ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by generous
friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Well, guess what? God wants to be with you. God likes
you. God loves you. I dunno how else to say it. He died for you.
He rose again from the dead for you and for any man, woman, boy,
or girl who puts their trust in him, there should never again be
the cloud of condemnation suspended over your life.
ANNOUNCER: "Declare Your Dependence Upon God" is today's
message by Jack Hibbs as he encourages you to live
independent from this world and dependent upon our almighty God.
ANNOUNCER: Young people today are facing giants that previous
generations could never have imagined. A wicked and secular
culture stands like Goliath, taunting them with hate and
intolerance for their Christian beliefs. Will our children and
grandchildren have the courage to face the hostility that
bombards them? Or can we empower them to stand against their
giants. In a powerful book by Ken Ham, "Will They Stand" You
can learn to give your children what they need to face cultural
adversity and become tomorrow's Christian leaders. Let's equip
and embolden the young ones in our lives to overcome a world
that seeks to challenge, disparage and eliminate their
faith. This must read for today's Christian parents is our
gift to you when you give any amount to the Ministry
of Real Life. Visit JackHibbs.com or call
877-777-2346 to get your copy. Order now.
JACK: Well, we've all heard about the Declaration of
Independence as Americans here in the United States. It's like
a birthmark for our nation and it's a beautiful thing because
as a nation of people, we declared our independence from
the realm or the crown of England, but that's not what
we're talking about today. We're talking about something that is
so incredibly needed and
necessary and that is the
declaration of dependence upon God. Are you dependent upon God?
And so what we look at today is an understanding that God's
word, God's existence, your existence and mine is actually
dependent upon our relationship with one another. He gave us his
word that we might know him. He wants us to know him, but in a
condition, in a relationship of dependence, we are called his
children. He is our Father. When we talk about the declaration of
dependence, we're talking about you and I being honestly,
truthfully dependent upon God. And that's the question that we
all need to ask ourselves. Is our faith truly rooted in a
dependency upon God? We're going to be looking today in Romans
chapter 8, beginning at verse 1, in a message titled "The
Declaration of Dependence." But what you and I need to do as we
prepare our hearts for this message is to ask ourselves, are
we really dependent upon God or our money? Are we dependent upon
God or our status? Are we dependent upon God and our
youth? Our vitality? Is it that we're dependent upon either God
or our what? Influence. Listen. Friends, there can be no rival.
There can be no rival to God. He's not to be number one on a
list of 10. He's to one on a list of one. "The Declaration of
Dependence." So let's grab our Bibles, let's dive in to see
what God has in store for us as we look to the word of God.
JACK: Number one, mark it down if you would, you guys. It's
this, The Declaration of Dependence is that there's now
this absolute freedom that's available to us.
Now I'm going to really lay it down to you guys because
I have to. I'm very excited about this portion of scripture
because it transformed my life personally. When
he says there is therefore now no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus. We all start with this right here,
right now. It's because that coming out of this condemnation,
there's a great weight that is lifted. Mark that down, that our
declaration is from condemnation and its weight. Condemnation is,
and I'm going to give you the definition of it here from the
Bible in a moment. Condemnation is this overwhelming sense of
hopelessness that there's no, there's no hope for you. There's
no hope and you can't find the answer. And you're struggling
and you know what's wrong, but you can't fix it. There's no
place to go. And there's a big weight. Condemnation is a great
weight that weighs upon so many people today and people choose
how to deal with it. Listen up to everybody. The reason why
there's drug addiction, the reason why there are these
personality issues and violence and drunkenness and the pursuit
of materialism, think of it. All of these pursuits literally come
back to one single point of the human soul. And that is that
there's something wrong. Somewhere along the route,
there's something wrong that somebody realized I got to find
an answer for my life. And they go on the pursuit of money, they
go on the pursuit of power or drugs or sex or violence or
whatever it is, and they're empty. And this is universal no
matter where you're at in the nation or in the world, it's the
language of the soul. The Bible says our souls are separated
from God and we're wandering without God, and we know that
what we're doing is wrong and the condemnation comes. The word
as we'll see here, condemnation. And I'm going to ask you a
question. So get ready. It's going to be a trick question.
