The Just Shall Live By Faith

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. This is the physical world you are born into. To enter into the family of God, you've got to be born into the spiritual realm. That's the second birth. Jesus said that to him. What's born of this earth is earthly. What's born down from heaven is of heaven. 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. Right now, according to the Bible, this book is written to Christians, book of Romans, we suffer in this world. It's amazing about Christian suffering is, it makes us more like Jesus. I don't know how that's going to work in eternity, but it's really going to matter. It is a big deal. What you and I suffer in this world for being a Christian is going to really matter in the day of eternity. You have to take that carefully as a mature believer you can't run away from controversy, but at the same time, you shouldn't go looking for it. The Bible says if you're persecuted for Jesus' sake, you're going to receive a great reward in heaven that doesn't mean you're running into a crowd of Jews or Muslims or atheists and say, hey, you're all going to go to hell and they beat you up. You shouldn't get beat up. That's not right. It means that if you and I are going to live like Jesus, go figure it. If you and I are going to live like Jesus, people are going to hate us. Jesus is the most hated individual on this planet today. Why? Because he raised the dead. Why? Because he cleansed the lepers. Why? Because he said if he dies in the cross, he'll die for your sins. He's so hated. He's hated because he rose from the dead. See, Jack, that's not making any sense. Exactly my point. Your rejection of Jesus is a spiritual issue. It's not intellectual. What did Jesus do to upset you? You and I can get in line and tabulate all the people that hurt us. They didn't die for us. And they're not, listen, they're not getting us into heaven. Jesus was the one who when he was beaten and when he was subject to grotesque suffering, the Bible says he opened his mouth not once in defense. Why? Because if he would have, then he would have not fulfilled his plan to redeem you. See, our sins needed to be paid for. God is holy. He can't just say, well, we'll just forget that. He can't. God cannot do that. Someone has to pay. I'd remove this from my vocabulary a long time ago and it's this, God, that's not fair. I never use that word anymore, ever, no way. Because you know what? Strange thing about forgiveness. The only way forgiveness works is if the innocent person issues forgiveness. It gets worse. The person that was sinned against is the person that has to pay the price. That's not fair. Fair is you sinned against me. I punch you out. That's fair. Fair is you do this the wrong thing, you get in a noise cream for you. Right? That's fair. God's not fair. God is extravagant. God says, all of mankind has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God that means this. All of mankind has sinned and by default cannot go to heaven. But I have a plan. I will send my son in the likeness of human flesh, he'll be born just like you were born. He'll feel exactly what you feel except he'll feel it perfectly. He will feel perfect pain. He will feel absolute total rejection. None of us have been rejected like Jesus has been rejected. When somebody drops a brick on their foot in the world, nobody cusses in your name. It's a spiritual issue, friends. So church, it's this, life fully lived. That's when it's going to happen is when this fallen age finally fails and it's going to come to its end. It says, for we know that the whole creation groans in labor is verse 22 with birth pains together until now, suffering, physically, emotionally, in a non-physical sense even the spiritual realm. It's remarkable to me and I wrote it down. I just wrote it down so I wouldn't flood it up, but I'll read it to you. It's just a thought that it's remarkable to me. It's a remarkable word that's defined here. The word groans in the Greek language is stenazzo and it means to exhibit pain. Listen to this or to show evidence of pain. Think about not only Jesus, not only you, but think about this observable world right now. The physical, emotional, non-physical worlds that's the spirit realm are out of sorts. The word means that it's disjointed or misaligned or skewed. Friends listen. That means if your bicycle tires are a little out of whack, it's no big deal. But if you have a centrifuge and something's out of whack, it's a big deal. Are you hearing me? Can you imagine the engine on a jet plane? You know that. Those planes. When you're cruising along eating your chips and sandwich on the flight, you're just sitting up there. You know, the technology that's monitoring those motors, if something goes off just ever so slightly, it's constantly, constantly monitoring. Why? Because it could be catastrophic. Why? Because something is stenazzo. It's out of joint or it's out of place and it causes something to go into like a wobble and eventually fly apart at the seams. Watch this. This is cool. We're almost done. The Bible says the earth and the universe has suffered