area. They celebrated together their thanks to God. 02:00 I know that in this world right now there's a lot of really dumb, ridiculous, stupid, uneducated argumentation about that really didn't happen, that the white man slaughtered all the Indians and the Thanksgiving didn't really take place. What actually did and there's libraries filled with eyewitness accounts what you're probably referring to is what is known as the King Philip War. King Philip War didn't happen for about 50 years later, quite frankly, because the first generation failed on both sides, both American and Indian, to tell their children what great things God had done. When King Philip became the leader of those Indian tribes, they began to war against the white man, white man against the Indian, and you have the atrocities of King Philip's War. It's the bloodiest war in American history per capita, per population. A lot of people don't realize that Per number dead, per those in battle and those in the colony, was even greater than the Civil War, which is hard to believe. We leave that alone, because that comes 50 years later. We're talking about being thankful and that Thanksgiving is a time of true praise and thanks and contemplation and pondering upon the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob who led us across the sea from Europe, pagan Europe, christianized pagan Europe that was. They took the faith and they wound up making it a government type of function. Our pilgrims said no, we're not going to live like that. We're going to come here to worship God freely. If you doubt what I'm saying, you don't have to doubt much longer because you can simply read the Mayflower Compact. I would love, you might love it if today, thanksgiving Day, that you would read the Mayflower Compact, because it is the birth certificate that led to the first Thanksgiving, which led to the development of the Plymouth Colony, which was different than the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Jamestown Colony and so many other colonies that came earlier. The difference with Plymouth in the pilgrims is that it was the first one, 1620. It was the first one that was founded upon an evangelistic Christian missionary journey. Did you know that People want to talk about 1619. 04:40 You can talk about 1619. You can talk about 1611. You can talk about 1605. Sure, you can talk about those times, but don't confuse those things with unbelieving privateers trying to establish more money for themselves versus the pilgrims of 1620. So don't confuse the carnal attempt to establish this country versus the spiritual attempt to cause this nation to be. And that's the one that took, by the way, that's the one that gave birth to this country that you and I have today in America with our Declaration of Independence, with our Bill of Rights, with our Constitution, all of us based upon the pilgrim fathers, and it's quite awesome. That should be like 100% normal American education. 05:42 But this is what I want to draw to your attention today, and then I want to say a few things to all of you that I'm very, very thankful for. But before I do that, I want to read something to you at 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, because have you ever wondered what God's will is for your life? Have you ever wondered what does God want me to do? What does God have in store for me? What's my next step? What should I do next? God's got the answer and it's up to you to get it. And here's how you get it 1 Thessalonians 5, and it's about verse oh, I would say 16. 06:23 Short verse rejoice always. Rejoicing always is a decision that you make. Rejoice always, not when things are good, not only when things are going well, not only when the sun is shining or everybody's healthy. Should you then rejoice? It says always. He doesn't say be happy always. He says rejoice always, because to rejoice is to decide to give God praise, honor and glory every day in the midst of your moment. And the day is made up of moments, and the day is made up of hours and weeks and months and years. And you and I can rejoice even if, at this moment, wherever you are in the world, your nation is being overrun, for example, by radicals or by terrorists or by bombs, you can still rejoice because it doesn't change the existence of your relationship between you and God. 07:25 Then the next verse says this pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing, you might say Jack. I've always had a hard time with that verse, because how in the world do you pray without ceasing? Don't you have to bow your knee? Don't you have to close your eyes? Don't you have to get on your knees or at least lift your hands? No, to pray without ceasing means nurture, stay in an attitude of rejoicing, giving God thanks and communicating with Him on an open basis. The lines are open. Have you ever heard somebody say you know hope, you enjoyed our program and if you'd like to support our show, the lines are open. Have you ever heard that before the lines are open, have you ever been on a call where you've got a dropped call? Well, we're not talking about a dropped call. We're talking about a call that is between you and God on a continuous basis, where you nurture an attitude of prayer. Simply this talk to God moment by moment, all the time. You don't need to open the lines, because the lines are already open. 08:31 If you're a believer, you're walking in the spirit. That's what it means. To walk in the spirit is to walk in this mindset, in this attitude that God is always with you, he loves you and that you're going through life with Him. You're not going through life alone and you're not going through life and you call upon Him to show up and things are bad. He's with you all the time and then listen, it even gets better. 08:55 In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. For you, that's the will of God. In everything, give thanks. So in this Thanksgiving season, how does that look? We stop and we realize and, by the way, we've got to stop in everything, give thanks. So that means you and I would stop today and pause and say gosh, I guess I should write down the things that I'm thankful for. So, for example, it could be your marriage, it could be your job, it could be your health, it could be whatever. I don't know. It's different for you than it is for me. There's some things that we would have that would overlap, but it should be a very personal thing. Are you thankful that? I don't know? Filled in the blank. But can you pause and say Lord, I'm rejoicing in you, I'm so thankful and I'm praying always and I know that it's your will that I be thankful for everything and in everything. 