This World Is Not Our Home

Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. God is saying to you, yeah, you need me. Why? Because I've loved you with an everlasting love. You, friend, listen, you run out on that, you're running out on the greatest lover of your soul, the Elever No. 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. The Bible says in Ephesians 1, verse 3 says, God didn't make up a redemption plan after Adam and Eve fumbled at the one yard line. He already had the plan before there was ever a creation. Listen to this. Maybe we've got this quote. I love this. This is from Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse. Our lives are not the haphazard results of the moving of blind chance nor the throwing down of cosmic dice. All that comes to pass in our lives is according to the perfect eternal plan of the all wise, all powerful, all loving father. The fact that a man has been chosen according to God's eternal purpose immediately surrounds him with the protection or the protective care of the Holy Spirit. Nothing can touch the man unless it has passed through the approved process of the will of God. No situation that comes to you can overpower you in Christ. You have to take a picture of that. That is awesome and very true. God's purpose for your life will not be twisted, it will not be thwarted, Christian. Can we say it this way? Before you were ever born before Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury ever existed. God had his plan for your life. We have now just been arriving at it. Some of you are arriving at this eternal truth today. Right now, God's got a plan for your life and he's had it forever. How long? How long is it forever? I can't even say the word forever, right? Longer than forever because we're so puny, we can only think like this. Like that, on a line, God is eternal. You cannot explain that to me. All we know is that there's no time there. So when did God think this up? He always had you in his thought. Well, listen, do you understand something we're arriving at, things? We're arriving. He already knew, oh my goodness, listen, if you're not a Christian, become one today. Seriously, God knows exactly the future. He knows exactly what's going to happen. You don't, you think you do, especially if you're young, you really think you do. You don't. That's part of being deceived as a young person. But as you move forward, why not become a follower of Jesus knowing this, that whatever he's got for me, it's good, and it's for a purpose. And so when I arrive at it, when I come to that moment, I can have great peace knowing this is all according to the plan of God. Come and follow me, or his words. Isaiah chapter 54, verse 17 says, Think of that for a moment. No weapon formed against me will prosper. You know where my mind goes immediately with that? I warned you guys a couple of weeks ago that there's all kinds of six to ten, six to ten false social media sites regarding me created every week, fake. We have a company now that works to try to destroy this stuff. It's so bad now that we just, listen, we just got done writing a book and it took a year and a half to write because it's written by writing. And what did we just find out? We just found out that AI wrote the book in a couple of days and they are imposters out there being sold right now with my name on it and my face on it from me and it's not me. And it's AI. And now we've discovered that there are messages where I am speaking to you and it's not me. I'm not saying what is, I mean, it's saying something that I never said. It's, listen, this is how the enemy works. It's so bad that my thoughts are we're going to pull the social media plug completely. That's what I would do. But then there'd be millions of people who are saying, hey, we're not, hey, what happened to the messages? We're watching from Tokyo, what's the deal? So we're torn. Think about it. Listen, I'm going to say it publicly, I'm going to say it again, I say it all the time, it says it on my social media, I will never ask to meet with you. That was not me inviting you to meet you in Glendale at Starbucks. That was probably a murderer, a stalker. And I will never ask you for money. And people said, I can't believe Jack's doing this. You don't know Jack. I will never ask. So just be careful. We live in these very deceptive days. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Every tongue which rises up against you in judgment, you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousness is from me, says God. Isn't that awesome? It's not of us. We're just following him. You ever seen a little kid walking behind his dad, he feels all really big and protected. He's walking behind his dad and little kids walking along. He couldn't protect himself if he had to. But he can't see that, all he can see is his dad. That's us. We're looking at our dad and we're protected under his shadow. It's incredible. He's awesome. The second thing is this church, his heaven is increasing in us. It's increasing. Every day that you wake up and live as a believer, heaven is increasing inside of you. Didn't Jesus say, see Jack, this is really weird to say, excuse me, Jesus said it. He said the kingdom of heaven is inside of you. If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, where's the Holy Spirit? But inside of you, that's, I always have to control myself when I think about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Who would have thought of such a thing? For thousands of years, no pagans ever thought that they could offer up a God or gods that would say, hey guess what? We'll live inside of you. Jesus comes along and says, I'm going to leave you. I'm leaving. Don't worry, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and he's going to live inside of every believer inside of you. He's going to set up camp inside of you. And if he does that, you'll know it because he'll begin to work from the inside out and he'll do his amazing work and the kingdom increasing within you. You think more of the kingdom, you want to do for the kingdom, you want to serve the kingdom. What is it that you'd have me to do? So here we go, this is awesome. This is how it increases. How do I grow? What should I expect? What's happening? Is God really going to finish his work with me? Oh yeah, he has still. Not because he has still, he has still because he wanted to. Watch this. Verse 29, for whom he forenew? Wow. Circle the word forenew, you're going to want to remember this. He also predestined, circle the word predestined. To be conformed to the image of his son, this is the result that he might be the first born among many brethren. Because Jesus Christ is the first one resurrected from the dead to live forever, the son of God, his power is able to conform us into his resurrected image and how can we be sure of that? Because God's foreknowledge based upon predestination is what starts the whole ball rolling. Watch this. What, you have to