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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Meaning that God calls the shots God's in control. God
doesn't take a vote. It's not a democracy or a republic. It's
not a team effort. God is God. He's the only one.
ANNOUNCER: Judge Everything Against The Bible, is the title
of Jack Hibbs message today as he talks about our world of
diverse beliefs and ideologies and why it's crucial
to measure all things against the
unchanging truth of the Word of God.
ANNOUNCER: Everyday brings us closer to the fulfillment of
God's prophetic promises. Christ's return is certain and
His Word is full of hope for those who trust in Him. In, "One
Day Nearer: Daily Devotions In Anticipation of Jesus' Glorious
Return" by Steve Miller, you'll discover 365 devotions that
explore the incredible truths of Bible prophecy. These daily
readings will remind you of God's love, His wisdom and
sovereignty as you look forward to Christ's return. This
devotional will help you focus on eternity, persevere through
life's challenges, and live with hope and joy in God's unchanging
promises. "One Day Nearer", is our thank you gift for a
donation of any size to Real Life. Visit jackhibbs.com or
call 877-777-2346 to request your copy. Order now.
MUSIC
JACK: When was the last time you heard this? Judge everything.
Let me give it to you in full detail. Judge everything
According to the scriptures, many times Christians will be
conflicted or upset about the word judge or judgment, and I
get that the Bible tells us that we are not to judge. That's
God's sovereign area. That's His domain to judge. But then the
Bible does turn right around and tell us that we as believers are
to judge all things and to cling or to hang on to what is true.
Well, friends, listen, the most important thing that you and I
can do in life is to judge everything that you and I hear,
see, experience in life through the lens, through the truth of
the Bible. This is essential because without doing that,
you're going to be led astray. There's more deception today
than ever before. So friends, listen as we get into this study
today, I want you to keep this in mind that we're going to be
looking at the Bible, but more importantly, the Bible's going
to be looking at you. We're going to read the Bible, but the
Bible is going to read you. And so I'm going to ask you to get
your scriptures together. Get ready for this study in the book
of Romans chapter 9, and let the Word of God prepare you so that
you might judge all things around you through the truth of
God's scripture. So grab your Bibles and let's dive into this
message, Judge Everything Against the Bible.
MUSIC
JACK: Psalm 100 verse 5 says, for the Lord is good. His mercy
is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations.
That's good news everybody. Psalm 25 verse 8, good and
upright is the Lord. Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
What does God- listen, does God want to teach sinners in the
way? Yes. You just read that if we've got a boogeyman type of
God that selects some people to go to heaven and some people to
go to hell, and even if they don't want to go, they got to go
anyway. Sorry. That's just the way that it is. You don't
question God, it's just the way that it is. It is too bad you
wanted to go but you don't get to go. That's insane. That is to
actually reduce and make small the very nature of the God
revealed in the Bible. His argument to us is I want the
sinner saved. Psalm 34, verse 8, oh taste and see the Lord is
good that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in
Him. I'll read that more in its context in a moment, but Psalm
34 verse 8, taste and see that the Lord is good. This statement
of challenge to us, what is already built into the invite,
come and taste that the Lord is good. The psalmist is not saying
come and taste to see that the Lord is good and I hope you like
it. It's kind of like taking your friends out to dinner to
your favorite place. Taste this. I hope you like it. Well,
listen, when God speaks and when we talk about tasting and seeing
that the Lord is good, we're talking about the appetite of
the human soul. We're not talking about flavor, that when
God's truth goes out, it grabs the soul. It ministers to the
soul. It awakens the soul. It speaks to you and it says that
God knows you, that He loves you and that He's you got to plan
for your life. And if you are a rank sinner and you think nobody
cares, nobody loves you, and this is your last moment on
earth, if you don't hear some word of hope, you're going to
end it all. Well, listen to this. God says to you, taste and
see, I'm good, and He's inviting your soul to come and to meet
Him personality to personality. God, in His character, in His
nature, the good, good sovereignty of God. By the way,
I'm going to read this watch seven times in these verses. You
hear the word or the name actually of God, Yah. And that
is Psalm 34, verse one through eight. We just read 8 a moment
ago, but look at all of it now, from 1 through 8 on the screen,
I'll point this out to you. I will bless the Lord. Now listen,
that is to be L-O-R-D, all caps. That's Yahweh. Yah, bless Yah,