Condemnation. This is the Greek meaning to the word, to be under
the sentence of, I talked to a young man two weeks ago and he
said, pastor, I want you to pray for me. Watch this. I want you
to pray for me. I committed some crimes and I got arrested and
there's a court hearing, there's a trial, all this. Well, now I'm
going to go be, my sentencing has come in. But during that
time I realized I'm too young to ruin my life. And he said, I
started watching your messages online, then I started coming to
the church. I gave my life to Christ and now I'm ready to face
the judgment. He said, I'm going to go. I'm guilty, but now I'm a
new creation, but I'm still responsible for the things I did
to people. So I'm going to go to jail and I'm going to find out
for how long, but I'm new. God has forgiven me. I'm going in
there. I pray God uses me. You know what's happened? He was
condemned, but Christ set him free. You and I were condemned
in our sins, but Christ has. Listen, I trust Christ to set
you free. Watch this. This man, this young man, every unbeliever
and I you certainly once had this issue to be under the
sentence of, to be pronounced guilty, to be worthy of all
penalties, all judgments, all liens, all warrants, all
ordinances against you resulting in condemnation. To bring you
what? To the place where there's no hope of being delivered. Now
this guy, in a sense, it doesn't exactly apply because he's been
forgiven. In heaven, this young man is free. Are you with me?
And inside he's free, but he's going or he is in jail and into
prison. His body will not be walking the streets of LA
anymore, but he's free. Sounds like a contradiction. But
listen, you can be walking the streets of LA and think you're
completely free, but inside you're completely imprisoned by
guilt and by condemnation and by shame. But the grand declaration
is this. There is therefore now these are emphatics in the Greek
language. It's an announcement. Paul, the apostle is you can
almost see him jumping with glee. There is therefore now.
He's so excited about the announcement. Listen, this is a
message of hope today, but I want to make sure you have it,
that you have hope. Don't say you're a good person. You're not
going to have it. Listen, I'm going to tell you a little story
here real quick. Condemnation, the world when it's condemned,
when that, when an individual is experiencing the condemnation
and they don't respond to it, they harden their heart against
it until they don't feel it anymore, and then they live life
thinking, watch this. They live life thinking they're okay, but
you are the problem. You know what? You what's happened to
them? In fact, if you know somebody who's very religious,
but they're good, you are the problem. You're talking about a
person who does not understand any longer the sense of
condemnation that this world heaps upon them. They've
hardened their heart. You say, Jack, you saying you can be a
religious person with a hardened heart? Yeah, totally,
completely. But as we've mentioned in previous studies,
when you look into the word of God, that word of God looks
inside of you and reveals who you are, and it causes you to
either harden your heart or to melt your heart. So I'm going to
ask you this question. It's a trick question. Tell me the
difference of feelings between condemnation and conviction.
I've studied this for 46 years in my own life. Number one,
condemnation is this sense of heaviness, guilt. I'm busted,
condemnation. Conviction is heavy guilt. Conviction,
condemnation. I'm in trouble. I'm convicted. What I did was
wrong and it needs to be reckoned with. What I'm
submitting to you is this. The feelings are exactly the same.
Condemnation, conviction. You say, wait a minute, pastor Jack,
they have different Wait, wait, no, no, no. Watch. Watch. When a
believer is convicted, that sense of heaviness is weighing
upon the believer. I'm talking to you. Don't look at me like
that. I'm talking to you. When you and I sin, we displeased
God, as a child of God. Our names are written down in
heaven. We're going to heaven. He's our God, we're his child.
But when we sin, we break fellowship with God and there's
a sense of big heaviness, guilt, shame. I just want you to know
it's the will of God that you experience that literally for
the duration of seconds. Did you know that? Say, what do you mean
by that? If you have a bad thought, look at me right now. I
could be. Look at me. Look, you would never think. Look at him,
he's having a bad thought. You are judging me from the outside.
Look, I look so angelic, hands lifted, praying. Doesn't that
look holy? My mind could be a thousand miles away from my
outward appearance. If I'm a Christian. God will say, what
are you doing? Jack, knock it off. Bad thought. That is not
approved. And then I say, Lord, you are so right. I'm busted.
God, please forgive me. That's exactly what put you on the
cross. I'm so sorry Jesus. And the Bible says in 1 John 1:9, if
we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us
of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All
right? So that's what the believer does. So when you sin,
Christian, you don't plan on it, but when you do, that's how you
deal with it. And so look, that weight should only be on you for
seconds. Don't let it sit there, don't let it, don't, get away.