watch. Never, ever in the Bible is there ever the term predestination applied to the damned or to the condemned or to those in hell, not once. There'll be those who will tell you that it does. It does not. All predestination is based on foreknowledge and it's all in the positive. Are you hearing me? It doesn't speak to the predestination of those who are inheriting hell. It doesn't say, I'm not saying people don't go to hell, they go to hell. But it's not by the basis of God saying, any, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, you'll get to go to heaven and you don't go. Nope. The foreknowledge of God is not stuff that he learned a long time ago and thereby predestined people. Are you hearing me? This is deep stuff. Hang on. I'm sure I can articulate it right because God is eternal and there is no time and because he is God, he cannot learn anything. He knows everything. In fact, in deep theology, the nature of God is known as the decree of God. It's a functionality of God's person, decree with a sea, decree. And it means that God knows all things that do happen and he knows the results of things that never did happen. Does that fry your brain a little bit? So watch this. When you think, oh God picked me because I'm good, wrong, oh God is just throwing cosmic dice. Too bad you don't get to go with us wrong. God who cannot learn who's eternal, his foreknowledge is, he knows the exact decision that you would make if you heard the gospel. What's our note to it? Before time ever began in this physical world? Listen, he's known it as long as he has been God and how long has that been? And we can hardly define forever again. So watch this. Here you are in the 21st century and in all of eternity past God's foreknowledge knew that when the gospel was presented to you, you would say yes. He knew that. He didn't learn it. He knew it. Based on that, watch this, follow. Based on that, God gave you the ability to say yes or to see the truth. Who gets the praise, who gets the adoration, who gets the glory, God, who provided the way of salvation, God did. But if the gospel message comes to you and you reject it because God made you a free moral agency, you can choose. He built that into you. You choose. I'll give you choice. You choose. If you reject it, then who's responsible for rejecting it? You are. So in heaven, we're all going to be going like this. Thank you, God, forgiveness here. And people who are in hell are hating themselves for never listening, for never accepting. God doesn't learn anything. He knows how it's going to be in advance. He doesn't bend your arm. He knows. And right now, for us, we're arriving at God's plans based on foreknowledge. Never mention the word predestination without first mentioning foreknowledge. You got that? Very important. Because there'll be those who will seek the bamboozle you and to get that turned around. Don't fall for it. But seriously, Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 31, this might make more sense. You read this verse a lot, but not makes more sense, perhaps. The Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with a what? How long is that? Therefore with loving kindness, I've drawn you. God is saying to you, yeah, you need me. You don't need a church. You don't need an organization. You don't need a membership card. God is saying, I am drawn you. I'm drawing you to me. I want you to come to me. Why? Because I've loved you with an everlasting love. You, friend, listen, you run out on that. You're running out on the greatest lover of your soul, the elever, no. And God is saying, you come to me and you would say, nope, that's on you. That's terrible. Why would you do that? You shouldn't do that. John chapter 1, I love this. John chapter 1, verse 43, this is going to get me fired up. I ask for your forgiveness in advance. The following day, Jesus, Yeshua, wants you to go to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethesda, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel, don't you love Philip, he's all over the place. He said to him, excuse me, listen, we have found him who Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, suffer there. First century Jews who knew their Old Testament better than Jews today, that when they met Jesus, what was their response? This is the guy Moses talked about, he's the one the prophets spoke about, translation. This is the guy the Old Testament's all about. He's the one. And Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Sorry. Philip said to him, come and see. So watch this, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, this is Jesus speaking behold in Israelite, indeed in whom there is no deceit, really. That's awesome. Nathaniel said to him, watch, how do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. This gets to be really, I think, incredibly romantic for the soul. Nathaniel answered and said to him, rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree. Do you believe? You will see greater things than these, watch this. And he said to him, most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. Why? What in the world is going on here? Jesus quotes an Old Testament event where Jacob lays down to take a rest and he has a vision and Jacob sees a ladder that extends into heaven. And from heaven, angels are ascending and descending regarding the ministry of the Messiah. Translation? Nathaniel, welcome aboard. I love that. Heaven is calling to us. Heaven is calling. All the time. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called. Is God calling you? Is God inviting you into his family? Listen, have you ever... Listen, we're almost done. Have you ever thought for a moment that you would love to have your sins forgiven? Have you ever thought for a moment you'd like to start life all over again? What if all that can be washed away now today without it being put in the headlines or called out? And in the other way, where God says, give it to me now and I'll risk you from it before it pulls you down. You have sinned against me, the Almighty God, I'm eternal, I'm God and I'm pure and perfect. But listen, between you and I, there's sin and I went to the cross to remove that sin factor from your life. And here's the thing. If you hear me calling out to you, you are receiving from me my invitation, except it. Receive it. And to whom we are called, these he also justified, justified. Great meaning of a word, it means to reveal, to show righteousness, to declare righteousness, to announce someone's acquittal or being vindicated, but the best way to remember justified means just if I'd never sinned. That's what it means. That looks at you and says, I look at you now just as if you have never sinned. He does this. One man, born of a virgin, lives his life, sent from God, dies on the cross, according to the Scriptures, resurrected from the dead, turns out to be the eternal God made incarnate. Made in flesh, the Bible says. For you and I, ten here in heaven in eternity.