ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Those who will accept Christ will give God all the
glory and all the praise because He provided the opportunity and
the way to eternal life. He's sovereign. Those who choose not
to accept Christ wind up in hell, they suffer there on their
own because they would not want to be with God. Even if
they could be with God, they'd want nothing to do with Him
and they have nobody to blame but themselves, and
that too is the sovereignty of God.
ANNOUNCER: Today, Jack Hibbs talks about the
unparalleled attributes of God and the unchanging
nature of His sovereignty, love and majesty. Stay
tuned for the message God is God.
ANNOUNCER: What does it take to be a great leader? Whether
you're managing a business, running a household, or
navigating relationships, leadership is about so much more
than titles and tasks. In "The Way of the Shepherd" by Dr.
Kevin Leman, you'll discover timeless principles of biblical
leadership that apply to every area of life. Through compelling
storytelling, Dr. Leman shares seven powerful secrets that will
help you lead like the Good Shepherd does, including
understanding the people you lead, assessing their strengths,
building trust, ensuring safety, providing direction,
implementing correction, leading with compassion.
Personally recommended by Pastor Jack Hibbs,
"The Way of the Shepherd" is our thank you gift for your donation
of any size to Real Life. Visit jackhibbs.com or call
877-777-2346 to request your copy. Order now.
(Music)
JACK: Well, this kind of sounds redundant, but listen carefully,
God is God. And let me unpack that for a second before we get
into the study for today. The Bible says that there's only one
God, that there are no other gods. The Bible says that there
is only one God. He is God, and there is none like Him. The
Bible says that God is light, the Bible says that God is holy,
and the Bible says that God is love. And this is a remarkable
powerful reality. Friends, listen, you might be asking the
question, and I get it, why did God make me this way? Well,
listen, God is God, but you and I were born into this sinful
world, and so you and I bear the scars and the damage from our
original mom and dad, Adam and Eve. But because God is God, God
is good, and in His goodness He provided redemption. And you
might say, well, why do bad things happen to people if God's
good? Because you and I live in a fallen world. Satan hates you.
When's the last time you heard this on a TV broadcast, "Satan
hates you"? But it's true. We have a tendency to blame God for
everything. We blame God for the earthquake, for the tornado, for
the hurricane. Wait a minute. If you read the Bible, you'll find
out that Satan operates the powers of this world against God
and against you and I. He hates us, and Satan hates God. So
listen, put blame or blame is due. But listen, recognize that
God is good and God answers us when we call upon Him. The Bible
tells us, for example, Joshua challenged the people of Israel,
"Choose today whom you'll serve." And the challenge today
is this, serve the God that is good because, listen, it ends
well for you. It ends well for me. Don't serve the gods, little
G, of this world. It will end bad for you. Don't do that.
Friends, listen, grab your Bibles. Let's get into this.
This should be a fun time in the Word of God as we study the
nature that God is good and God is God.
(Music)
JACK: God's good, good sovereignty is established in
His purposes. Verses 20- 19 to 21. And when you look at it this
way, verses 19 and 20, is that we have our questions, don't we?
We have questions. And so here in the Bible, Paul says, "Will
you say to me then, 'Why does He, why does God still find full
for he who has resisted His will?'" That statement means, if
God preprogrammed everything and I have no choice in it, why is
He upset with me? If I'm going to the pit automatically or if
I'm going to heaven automatically, what's the deal?
Well that's... it's a beautiful statement. It's a great
question. The thing is, the one asking has got it wrong. In
fact, I want to read something to you. This is... I read this
this week, it was amazing. R. W. Newell. I love this. R. W.
Newell tells of a conversation he was having with a man that he
had sat down next to on a train. The conversation went in the
direction of faith and belief in God. At some point in the
conversation, Newell described that he asked the young man if
he believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. "The young man
burst out loud in laughter saying, 'Well, if I'm part of
the elect, then I'll be going to heaven. And if I'm not part of
the elect, there's no use in me worrying about it anyway.' To
that I sharply rebuked Him with these words. The Bible says,
'Truly these times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now commands
all men everywhere to repent..." Metanoia, means to change your
mind. "...Because, He has appointed a day in which He will
judge the world in righteousness by the Man...," notice capital
M, "Christ, who He has ordained. He has given assurance of this
to all by raising Christ from the dead." Wow. But how many
times have you talked to people? Well, you know, if I'm...
it's... God picks, eenie meenie miney moe. That's not true. And
you'll hear people like that put the blame on God. Why does He
still find fault? He doesn't. He's a God of all foreknowledge.