Get it done. The non-believer, the condemnation is there and
either A, they wind up groping as it were, searching for an
answer and they find Christ or they harden their heart against
it. Today, you and I live in a world that has hardened their
heart against God. Hardened their heart against conviction
and against condemnation. And so the world that's hardened looks
and says, you are the problem. You are the issue. It's that
group, it's this government, it's that person, it's that
thing. And they do not see, they cannot see that they themselves
are completely without feelings and that is manifested by
justification, self-justification, not biblical
justification, and that weighs on them. The Bible tells us in
Psalm 91 verse 14, because listen to this. This is God
speaking to you. I trust as a believer, in fact, you should
mark up your Bibles, always mark up your Bibles and I'm going to
show you how in a moment. This is kind of fun. So in your
Bible, you should do this because he, Jack, put in your
name, Sue or whatever your name is, because you set, because he
has set his love upon me. You want to love God, therefore, I
will deliver him. This is God talking. Do you like that kind
of talk? I like it. I'll set him on high because he has known my
name. My dear friends, listen, I'm a bumbling nincompoop, but
verse 14, that's me. Is it you? Should be able to say today,
that's me. I love him. Only the believer can experience this.
Verse 15, he shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be
with him in trouble. Aren't you glad about that? I will deliver
him and honor him with long life. I will satisfy him and
show him my salvation. That's an awesome verse. That's my verse.
I'll let you have it, but it's my verse. And you should have in
your Bible, your name written next to that passage and say,
well, it's my verse as well. Condemnation will lift from you.
The Christian should never be walking around in a sense of
condemnation. Oh, I'm never good enough to please God. Oh, I
think I've upset him. Oh, I don't know how. You know I know
God is supposed to love me. You ever feel like that? Well, God
has to love me, he's God, he said He loves everybody but
basically what you're saying is God has to love me, but I don't
think he likes me. Well, guess what? God wants to be with you.
God likes you. God loves you. I don't know how else to say it.
He died for you. He rose again from the dead for you and for
any man, woman, boy, or girl who puts their trust in him, there
should never again be the cloud of condemnation suspended over
your life. Now, if you're not a Christian, you should be worried
sick. And if you're worried sick, you should thank God that
you care enough about your own soul to cry out to him because
God helped the man or woman who is so callous who says things
like, I'm fine. I don't need any of this God stuff. I'm better
than most people. Your past feeling, and that's a tragedy.
In Proverbs chapter 28:13, the Bible says, "he who covers his
sins will not prosper." Say, well, nobody knows. God knows,
yeah, but nothing's ever happened to me. Just wait. He
loves you. He's not going to let you continue like that. Are you
flirting around with the secretary? Are you flirting
around with the boss? Is it the neighbor? Is it the husband's
wife? She's something or the wife's neighbor? What's going
on? What is God telling in you right now? You say, pastor, who
told you? Nobody told me. Is it the money? They won't know. They
won't miss it. Little decimal point here or there. Listen, God
knows and listen if he loves you and he does, if you can hear
him, and I hope that's the case, you feel a little bit of a sting
right now, and I highly recommend you talk to him about
it. Don't talk to anybody else about it. Talk to him about it.
Go to him about it because here's what will happen. He will
forgive you. If you bury it, look at this verse, he who
covers his sin will not prosper, but whatever, but whoever
confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Happy is the man who
is always reverent or mindful of God, but he who hardens his
heart will fall into calamity. Listen, the Bible, God is so
kind. I'm talking just to the believer right now. If the
believer doesn't take it to God, if in that 30 seconds you're
convicted. Pastor, I dunno what you're talking about. I don't
understand. I have a pretty good life. So get in your car. If you
have any doubts, get in your car go drive. Go drive right now to
like LAX or Downtown LA that ought to bring out the flesh. If
you think you're so saintly, I dare you. Drive to LAX circle
around it and come back and see if your temper is not touched
and when that, listen when you cross the line and God says,
Jack Uh-uh. Forsaken in that instant. Lord, forgive me in
Jesus' name. It doesn't have to go any further, but if you bury
it and bury it and bury it, you know what God says in the book
of numbers? He says, if you don't forsake it, I'm going to
shout it. Jesus, by the way, referred to that in the gospels.
He says, if you, everything that you do if it's not covered by
the blood of Christ, he said, I'm going to someday shout it
from the rooftop. The Bible says, be sure of this. If you
don't forsake your sin, it will call you out. You know how
people get caught? Exactly what God said would happen. Say
nobody knows. Next thing you know, there's a big red sign
with a finger on it that pointing right over your head.
Why would he do that? He loves you. He wants you to go to
heaven. And the Christian, he wants you to be forgiven because
you are going to heaven. He wants to have that communication
open and then listen. Conviction itself. We learned that from
conviction after it takes hold. Conviction is a beautiful thing.
One of the scariest things ever is if you can commit some crime
against God in thought or deed and have no feelings about it.
Oh my goodness, that would be the worst thing in the world.
