The Muddy Waters Of Religion

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
Being led by the Spirit of God is not being led into a lie, into the truth. God loves you. He made you. He's got a purpose for your life. Listen, he knows exactly who you are and who you're supposed to be. We don't know who we're supposed to be. He knows.

00:29 - Speaker 1
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.

00:58 - Speaker 2
I know you're sitting here right now and it doesn't seem like you're getting any movement, but that's just your physical body right now. Did you know that if you're listening, the Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Right, your ears are taken in the truth of God and it's going into your brain, processed and it's being deposited in your soul. That alone is fascinating Physical sounds carrying eternal truth. Ponder that for a moment. Teleonometry, the conveyance or the sending of information, where we get the word telemetry Leaves, goes to the air, processed by your ear, put into your mind, your soul, suke your mind, thinking, and then what your mind decides to do with it, either rejects it or settles down into your heart and becomes faith. Listen, a lot of people are going to wind up in hell because they missed it by 18 inches. That's the distance between your brain and your heart. Get it on the inside and when it takes root, you are exercising yourself to godliness. So look at this verse 1, timothy 4-7. Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wise fables. Instead, train yourself to be godly. In other words, train yourself to do what Jesus would do. Verse 8,. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better. I'm going to submit to you. It's also much harder Promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it.

03:03
Now, you guys, I've been so. Here's the thing. We're supposed to exercise. We really should do that. I used to exercise and then I met my wife. I think I stopped like 44 years ago. I stopped. But you should exercise. You should keep your body usable to God. You don't want to abuse your body, so God can't use your body. You want to keep your body usable. That's why you don't eat donuts, or sometimes donuts.

03:42
I heard the groan over here. This guy's flesh, this guy's flesh over here went oh, but look, you can go overboard. You can go overboard in this and you can go too hard on this. But listen, spiritually speaking, look, we should take care of our bodies. But spiritually speaking, how much am I working out spiritually? And I'm going to submit to you that that's hard work. I could go to the gym I'm not, but I could and do something there and it's okay. You get a pump and you feel fine and you feel good, but the thing is, you know this right, it only lasts for a little while. How many days? Maybe hours, days, and it's like man, I got to get back in there. But spiritually speaking, when you're building up your spirit, that's the workout of the inside Attitude, priorities, vision, life being led by the Spirit of God. It's amazing.

04:51
You guys know that I have a dear friend. I call him. When I text him, I just say I call him my brother or my son in the faith. He's in the NFL, he'll be starting this year, first string quarterback. And here's the thing he's got to work on his body. You know, listen, there's an army that gathers around these guys to make sure how's your ankle? How's your ankle today? How's your toe? It's fine, you know, can you move your neck? I mean these people, they're like race horses, these athletes. But the most important thing to him is and he's always saying to me I just want to make sure I glorify Christ. I want to make sure I glorify Christ and all these things, no matter what. Health, no health, touchdown, no touchdown, win or loss, I want to glorify Jesus. That's a great way to live being led by the Spirit.

05:40
Don't just talk about it, say it. So what do you mean by that? Verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, wow, but you received the spirit of adoption. Notice, the counter to fear is knowing your adoption. Opposing powers fear adoption by whom we cry out Abba, father. Verse 16, for the Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit internally. The real you, by the way, the real you lives inside your body, will not live forever. The inside of you, your thinking, your personality, the you that animates your body, will live forever. That's the Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness that we are children of God. What a profound statement. That is everybody. That is huge. Mark it down this way, please. When I say say it, I mean this Say it that the Lord has called you his own. The Bible says this God has chosen to call you his own. You say Jack, I don't see that in the text.

06:50
Yes, you do In the scripture there, verse 15,. Do you see the Aramaic word, abba? It's not Hebrew, it's Aramaic. Jesus spoke predominantly Aramaic, hebrew and Greek in your New Testament. Aramaic, aramaic, abba. Now Hebrew, the Greek, the Greeks, the Jews in Israel. It's very fun. When we're there. You'll see the kids playing in the streets and they'll be running, goofing off and they'll call to their dad and they'll go Abba. And it's just very cute, especially for us, because that's not the way. We don't call our dad's Abba, we say dad.

07:34
Now, if we're really going to be accurate and this is offensive, listen if you're Jewish, you're going to be offended in the next few moments. If you're a legalist, you're going to be offended. In fact, the scribes and Pharisees were horrifically offended, to the point they were so offended that when Jesus ascribed his existence and his eternalness with his father, jesus said Abba. And Abba is what Italian word is papa. This offends. People Say that that's sacrilegious. Maybe for a legalistic person it is, but not for Jesus and not for his sons and daughters.

08:20
Listen, if you call your loving father daddy or dad, that is a term of endearment. I hate to be blunt here, but here it is. Anyone can father a child. Let me take that back In this day and age Time out. Let me put that back. If you're a man with male parts that are healthy, you can father a child. Look, I worked 13 years in biology. I mean, you just can't fake that, it's it. You can father a kid. That doesn't make you a dad. The Bible would say papa. How tender is that?

09:06
Many times when Jesus was speaking to his father in the gospels, he says papa. He says papa. I love that. Have you noticed that when a child is needing their father, they'll run and they'll call out daddy? Or, and by the way, when they do that I don't know roughly around the age three, four, five, they'll run and they'll grab on to dad's knee and hide behind his thigh. Look out from behind to see what's going on. They're okay, dad's got this. I've run to papa. It's remarkable, it's awesome.