stenazzo. It's out of sync and it's, imagine a V8 only firing on six of the cylinders that your car is shaking. Imagine, listen, listen up, physicists, astronomers, listen. The universe is so finely tuned to the instigree, you moved Jupiter, we're dead. Did you know that? We're 93 million miles from the Sun. Five miles closer, we fry. Five miles back, we freeze to death. Doesn't that have a Lucian spectacular? God did that. And he said he sent them in their orders and he keeps them in their order. And then there's the world and there's what we call chaos and it's hurting. We call it death. In a uniform fashion, death throughout cells, death throughout atoms, atoms are dying. They're slowing down. Death and life, we'll get this. The thing is, the book of Colossians tells us that the only reason why it doesn't fly apart is because Jesus by the word of His power is holding it together. That is awesome. There's going to come a time when this all that's dead and dying and worn out and pooped out is going to come to its end and it's a good day for the believer. It's a fantastic time. The only church is this is when suffering comes to its end. It says in verse 23 that not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves eagerly waiting. This is describing the daily life of the believer. I'm going to give you some scripture references. We don't have the time to cover them all, but or you can download all the notes online if you would. But you see that word, first fruits, can you circle it? In most of your Bibles, the more accurate translation, you look at the Old King James or maybe the New King James, it will have first fruits as one word. The English word, we flub it, first fruits, it causes a problem. It simply means this. It comes out of the book of Leviticus chapter 23. It's also in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 26, but it's this you guys. That says here that not only that, but we also who have the, look, the first fruits of the spirit, follow me, Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, right? It says by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ was risen from the dead. Watch this, Jesus being resurrected from the dead, all those who believe in Him shall be resurrected from the dead also. He is the first fruit. Those who believe in Him, trust Him, are also partakers or they, we are also first fruits. What's his first fruit stuff? When man did a work when he plowed his field, Leviticus 23 says, or if you had your vineyard or your cattle or whatever it might be, the first born or the first harvested, the first bunch, the bushel, was presented by you or your family to the Lord and the priest would take it and he would wave it. It says it's a wave offering before the Lord. What's the deal about that? It's to remind you that God provided this for you, that God is good and that God deserves the best off the top for this reason. It's great because the Bible says, does God need it? He doesn't need it. So what is he taking? He doesn't take it. He'll never take it. You have to offer it. I want to keep all the money I make, keep it. Other people will read this and say, I get it. God gets the first fruits of what He's allowed me to do. You know what that does to you? It does something to you that money can't buy. It causes you to be thankful. It causes you to be appreciative. All the stuff you're trying to teach your kids? Dad, it needs the money. I don't have any. Just go to the debit machine, the ATM. That's what kids think. What do you mean you don't have any money? That little box always spits money out. Go get it. And that's not how it works. When we give to God, it sets our heart right. It sets our heart straight. It's a good thing. But the point is, first fruits, according to the work of Jesus on the cross, the reward that Christ is given is you. Jesus suffers all of that, goes through all of it. Dies is resurrected. And the Bible says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, putting up with the shame of it all. Why? Because it says that he, the joy that he inherits is the joy of our salvation. Jesus pays for it. And then he's the one that's all excited that we're saved. See, wait, don't you have that in your way? He paid for it, but shouldn't we be excited? Yeah, you'd think, right? If that were true, we would never complain again, or gripe again. If that were true, we would break down the doors of the church to get in before worship started. It's like, whoa, man, come on, let's just, let's just break down the doors and get in there. Heck, if the band's not playing, we'll get up there and play it ourselves. Let's give God glory. You can't stop this and you can't stop somebody like that. When they start to realize, wait a minute, God's giving me breath right now, the O2 and all. Yep, my heart's beating because of his goodness. Yep, then give your first heart beat to God. Give your first breath to God. It's not the money thing. God doesn't want our Mercedes. He doesn't want our yacht, he doesn't want our, whatever it is, are you hearing me? You get this, right? He wants your heart. Any love relationship demands intimacy. Otherwise, it's not a