He knew what you would do with the opportunity to say yes to
Jesus when presented to you. By the time we end this service,
I'm going to present the opportunity to you and you're
either going to dig down your prideful heels into the ground
and say, "Nope, I'm going to do my own thing. I want my own
thing and I don't want Him to tell me what to do." Or you're
going to say, "I'm busted. He's got me in the corner. I have
nowhere to go." But to Him, those who will accept Christ
will give God all the glory and all the praise because He
provided the opportunity and the way to eternal life. He's
sovereign. Those who choose not to accept Christ wind up in
hell. They suffer there on their own because they would not want
to be with God. Even if they could be with God, they'd want
nothing to do with Him, and they have nobody to blame but
themselves. And that too is the sovereignty of God. Questions.
We all have them. What do we do with them? It says in verse 20,
"But indeed, oh man, who are you to reply against God?" That's
strong, isn't it? Questioning. Questions, questions. Listen. It
depends, Questions can be good. You know little kids... How many
of you have teenagers? Raise your hands. Like what? 20 of
you? How can there be hundreds of teenagers here? Where are
they coming from? If not from you, where are they coming from?
How many of you, little kids? Raise your hands. Oh, there's
something really weird here today. There's like a thousand
little kids here right now. Whose kids are these kids? We do
know people have dropped children off and- We changed it
now. People used to drop their kids off and go shopping and
stuff and go on dates. You can't do that anymore now. Now it's
all, now we have chips on the forehead or in the right hand.
It's a good idea, just not 666. It's a different number. Just
kidding. Not really. Your kids are safe here, I'm telling you.
But- And may God keep it that way. But who are you to reply
like that? "Well, it's very fatalistic. There's nothing I
can do about it. It's been predetermined." Brother, you
need to read your Bible better. Joshua said today, choose today
whom you'll serve. If God is God, serve Him. If Baal and
Ashera are gods, then serve them. Remarkable. But little
kids, I asked you about little kids and your teenagers asking
questions. Do they not ask questions? Hey listen, you need
to answer their questions. You say, "But Jack, their questions
are so lame." That's not for you to figure out if they're lame or
not. When your five-year-old says, "Hey, how do birds fly
like that?" You got to stop the world, my friend, right now. You
got to stop the world and you got to either go online or go to
Britannica or get a little aeronautical, go down to the
library. Get an aeronautical book for little kids and show
them how that all of that thing works. You've got to answer
their question, because if you don't answer their question,
they're going to go find either, A) a question somewhere else
that's wrong. Secondly, they're going to know that, well, I'm
not going to ask Dad. He doesn't know anything. Especially when
dad goes, "I don't know. Ask your mom." That's an automatic
gig. That's a giveaway, man. Don't do that, Dad. Tell your
son, "I'm not exactly sure. Let's find out together." And
when your teenager says, "Hey, what's the deal with this thing
in life?" Stop everything. Give them the answers. You're the
parent. God has ordained you to be their parent and to be their
spiritual leader, and your teen wants to get the answer from
you. Your little one wants- And they asked the greatest... the
little ones asked the questions like "How does the bird fly?"
One of the greatest things ever. Some little kid, I think it was
Dr. James Dobson said that one time His son Ryan came up,
little young Ryan came up to Him and said to His dad, "Dad, do
worms yawn?" That's a great thing. Would you know how to
answer that, by the way? technically, right? They don't
have a mouth. They don't... that's how... You got to to
answer them. But when you, listen, when you say to God, why
did you make me this way and who are you anyway? God is God. I'm
God and you are not. I've always been. Remember Bill Cosby, I-
sorry to bring him up, but... isn't that sad? Bill Cosby used
to say in his standup to his rebellious kid, "I brought you
into this world and it is certain I can take you out."
Well, think about that on the grand scale with God. God is
saying to the voice that's condemning him. God is saying,
"I could take your breath away right now. It's like, like I
could snap your neck like a chicken." He can do anything,
He's God. Isn't it great in His sovereignty He's merciful? He
doesn't have to be. He's merciful. The verbiage leads you
to the book of Jeremiah where the Bible says, when God is
speaking about Israel, He says, go to the potter's house and
watch the potter. And the potter goes to the wheel and he spins
the wheel and he puts clay on there and he's adding water.