09:46
Note that he says to us what did not happen the moment we came to know Christ. One thing is certain Fear went out the window. There is no justifiable reason for a Christian to be fearful. Do we hear news we don't want to hear? Of course we do. Are the things we don't understand all the time? But this I know God loves me. He's going to work it out. What do they mean? They're going to work it out. What if you die? If I die, I win. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. The Bible says so. We didn't receive that spirit of bondage, slavery. We didn't receive a spirit of fear.

10:34
But look at the positive in this statement. It is that word cry, crozo. In Greek it means to shout out with a loud scream. To shout, to scream, to cry out loud. The child of God cries out to God saying papa, father, dad. That's hard for us, especially if we've got a wall built up to this relationship with our God. The book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse five, says but the Holy Spirit also bears witness with us, for after he had said before this is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and into their minds. I will write them. What an awesome statement.

11:22
Have you noticed kids that take after their father, their Abba? I'm talking about in the positive? Little kids will mimic mom and dad. Listen, it's very sweet notice when juniors three years old. He tries to put on dad's work boots and walk around the house. Don't discourage that. Don't say, oh, you're gonna scuff up the floor, forget the floor. Let the kid try to walk around in his dad's boots. Now listen, let's be honest. If he puts on mommy's high heels, this really happens. No, no, no, they will do it. They don't know the difference. This is where parenting comes in. Parenting 101. Hey, buddy, those are for mom, those are for your sister. Take those off and put on your dad's boots. Oh, can you do that? You better do that. That's called parenting. Train up a child in the way that they should go. If you have any doubts, look at the parts. No, you guys, this is normal.

12:25
Being led by the Spirit of God is not being led into a lie, into the truth. God loves you. He made you. He's got a purpose for your life. Listen, he knows exactly who you are and who you're supposed to be. We don't know who we're supposed to be. He knows, and when we surrender and quit and give up to him, god says this is great, I'll take over from here. And he goes to work and he leads us and he guides us. And the scripture says that we have received, in the positive, the Spirit of Adoption. And I'll end with this You've all heard of Julius Caesar.

13:07
Right, you know, julius Caesar is considered really the father of the emperors, the way that he conducted himself, what he achieved, julius Caesar. But this, to me, is fascinating. Watch this. You've got Paul the Apostle writing this book. He's a Jew to Italians in Rome, predominantly non-Jewish. Are you with me? I'm landing, I'm coming in. Yeah, I need you to.

13:42
In Judaism there is no adoption. You don't read about adoption in the Old Testament. It's not there. It's all bloodline, bloodline, bloodline, genealogy. Are you a coethite, are you a Levite? That's what matters to them. Blood, that doesn't matter to God.

14:08
Look, you say how can you say that? I'm saying it based on Abraham? Abraham had no. I mean, he had blood, but Abraham had no blood connected to anybody. Did he Tell me who was Abraham related to on the bloodline that was acceptable to God? You can't find that. You wanna know why? Because, abraham, there were no Jews until Abraham showed up. And when Abraham showed up, he was a Gentile. And God said because you believe me and what I've said to you, I'm gonna count your belief as righteousness, Abraham, to you. That's why Abraham learned that the just shall live by faith. Isn't that fascinating.

14:50
The first Jew was first a Gentile, before he came a Jew. And what made him a Jew? The word Jew means to worship God. If your name is Judy, judith, if your name is Jude, like in the mail, like Jude Law, jude, law, jude. It means to praise God, a God-praiser.

15:11
Paul is telling the Romans I got good news. You know how you guys, you Romans, you know how you guys do it. It's the right way. Regarding salvation yeah, you know, julia Caesar, how that came down? No-transcript. At the time of his death, he had no kids. Well, he had no kids that he would recognize. But there was this one man who impressed him and he loved him, good guy. His name was Gaius Octavius. Who's heard of him? You have, his name is Caesar Augustus. How did that happen? That's a good question.

16:01
According to Roman law, the Roman law of adoption, you can pick anybody you want to inherit all of your wealth and power. The Jews don't have such a thing. So when Julius Caesar anointed Gaius Octavius, he became the next emperor and inherited everything. Now Julius Caesar died, so his will declared it, he covered his bases. But Roman practice is this Take this young man that you want to adopt, and you could adopt women as well. It's not exclusively male.

16:48
You go to the forum in Rome. If you've ever been there, if you've not been there, you've got to make it one of your bucket lists. It's an amazing place to have a Bible study. I'm telling you, it's incredible. It's very well intact.

16:59
You would stand there before the legalities, and there were seven of them, seven eyewitnesses. And you stood and you put your hand on the head of the son to be and you said this is my only son. And the moment you said that, in front of seven witnesses, their vow was to uphold your commitment for the life of that young man. I find it interesting that it's seven, the seven spirits, the Bible says, the seven eyes of the Holy Spirit are upon you. Seven witnesses bear witness to the vow made and the conveyance of power and wealth and authority. And it's done in a matter of seconds. And Gaius Octavius's life was changed forever, and so were the history books.

18:06
The same verbiage is used when the Bible tells us in the gospels when God says this is my beloved son, hear him, this is my son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Do you see the conveyance God conveyed unto Christ? When he came into the world, god the son took upon himself the form of us and God said in your humanity, I give you all authority to represent the kingdom of heaven. As you go to the cross, as you die there, and as you're buried in the tomb, and as you're resurrected to the third day, all that you achieve will be to the conveyance of the sons and daughters of God.

18:49
From that moment forward, you wanna make sure today, friend, you've been adopted by God, and if you wanna be, say yes to him. Let him say it to you. And then you say it to others. I'm a child of God. I gave my heart to Christ. The Bible says I belong to the living God. Don't be surprised in that moment, when that happens, that the things of this world will carry much less power over your life as Jesus gets bigger and bigger in your hearts.

19:27 - Speaker 1
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