good word. And then finally, we end with this. It's here. It's when we become, finally, thank God, we become the redeemed you and me. Jesus said, you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. And remember, Nicodemus went into this conibction. He couldn't figure it out. I'm an old man, my mom, she's older than me. How do I get back inside of my mom and come out a second time, Jesus? What are you saying? And Jesus says, aren't you the teacher of all Israel? You know what I'm talking about? It's spiritual. If I were writing the Bible, I would have said, it's spiritual, you knucklehead. What's wrong with you? You got to, Nic, too much smarts. You're not thinking this through. This is the physical world you were born into. To enter into the family of God, you've got to be born into the spiritual realm. That's a second birth. Jesus said that to him. What's born of this earth is earthly. What's born down from heaven is of heaven. And so in this, we find out when we read, that God says in eternity, he knew that you would say yes to him when you heard the gospel. You've heard the gospel three times today, by the way. I don't know if you're counting. Three times you've heard it, that he loves you, died on the cross for you and rose again from the dead. Three times you've heard this. God is good and he invented you with the ability to choose because God's not Elon Musk who makes robots. He made you in his likeness and you can choose whatever you want. And if you want to go to heaven, God says, great, here's the ticket. This is the way you go. And if you don't, then like Spurgeon said, every human will have at least one prayer answered. Isn't that a scary statement? I don't want God in my life than you won't. Don't worry about it. You won't have to. He won't make you. That would be rape. Put you in a headlock and say, tell me you love me and tell me I'm Lord. Tell me I'm the best God ever. He's not gonna do that. Just like you wouldn't do that. And the Bible tells us he adopted us. I love that. When you're born into a family, you're born into a family. What are you gonna do? The kid comes out, I guess he's ours. What are you gonna do? He can't send him back. See, is there like a Amazon sticker we can put on this guy? He's yours. God, on the other hand, picks. He adopts. That's better, it's better for us. See, well, Jack, I mean, I love that, but how do I know God picked me? It's very simple. Do you want him? Do you want him? Do you want to know him personally every day 24, 7, literally for real? We're not talking about religion. You happen to be in a church right now that has these walls. That's just to pull this thing off. Keep us from getting sunburned or rained on. Seriously, beyond this is not the church. You're the church, and here's the thing, we could pack up and go to the, on a side of a hill and have church just like this because you are the church. But it's a choice that you make, but it's an opportunity that God gives you. Religion says, keep these 10 steps and sign this thing and do the other and you'll be accepted. God's not into that. That's what man does. God says, you wanna love me? Here's the deal. I died for you. You think about this. You are in a fireball planet heading toward into Oblivion and God is saying, you can jump now. I've given you a parachute. Jump and notice little kids in heart. They jump just like that. You put a little kid up in a wall, watch him jump. And they'll say, do it again. Aren't they amazing? You put me on a wall and you're gonna catch me? I'm not jumping. Think about that. Little kids, very believing at heart, very precious. And Jesus says, your heart must become like the heart of a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. What does that mean? Be believing. You're a person and you appreciate a real relationship. Why would you have God be less when He made you? You didn't make Him. And He wants to know you personally and He adept it. So you say, how do I know? If you want Him, it's because He knew an eternity that when you would hear the gospel, you would say, yes. If you're sitting here today, if you're watching right now and you're saying, I don't care a word about what you're saying, that's because He didn't pick you. Well, what's that based off of? For knowledge. He knew an eternity before time ever began that when you were presented with the option, you would say no. So He didn't pick you. Why would you go to a horse race and pick a horse that's gonna lose? Why would you go to the Indianapolis 500 or the Long Beach Grand Prix and pick a loser? Right, think about that. You pick who's gonna win. Well, the Christian is not the winner. We benefit, but the truth of the matter is this. God knew an eternity that you would say yes to His offer or no to His offer. And to say no, you continue on that fireball crash into eternity that's called hell. And the Bible says everyone's there, who is there has no one to blame but themselves. But everybody who's in heaven gives God thanks for getting them there. Isn't that beautiful? This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcasts outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.