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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: You understand? This is absolutely crazy. If this is, if
this was Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, you'd not hear
any of this. This is the creator God of the universe saying, come
to me quick. I want you saved. I want you with me. I want you
born again. I want you to have a new life.
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message, "what do you have to say?"
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story telling, doctor 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"
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Music
JACK: Well, friends, listen, what do you have to say? Have
you ever had that question asked of you? What do you have to say?
As though it's a matter of opinion, maybe. Or a matter of
observation. What do you have to say? The whole question
presupposes something that you've been pondering. Do you
have an answer? Can you respond to this? Well, I've got a
question for you. What do you have to say regarding your own
faith? Faith in who? Faith in what? What, if you had to define
your faith, which someday you will, what is the premise to
your faith, the foundation of it? And what do you have to say
about doing it? Do you do faith? Because faith is a verb. It's
active. It's not something you just say. It's something that
you do. And we're going to be learning today in Romans chapter
nine, verse 30, where the Bible there says, what shall we say
then? It's a great question. The 'we' in this portion of
Scripture is very personal. What shall we say to the things that
we've learned? What shall we say to the things that we do? These
are very, very personal, yet strong things. And I hope you
understand that we are on your television right now for no
other reason than to point you to Jesus. Have you noticed we
don't beg for money? We don't ask this of you, and that of
you, or anything else of you. We want to bring you Jesus so you
can respond to Him. So, grab your Bibles and respond to him
right now in learning. So, the question is,
what do you have to say? Well, let's find out.
Music
JACK: I love this statement by Doctor Albert Barnes. He's now
long dead and gone. He says the fact that the gospel has been
extended to all nations is proof that it is from heaven. And I
love that. You know, you might say, well, that's not exactly a
big deal because Apple computers made it around the world. So did
Google, and so did you name it, you fill in the blank. Yeah. You
know what? There was no book ever written about Google before
Google showed up. And what, what can, what can Google do for you
anyway? What about Apple? What about Microsoft? What about you
filled in all these global entity things that have, that
have swallowed up the. Hey, listen, I got news for you 2000
years ago, the gospel was being preached and without the
internet, it made it around the world. Everybody thinks, you
know, especially young people. Wow. Look at that. That's,
that's gone viral. You want to talk about viral? Bible viral.
Bible viral. That kind of has a little, little tune to that. The
Bible powered by the Holy Spirit, the Word of God. Because
God is one who changes people's lives. And I'm going to tell you
right now that when we think about these things, what do we
say? We're talking about the unwavering witness of God in his
faithfulness. That's what Paul is talking about. God says He'll
save. But what about that Pharaoh? God says He'll save.
But what about Ishmael? God says He'll save. But what about Esau?
All of these things in Scripture, we do well to
understand that when God speaks, He speaks from the nature of
absolute love and perfection. And so as we look at this, mark
it down, if you would. Romans chapter two going way back a few
weeks ago, huh? Romans two, "as many as have sinned without the
law will also perish without the law." This is talking about
Gentiles. They don't have the law. They didn't have the law.
"And as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the by
the law." That's speaking about the Jewish people. They have the
law. Moses, the Ten Commandments and more, "for not the hearers
of the law are justified in the sight of God, but the doers of
the law will be justified." Watch this, "for when Gentiles
who do not have the law" think about, you're not going to see a
Gentile holding two tablets labeled 1-10. "But by nature, do
the things that are in the law, these, although not having the
law, are a law unto themselves." I'll explain that in a moment.
Verse 15, "who show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves
their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. In the day when
God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to
my gospel," says Paul, the gospel that he preached. So,
this is an amazing declaration. How is it that we now are
reading a portion of Scripture that is parsing out now Israel,
who had the law and the prophets and the commandments, and the
Gentiles who were pagan worshipers? I don't know about
you. Maybe you can have a blood test, do your little
Ancestry.com thing, and you might find out that you're
actually Jewish. You could be. People find this out all the
time. They're a percentage of Jewish. I've never done that.
And so, I'm just going to own up that I come from a long line of
pagans. High probability, you also. But as I say this today by
design, because this is what this portion of Scripture is
going to tell us, is that you are in one of two camps today,
you and I, and you might be surprised as to how this
unfolds. But if we're Gentiles today, according to the
scriptures here, we do not have access to the law. We didn't
have it. We didn't have the traditions. We didn't have
Moses. We didn't have the revelations. We didn't
have the prophets. We were pagans. And so as pagans, we
worshiped all kinds of things. That's why, as Gentile pagans,
we worship the gods of sex. We worship the gods of drugs. We
worship the gods of Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. We worship the
God of fill in the blank, self-seeking pleasure. And you
look at all those gods by the way, and they actually are
manifested in and throughout human culture. Now they're kind
of relegated to statues and museums. But there's pan. You've
seen images of Pan, by the way, when you worshiped Pan. Do you
know what it was called when you worshiped Pan? It was called
panic. Literally, they ran around, went crazy in all kinds
of bizarre, hedonistic acts, and it looked like a mob. And that's
where from the worship of Pan came the word panic. What about
Janus? What about Zeus? What about Athena? All of these pagan
gods. These were the ones that we went after. You say Jack I'll
have you know, I never bowed down to any of those gods. You
don't have to bow down to those gods to worship the spirits that
are behind those gods. The Bible says we've all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. That means none of us are perfect.