at all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth, my
soul shall make His boast in Yah, the humble shall hear it
and be glad, Oh magnify Yah with me. That's His name, and let us
exalt His name together I sought the Lord and He heard me and
delivered me from all my fears. Well, that's a great verse,
isn't it? Verse 4, for the next virus that comes on the scene or
war or violence or mayhem, Psalm 34, verse 4, we should memorize
that. I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from
all my fears. The moment you and I begin to fear is the moment we
get our eyes off of God, verse 5 says, they look to Him and were
radiant and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out
and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles, the
angel of the Lord and camps all around those who fear Him and
delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed
is the man who trusts in Him. Say amen to that church. That is
so beautiful. That is so excellent. John chapter 1, verse
29, mark this down, John 1:29, John the Baptist has been
ministering. He's been serving the Lord in the ministry that
God called him to do and Jesus later on said that John the
Baptist came was sent by God in the spirit of the ministry of
Elijah. Remarkable. And John says, when Jesus was walking by
and there was a crowd, John says this, the next day John saw
Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the lamb of God who
takes away the sin or sins of the world either way, sin or
sins nature of sin, Jesus takes that away. It's a huge
statement. It's not that God went to the cross and took away
sins, but Jesus went to the cross and then rose again from
the dead to give to us who trusts Christ, the believer that
when you and I are ultimately redeemed, this is why listen,
dropping dead and going to heaven is a great thing. When
you and I drop dead to go to heaven, we cut this anchor loose
of this body because this body is what's plaguing you and I,
you know this already. It's the thing that tempts us to sin this
body. When we let this thing go, listen, you and I are going to
inherit in the last step of redemption, which is the
resurrection of this body. You and I are going to have no sin
nature. We've never known what that's like. You'll not be in
heaven a thousand years from now and trip over a fire hydrant and
cuss. It's not going to happen. You won't have that nature.
Isn't that good news? Oh, am I going to be tempted to eat
donuts all day long in heaven? Umm. Because it's heaven you
won't be tempted, but I think you'll get to eat donuts all day
long and you won't gain weight. It'll be heaven. It'll be
amazing. Of course, I'm joking. Maybe I'm not exactly sure how
that's going to work, but it's going to be great. But mark it
down if you would. First things first verses 14 to 15 is this,
that God's good, good sovereignty is rooted in His
character. You can take comfort in that. The sovereignty of God,
meaning that God calls the
shots. God's in control. God
doesn't take a vote. It's not a democracy or a republic. It's
not a team effort. God is God. He's the only one that is who He
is. There's no other and there's no other coming. He alone is God
and this character of His, the Bible tells us that He's forever
holy. He's forever righteous. He's forever loving. Isn't that
amazing? The Bible says that God is love. The Bible says that God
is holy. The Bible says that God is light and all of those
statements, His holiness will never diminish. Him being the
light, His bulb so to speak, His glow will never go down. He
cannot change and listen what He says in the Word of God, He
cannot contradict and this is a great comfort. So what do we
know? We know that the good, good sovereignty of God is not
our enemy, but is our great comfort because it's rooted in
His character. Number one, He is Himself righteous. Verse 14,
pulses to them, what shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? And the word in Greek is perish the
thought. Remove that thought from your mind. Cannot be, that
is God cannot be unrighteous. Well, is there anything God
cannot do? Yes, He cannot be unrighteous. Why? Because that
would not be His nature. Now will you and I know about one
another on a personal level? Obviously it's limited and it's
flawed. You and I can only know each other so far and what we
can know of one another, it's not exactly perfect. Why?
Because we are not perfect. God is perfect and when He reveals
Himself to us, He reveals the fact that He is righteous and we
talk about righteous. It's more than what the human or what the
believer is asked of or what we should see in our lives.
Righteous to us means to do the right thing. Did you know that
Jesus said that we should be or we should be doing righteousness
as a believer that's what we should do, but God's
righteousness that is at work in us comes from the person of the
Holy Spirit who dwells in you. So we are to be doing the right
thing. However, with God, it's not that God goes and does the
right thing and thus He's righteous. It's His nature. See,
you and I go in obedience and do the right thing because we're
following Him, right? We're following the source. We're
going straight to Him. But here's what's fun about this.