10:01 And friends, listen, here's the punchline to this Thanksgiving exhortation. There is no power on earth that can rob you of that rejoicing if you're thankful, if you choose today to be thankful. Look, I live in California. It's extremely beautiful, most beautiful state in the nation, but it's the most politically messed up state in the nation. But I rejoice and I thank God for it. There's crazy things going on in our world, around us. There's violence, there's rioting, there's mayhem, there's financial instability. I choose to rejoice in the Lord always because he's good and because that is prayer that is never ceasing. And in that relationship I have with Him I can rejoice right now. 10:57 You might say well, pastor, you're not plugged into a device right now. You're not plugged into a dialysis machine, you're not plugged into some sort of chemotherapy right now. No, I'm not yet right. There's a day when I'm going to have pain and sorrow and suffering to a different degree than I normally have in life, like you do. But by the grace of God, I'm gonna choose to obey His word and I'm asking you to consider that today and again. I don't want this to be long because you're gonna be with family and I want you to be with family and have a great time. But I just right before we just went on the air right now with this podcast. It dawned on me that just this year, in fact less than a year, in 10 months, in 10 months, we started this podcast and there are a couple of times in the last 10 months when this podcast hit number one for a moment or two as people viewed it. 12:00 I'm thankful for that, not because we were selling something, but because we were giving truth, so I'm thankful for that. You know what I'm thankful for? That? At the Honda Center this last year, we hosted just church. My name wasn't mentioned. The church that I passed here's name wasn't mentioned. People showed up by the thousands for a one night service to rededicate their life to Christ. It wasn't a crusade, it wasn't an outreach to the unsaved. It was an invitation for the child of God, the prodigals, to come back home, and thousands of people came. It was an awesome event. It was called Just Church and I'm thankful for that. 12:45 I'm thankful for the fact that the real life network was launched this year. Oh, my goodness, listen to this. The real life network. We launched to circumnavigate YouTube and Facebook and everybody that was shutting us down. So we wound up creating the real life network and we put people on that network 24, seven, 365 Christian on demand broadcasting, free to the broadcaster, free to you, the recipients, free, if you just go to the app. We were so happy to announce that and that's been several months. In fact, it was launched on Pentecost Sunday of 2023. We've had somewhere over 7 million views already, with great programming that continues to be updated and upgraded and you ought to check it out If you don't know. 13:38 I'm thanking God for the real life network. I'm also thanking God for the fact that I had the chance for the first time and many things, by the way. Now it dawns on me the first chance that I had to go to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. It's the largest convention in the world of its type. And not only what was I honored to be there, but I was in completely blown away and blessed that the real life network was highly featured there by the NRB. We were really humbled by that. Everybody flocked to our display. It was more than a display. It was really a portable studio that was set up and we interviewed people like Ron DeSantis and Jenna Ellis, john Solomon, michelle Bachman. I mean, there's so many people I'm missing right now, but there are tons of people. God bless that. That was amazing. Also, this the real life network went to Washington DC this last year, a couple months ago, and it was the key ministry and support of the Family Research Council's annual Gala and we had a tremendous time there and it was a powerful time. 14:56 I had an amazing opportunity just a few weeks ago to speak at a private gathering in Colorado Springs with Dr James Dobson, the actual founder of Focus on the Family, but now the founder also of Family Life, dr James Dobson and Shirley Dobson. I was honored. He came up. I couldn't believe it, at least when I almost fainted, because we grew up raising our kids listening to him and he came up to me and he gave me a hug and he said I want you to know that Shirley and I watch services every Sunday and you are our pastor. And I actually thought I was having a dream. It was the strangest thing in the world for me. It was amazing and I wanna, I just wanna. I'm thankful, so thankful and humbled by that. 15:50 You know what Salvation's at church. Just speaking the truth, look, I gotta tell you that we're not really an evangelistic church. Don't get me wrong. We believe in evangelism. We have a lot of evangelists at our church. We have the call ministry and we have so many people that go out and share the Lord in all kinds of ways and it's awesome. But I am more of a disciple maker more than I am an evangelist, but we've had so many people come to Christ this last year I'm grateful for that. 1,250 plus people were baptized in the Pacific Ocean this year and that's amazing, always amazing. 1,250 plus were baptized. We hosted the Huntington Beach Pastors Engagement Conference where we paid all the expenses for pastors to come to a one day incredible gathering to equip pastors on how to affect their culture for Jesus as being salt and light. 16:48 Mali, west Africa, continues to grow. We had the largest private school in Mali, africa and also we've not only been helping out with Maui, hawaii and the fires, but we are just about ready to get ready to do major construction efforts in Maui and their rebuilding efforts. Buds I threw that in there. Buds is our men's gathering where I simply speak to the men and then they speak to one another. Once a month Our men break away from the small groups. They get into one large group over 2,000. I don't know anywhere from 1,500 plus men get together in one room, all private, just us together, and they share what God's doing with their lives. I am so thankful that we have an amazing church of men who are celebrating their biblical masculinity on being servants. I'm grateful for this church that I have a chance to pastor, the one that we started, together with Jesus, of course, 33 years ago. 17:48 Tv radio Sacramento, the rally at the Capitol regarding stopping abortion voting, ballot collection the church has become the epicenter for ballot harvesting, ballot collection in the state of California. For all of you. I'm thankful for your prayers and for your support. Have you noticed that we don't ask for money on all of our broadcasts? You wanna know why? Because people send money. They pray, god speaks to them and they send. They're co-laborers with us. And then, finally, I'd leave the best for last. 18:19 Without my wife and family, I could not be doing what I'm doing. Yes, we have an amazing staff on various fronts. I have the opportunity to be involved in various ministries and overseeing those ministries, and in each of them we have amazing boards. We have amazing staff in those ministries, but none of it would be possible without an amazing wife and an amazing family. So I am thankful and I hope that you're thankful too. So God bless you guys as we head into the new year, coming up really soon, but listen, get ready for Christmas, because it's coming. Shout to everybody, you see, merry Christmas, because that also is a great reason why you should be thankful today, thanksgiving. God bless you guys. And, of course, as always we believe here at Real Life that it's not only what you believe in that matters, it's that you live out what you believe in. It's time for real life. God bless you until next time. 19:20 - Announcer (Announcement) This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities our listeners supported, Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.