We've all done this in class, right? Do they still do this?
Please tell me they do this in school, where you make, remember
you make the stuff in school and that never works right, so what
do we make? Ashtray. The world is full of ashtrays because the
thing that we were making wouldn't work. But never once
did we shape a figurine. Ooh, look at that. Take it off and
set it there, and it's this thing, and then you're looking
at it and it goes, "Why am I like this? Why do you have me
standing like this? I'm too short." It never talks back. And
then if it did talk back, you just go (blows rasberry). You
made it. You can do anything you want with it. "Well, I'm going
to file a grievance. Where? I'm sovereign. I'm God. I know what
I'm doing." And what you don't know is that I knew that you
would be one who would fight me back right out of the womb
before you were ever born. I knew before you were ever born
that you would have nothing to do with me, that you would hate
me. Now somebody will say, well then why didn't God stop them
from being born? Now you've got God violating His own
sovereignty, because what you want is a kumbaya moment.
Everything is just fine. And you can't have real love without
struggle. Did you know that marriage in this world is the
closest thing to knowing God that's possible on this planet?
Did you know the family dynamic beginning with marriage has been
designed by God? I know it's a shock, but Sacramento didn't
design marriage. God did. It's amazing. Listen, the... the
Bible tells us that, "Will the thing formed say to him who
formed it, 'Why have you made me this way? Why am I like this?'"
When in reality the thing that is formed has no standing to
even ask a question. Didn't God kind of tell that to Job? Job's
asking all those questions. I mean, look, God was tough on
job. Job was hurting, but that's in the Bible for us. He paid
the- Job paid the prize for you and I. Job's like, he's got puss
all over his body. It's dripping. He's scraping the
puss, it says, from the sores off his body. He did nothing
wrong. Satan's attacking him and job's going, what'd I do? How
come this and how come that? And if I were you- And God is
telling Job, I know what I'm doing. And these questions that
you're asking, can I ask you a question? Do you know how to
steer plea at ease through the universe? All the questions
you're asking, can you just have faith in me job that I'm
bringing you through something? Instead of the clay questioning
me, how about if the clay just stands still and says, " I know
that you're the potter. Help me to hang on."? Just help me to
hang on. I can't go any more than that. And I always believe,
I do, I always believe that He's hanging onto us. We don't have
the strength. We don't have the grip. But we have no standing to
question Him. We assume that we do. We have no capability of
even asking the right question. Let's be honest with ourselves.
Our pride gets in the way so much that... can't we agree that
when we're questioning God- And don't look at me like you don't.
We all question God. "Shall the clay say to the potter..." Yes,
we do. Yes, we question Him. You know what's awesome? He can take
it. He can take it . In your grief, in your pain, sometimes
it's in your pure pride. "How come that guy got the raise? I
should have got the raise." Watch out. We're not even
qualified to ask the right questions, we only think we are.
This is a side note as well, I don't know if you're an
employer. If you're an employer, I have some advice for you. Do
you know how to hire people? When you're interviewing
somebody- Look, you know what IQ is, right? You can teach
someone... you can teach someone to do a job. You can teach them.
"Well, I've got all these... I've got these schools I went
to." I'm not interested in that. It means nothing to me, because
your life up into this moment is pure theoretical. What do you
know? Have you ever had a job before? "I've gone to eight
years of school." That just means you showed up, sometimes,
maybe not. Here's the deal. It's not the IQ, you can fix that.
Stupid can be fixed. You can fix it. Have you ever heard of EQ?
That you cannot fix. Say, where are you going with this?
Emotional stability, the emotional presence of a person.