You should never wander about sweating it out, about doing
righteousness, doing the right thing. Here's the trick. Here's
the key to the Christian life. Surrender. Give it up. Holy
Spirit, do what you want to do In my life, I will read your
Word and I will step out and do your Word. But I know I can't do
your Word in and of my own strength. It's impossible. So
Lord, I'm going to step out. You do it through me. I will obey.
God is righteous and this righteousness that comes from us
as a believer that should actually establish a baseline in
our life. Hear me out on this. Paul brings something of a
question before his readers and it's all about the attributes
and the characteristics of who God is and who we should be. So
for example, when you and I do the right thing, that is we know
what the Bible has to say about this and we do that thing. When
we act like God, that is the only way the world that you and
I live in is going to know if we really know God or not. You say
no, wait a minute, I handed people a track, a Bible track,
that- nice, but that didn't do it. Are you hearing me?
Everybody? This message is going to sting for the believer. If
you're not a believer today, you're going to enjoy it. The
believer is going to say ouch several times. How will the
world know that we are really honestly Christ followers? So
listen, I'll tell you what, studying for this message the
other night, I was talking to Lisa, we're eating, eating, and
I said, listen, in light of Romans 9, it's tragic because
you can look into this and find out that so many people are
assuming that they're Christians. And so listen, it's
not easy because when I ask, well, are you a Christian? If
you ask me if I'm a Christian, I may come back to you and say,
yeah, I'm a Christian. I fill in the blank. What did you do? What
are you doing? What are you saying? Friends, listen. That
doesn't necessarily mean you're a Christian. Are you hearing me?
Lisa and I sat down and came to the conclusion, we must always
be very careful that we don't assume or take for granted that
we are actually Christ followers when we're not. Well then you
say, Jack, how can we know? Do you know in the book of
Revelation, the Bible tells us that when we are judged before
the bema seat of Christ, which is only for believers, every
believer is going to be judged for the things that says that we
did in this world while we were in our bodies. We are going to
be judged on opportunities that God gave us. Did we take
advantage of those opportunities? And then so the
Bible says we are given rewards. Now you always want to watch out
for the person who has a false presentation of humility and
that is this. Oh, it's okay. I don't want to get any rewards
because I just want to be there to serve Jesus. Yeah, don't we
all, got it, but are you sure you understand this in this life
we're to do what we do to His glory, not ours. So that in the
day that we are rewarded for our obedience, we get crowns. Have
you read that? We get crowns rewards. You see, again, I don't
need such things. Hear me out. What happens to all the
believers on the day of judgment before Jesus at the bema seat of
rewards? What do we do with all of our rewards? We throw them
back at Him in an act of worship. Is that awesome? So
it's like, it's okay. I really don't need anything. Forget
about you. Will you knock it off? It's all about Him. Listen,
some people are going to show up with a thimble on the top of
their head and they're going to spill it out before the Lord and
that's going to be about it. And I don't want you to be like
that. I want you to understand that as you yield of the Holy
Spirit, God will live out His righteousness through you
because that's what He does in a relationship. And you show up on
judgment day with a gigantic wheelbarrow on your head, a
bucket on your head. Can you imagine, next Fred? Hang on
Lord, I'm trying to get there. And then, boom, all of these
rewards go spilling out on the floor and angels and saints are
like, yes, awesome. Listen, it has nothing to do with us. We're
going to give it back to Him. So that's why we want to be busy
about our father's business. It's not, listen, you're not
going to have a plaque. It's not going to be your name. Your
name's not going to be in heaven on a wall with some pose.
Inspect your name, 7,200 points. It's not going to have that on
there. You want to do as much as you can to expand the
righteousness of God to an unbelieving world and to comfort
in love on a believing family of God so that in the day of
judgment, we bless God back by returning what He gave us. You
want to do that. You want to make sure you live your life
like that. Let Him live His righteousness through you. And
so there is for us to perish that thought with where we're
going. Is there unrighteousness with God? That's impossible.
Paul would say. Second thing is this, He is Himself merciful.