But the sad thing is, the people who feel that don't know that
it's the worst thing in the world, because they can't feel
it. We look at a world right now that we're coping and trying to
do our best with a culture of self-mutilation. Not sure if
you're aware of this, but how many young people today because
of pain and sorrow and abuse are self mutilating. They're cutting
up their torsos, they're cutting their inner thighs, they're
cutting their buttocks with razor blades. They're cutting
their arms. Why? Because they'll tell you, I had my life taken
from me by some way, shape, or form, and I lost all contact
with myself. And this feeling is the only thing I can feel. It
allows me to have some sort of say about my life. It makes no
sense unless you feel so lost. And that happens because of
man's soul. And God changes our lives. He transforms us. He gets
us out of that. Just that act alone and that burden and that
pain and the conviction of it all upon your life should tell
you that God is real. We talked about darkness recently,
but we would never know darkness unless we knew what
light was. Run to the hope. Run to him.
JACK: Well, what an amazing declaration we hear from the
Bible that there is therefore now. No condemnation, no, never,
ever shall be condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
So friends, listen. Conviction in our world today is something
that legislators are trying to remove from our world. If
somebody feels irritated by some truth that has gone out, people
want to sue someone. In a sense, the Holy Spirit is on trial
today in our world, isn't he? If I were to speak to you direct
biblical truth and you're convicted, that is that you feel
bad about your sin. Oh my goodness, that is like Supreme
Court stuff now. What's going on? You and I live in an age
that is so darkening toward evil and so hostile toward the truth.
So listen, when God speaks to us from his word, he loves us
enough to convict us. The word convict is he calls us out
regarding something we're thinking or doing, and he says
it's not right. He says, I went to the cross for that. He says,
I died for that sin, and I don't want you to do that. It's going
to hurt you. It's going to be bad for you, but you see, you
and I live in a world where either the Lord, he is God or
I'm going to be the God of my life and act like a Lord and
call my own shots. No, my friends, listen. What you and I
need more than ever is the liberty and freedom that God
gives when we are convicted of our sins. Because you know in
fact, psychologists tell us that children that are not
disciplined for wrongdoing, they grow up with many, many
emotional and psychological problems, and one of those
things is rooted in they have to mitigate and figure out and
create. How do they handle their shame and guilt that's internal?
They never get it out. They never get it dealt with. Listen,
God loves you enough today, my friend, to say to you, I'm
speaking to you about your lifestyle. I'm speaking to you
about your decision making. I'm speaking to you about your sin,
and I want to save you. I want to forgive you. I want to give
you a new life. And so what I want to encourage you about is
that with you opening up your word and diving in. God, the
Holy Spirit will speak to you, he'll help you in your walk.
He'll lead you along and he'll direct you into the presence of
his will. There's nothing greater. Friends, listen, more
than ever, go to JackHibbs.com. Stay connected, Facebook,
Instagram, telegram, other areas. We want you
to grow with Jesus. That's what we're asking.
Grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: Young people today are facing giants that previous
generations could never have imagined. A wicked and secular
culture stands like Goliath, taunting them with hate and
intolerance for their Christian beliefs. Will our children and
grandchildren have the courage to face the hostility that
bombards them? Or can we empower them to stand against their
giants. In a powerful book by Ken Ham, "Will They Stand" You
can learn to give your children what they need to face cultural
adversity and become tomorrow's Christian leaders. Let's equip
and embolden the young ones in our lives to overcome a world
that seeks to challenge, disparage and eliminate their
faith. This must read for today's Christian parents is
our gift to you when you give any amount to the
Ministry of Real Life. Visit JackHibbs.com or
call 877-777-2346 to get your copy. Order now.
ANNOUNCER: Life is full of fear, doubt and worry. The more you
listen to and see the world today, the easier it is to feel
hopeless and helpless. Amidst the confusion a voice of hope
has emerged. The Real Life Network founded by Jack Hibbs,
the Real Life Network is a free digital media platform void of
the noise of secular media that attack people of faith.
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at Reallifenetwork.com. Fast forward your faith.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life Radio with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: God's Word never will return void. God's Word is
spirit, it's power, and it has its effect. God did not give us
Bible prophecy to scare us, but to prepare us. You are
the light of the world Jesus said, you are the
salt of the earth. How does that happen?
ANNOUNCER: Jack Hibbs truly believes we are living in some
of the most exciting days in history, which brings some great
opportunities to share with the world a powerful no-nonsense
presentation of the gospel to this generation who are
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ANNOUNCER: The preceding program was sponsored by generous
friends and partners of Real Life.