That's the person you hire. Why? Because this person gets along
with others. You can hire Einstein and he can disrupt the
entire project. Are you hearing me? Do they get along with
others? Are they a team player? Are they able to be
self-governed at their job or do you have to have somebody over
them or a camera? You don't want those kind of people, but you
want somebody. Listen, when you're interviewing somebody-
This has nothing to do with the sermon. What am I doing right
now? When you're hiring... when you're hiring somebody, because
you're sovereign, that's how I'll wiggle that in, because you
are the boss or the owner, you know, ask them questions that
are important to you. But here's where it gets very, very
powerful. You say to them, "Now, I'd like you to ask me any
question you'd like about this company or about me. Go." Did
you know you will find out more about that person in five
seconds to five minutes? Do they ask the right questions? How do
they present their question? Was their question theoretical or
was it a practical question? Oh my goodness, it's amazing. It's
amazing, and you can't get a degree in that. You've got to
learn life. Young people today need to learn life. There's
motives. "Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, 'Why
have you made me like this?" Remarkable. The Bible says in
Isaiah 64, verse 5, Isaiah 64:5, it says, "...and we need to be
saved. But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our
righteousness or as filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our
iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." We need Jesus.
Today you might say, I don't need Jesus. The Bible says you
need to choose. And you would think fatalistically and say it
doesn't matter. It does matter. It powerfully matters. So I'm
going to ask you in a few moments, I'm going to ask you to
exercise your ability to choose, and it's solely between you and
God. The only caveat to that is that God asks you with your
decision to be public about it. Isn't that amazing? See, well,
that's a lot of pressure to be public about it. He says in
verse 21, "Does not the potter have power over the clay from
the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for
dishonor?" You say, "Well, Jack, that's pretty scary, isn't it?
Right there? Verse 21?" Listen, this is the opportunity. We have
opportunity. Thank the Lord that His sovereign act is all based
upon that beautiful word foreknowledge, that He knew
everything beforehand. Because if you say today, "Oh, my
friend, my friend was designed by God to be a vessel of
dishonor. He's been designed for hell." No. Listen, those who
appear to us to be vessels of dishonor, the evil of the world,
you and I do not know what God knows, that He knew in
His foreknowledge how they would be in life and thus their
life was. He didn't make them this way. He knew that when
they had a chance, they would reject Him.
JACK: So friends, it comes down to this, and to be honest with
you, it depends on how you hear this, determines your eternal
destiny. I know that sounds huge, but listen. We're not
talking about IBM or DuPont or Dunlop or NASA. We're talking
about God, His Word in the Bible, Jesus Christ, the
crucifixion and the resurrection. We're talking
about eternal life. And so here's the thing, even if today
you choose not to believe in Jesus, you're actually proving
the veracity of the scriptures. God says, "Go tell the world
that I love them, that I died on the cross for them, that I
provided for them a way out of escape from this horrible
world." If you say, "I'm not going to believe that," you know
what you are doing? You are actually proving the point that
God provides love and you say, get it away from me. I don't
want to hear it. Isn't it weird to think that there are people
who are not going to go to heaven that's going to break our
hearts, right? We want them in heaven with us. Here's the funny
thing, they don't want to be there. Isn't it weird? Maybe I'm
speaking to most of us here right now where we can't wait to
get to heaven. There are some people who don't want anything
to do with God. They curse His name, they don't read His book,
they blame everything on Him, and then they say they don't
believe in Him, betrayed their own response. They just don't
want God in their lives. Friends, listen, that's a
decision that has been built into the human being to choose,
to make the choice. It's the only way you can have true love,
is if there's choice. Me loving my wife is a choice I make. She
doesn't tell me, "You have to love me." That's a choice. If
somebody put a gun to your head and said, "Tell me you love me,"
that's called rape. That's sick. So this is a choice you make.
Friends, listen. If you want to know more, if you want
to ask questions, if you've chosen Christ to be your
Lord and Savior, please contact us at jackhibbs.com.
You can also connect with us at Facebook or Instagram,
but we want to hear from you because we're all about
discipling you in the Word of God until you and I see Christ
face to face. Until then, God bless you.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: What does it take to be a great leader? Whether
you're managing a business, running a household, or
navigating relationships, leadership is about so much more
than titles and tasks. In "The Way of the Shepherd" by Dr.
Kevin Leman, you'll discover timeless principles of biblical
leadership that apply to every area of life. Through compelling
storytelling, Dr. Leman shares seven powerful secrets that will
help you lead like the Good Shepherd does, including
understanding the people you lead, assessing their strengths,
building trust, ensuring safety, providing direction,
implementing correction, leading with compassion.
Personally recommended by Pastor Jack Hibbs, "The Way
of the Shepherd" is our thank you gift for your 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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