Look at verse 15. For He who says to Moses, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. God is merciful. You either believe
in the God of the Bible chapter by chapter verse by verse, are
you believe in a God that has been reinterpreted to you by the
traditions of men. Church is God merciful? Is God sovereign? Is
God righteous? All of these are character attributes of God's
greatness. It's in complete correlation with His love, with
His incredible nature of who He is. It's who Jesus revealed on
this earth to be. Consistency. So when God says, as a point of
interest, I exercise mercy on whom I exercise mercy. You see,
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop though. Listen, the word
mercy, here is the word to pity or to have pity or to have mercy
upon another. The word also means to extend mercy to those
that are in need. Obviously mercy. So listen, grace and
mercy, grace, okay, let's say your little kid, your 5-year-old
does something wrong. I can't use the analogies I always used
to use because people now get offended by those analogies.
Like I used to say, when your five-year-old paints the garage
door pink while you're gone, then people wrote me, don't put
thoughts in my kid's head. Yeah really, I'm not joking. And then
I even used to make a joke while you were outside your kid put
the cat in the microwave and stuff, and then people said,
don't I love cats. How dare you say that? That was demonic. And
so I don't know what to say anymore. Your five-year-old does
something he ought not to do. Okay? You come home and this is
grace. What did you do? I used this. I was going to say super
glue on this, but I can't say that, but I told you not to do
that. And then they start crying and everything and then they're
busted. And then dad says, get in the car and little junior
gets in the car and dad takes the kid down to Baskin Robbins
gets him an ice cream cone. You see, Isn't that story a little
ending kind of weird? Not at all. That's called grace. The
kid did wrong. He admitted that he had done wrong when he got
busted, and so dad took him down to get an ice cream cone. Dad is
not rewarding them for the evil that he did. Are you with me?
Dad was going to take him to go get an ice cream cone if he did
that or not. That was God's plan. When I get home, I'm going
to take that boy to get an ice cream cone. He happens to get
home and the thing is messed up. God still follows through on the
ice cream cone. Are you tracking me? This is the goodness of God.
Now listen, it could go the other way. Mercy. Mercy is this.
What did you do? I blew up that thing. I told you not to do that
it's my favorite thing I've ever had and you blew it up. Now,
what did I tell you in the day that you would blow it up? What
did I tell you what happened that you would, well, I can't
say that so that you'd send me to my room. And so mercy is,
listen, you know what you did wrong. You can go out and play
with your friends right now, but you know what you did wrong.
Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
Grace is getting what you do not deserve.
JACK: So listen, friends, did you catch that? Mercy. How we
need God's mercy. Mercy is what God extends to us when we
deserve to be disciplined or we deserve to be judged. When God
extends mercy, He doesn't apply the judgment. Grace is when we
do not deserve any good thing from God at all, and He gives it
anyway. It's kind of like this. It's like if my grandson, for
example, who loves ice cream, probably like your grandchild,
if he did something wrong, then the promise I had made him to go
get ice cream later in the day, now that is off the table. But
if I were to say to him, what was it that you did wrong? Oh, I
kicked the cat. Well, that's wrong, and you should not do
that again. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. Okay, here's the deal.
I'm going to extend mercy to you and you're not going to get in
trouble. I'm also going to give you grace. Get in the car. Let's
go get some ice cream. God does that to you and I. We've been
talking about the characteristics of God's
attributes and His greatness, His sovereignty, His mercy, His
righteousness. God is a God of love and mercy. Yes, listen and
judgment because He is holy. But the awesome thing about who He
is is that God literally has written to us in His Bible that
being a God of holiness and purity, He can maintain that
righteousness of what and who He is because of His sovereign acts
of grace and mercy. This is from the Word of God. This is from
the Bible God Himself. What a God we have. So listen, friends,
if you want to know more, we would love to give you more in
the instruction and in the leading of the Word of God. So
you can always, always walk with us through the Word at
jackhibbs.com. You can also contact us at Facebook,
Instagram, or some of the other social media sites.
Until next time, God bless you guys.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: Every day brings us closer to the fulfillment of
God's prophetic promises. Christ's return is certain and
His word is full of hope for those who trust in Him in, "One
Day Nearer: Daily Devotions In Anticipation of Jesus' Glorious
Return" by Steve Miller, you'll discover 365 devotions that
explore the incredible truths of Bible prophecy. These daily
readings will remind you of God's love, His wisdom and
sovereignty as you look forward to Christ's return. This
devotional will help you focus on eternity, persevere through
life's challenges, and live with hope and joy in God's unchanging
promises. "One Day Nearer" is our thank you gift for a
donation of any size to Real Life, visit jackhibbs.com or
call 877-777-2346 to request your copy. Order Now.
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