What do you have to say, when he says what shall we say? Well,
the number one thing is absolute surrender. I come to this place,
and I say, God, you need to take over in my life. I realize that
as a Gentile. I realize I know that in my life I've sinned. And
how do you know that? The Bible says God has written His law
upon your heart? That's true, by the way, for Jew and Gentile
alike. Listen, this is important. God doesn't have a
section over here for Jews and a section over here for Gentiles.
Listen, did you know? And by the way, I'm going to contradict
some famous preachers that are out there today. Listen up
carefully. There are some preachers out there that say
things like this. The Jew gets saved this way and Gentiles get
saved another way. That's blasphemous. They think a Jew is
saved by some other thing. Oh, no. You Gentiles need to be,
what's the word? Born again. Excuse me, who did Jesus say he
had to be born again, or else he will not see the kingdom of
heaven? Was Nicodemus a Jew? He was the leader of the Jews. He
was the chief teacher. He was the religious Grand Poobah of
Israel of the day. And Jesus said, you must be born again to
enter the kingdom of heaven. There's only one way, and that
is Jesus Christ. And so the Bible teaches us also. This is
so exhilarating. Romans chapter ten. Oh, you have to check
sometimes to make sure it's still in the Bible. Romans
chapter ten, verse eight. "But what does it say?" Kind of
starts out the same, right? What does it say? What's the
scriptures teaching, he is announcing? What do you say
about this? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your
heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach) that if
you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For
with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation." That is epic. But
some of you find this offensive. It can't be that easy. That's
ridiculous. I didn't say it was easy, but it's simple. How is
it? I don't understand it, that our God in the Bible speaks to
us things that are simple but impossible. God says, come to
me. That's the greatest challenge I believe that is
before all of mankind is when God says, come to me and I'll
save you. And at that invitation, man goes into a
mental conundrum with himself. What do I do about that? You
just heard him say, come, go. I don't know if I should. It's God
inviting you, go. And we wind up getting into a debate with
ourselves. We wind up arguing with ourselves. Why do we do
that? Because coming to God means this, He is the one that
died on the cross and rose again from the dead. He is the Savior,
which means that we, by coming, must confess that we have sins,
and we own them. Stop hiding them. You know, there's some
people they're so deluded. Some people have become so deluded.
And literally, God gives them up that they're so deluded to their
own sin that they think they're so superior to everybody else,
and everybody can see how wrong they are, but they can't see how
wrong they are. They live in their own world. They're legends
in their own mind. They only keep in touch with themselves.
They live in a bubble and everything's wrong except them.
And that is self-righteousness. And self-righteousness will kill
you. Come to Christ. That's what we're to say. Secondly, we look
at verse 30 and right there in the middle it says, "that
Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to
righteousness." This is a remarkable statement. You should
mark this down. The pagan worshiping godless who did not
pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness. They
got it. He's speaking about believers who are non-Jews who
didn't have Moses. They didn't have the prophets, when they
heard the heard the gospel, they said, I'm such a rotten sinner.
This is the best news ever. You see, see, listen, the, you might
say today, pastor, I was invited here by some friends. You have
no idea how big of a horrible sinner I am. I'm the worst in
the world. God would never have me. Excuse me. You're exactly
the person God wants. The bigger the sinner, the bigger the
display of grace. And listen, you might, don't count yourself
out. Oh, I'm a murderer. I'm a mugger. I'm a this, I'm a that.
Listen, Jesus is saying to you today. Quickly come to me before
you die, before you drop dead, before you get hit by a truck.
Come. He wants you with him. Do you understand? This is
absolutely crazy. If this is. If this was Buddhism, Hinduism,
Judaism, Islam, you'd not hear any of this. This is the creator
God of the universe saying, come to me quick. I want you saved. I
want you with me. I want you born again. I want you to have a
new life. I want you to start all over. I can help you do
that. You did it all on your own the first time around. Let me do
it next time. He's awesome. And so
we ask the question. What are we looking for?
Gentiles who did not pursue, the word pursue is
an amazingly powerful word. It means look at this. The word
pursue means to strive for or to seek after. Watch this, I love
this. To act or the act of hunting prey. To go after with
all your being in desperate pursuit of a desired end.
Conclusion. See all this in the positive? Strive, go after God.
Seek him. Stalk, stalk him like you're stalking prey as a
hunter. This is what they. This is what I did not do. I didn't
do this. According to the Bible you didn't do this. According to
the Bible, god interrupted your life. I'm talking to the
believers today. The contrast is, you'll hear it in a moment
are those who grow up in religion. They're schooled.
They're disciplined. They're walked through the traditions.
They do these things. They don't do the other things. They check
the box. They've got the clothing, they do the thing and
they're never satisfied. There's always a hole inside of them
that's empty. Where? Where? How will God love me? Why don't I
feel close to God? There's an emptiness. And then some
bumbling pagan comes along, all joyful and happy that he's been
forgiven of his sins, and he's living for God. And the Jew
looks at this and says, what's going on? That can't be true.
We've got the prophets. We've got the book, we've got Moses.
Yes, but we believe in the Messiah. That's all the
difference in the world. The Bible says, "by the keeping of
the law shall no man be justified before God." How are
you going to get there? What are you looking for is remarkable
because the fact of the matter is, God has it for you. All
along the way God has satisfaction for you in life. He
has it. You say, well, I'd like to have some of that. Then give
your life to Him. And He'll give it to you. You say, well, I
don't know if I want to give my life to Him. What? What if I
miss out on something? What are you going to miss out on? Think
about that. Isn't that one of the lies that's in our head?
Well, if I make a decision for Jesus now, I might miss out on
something. And what could that be? We are easily lied to when
we speak to ourselves, when we counsel ourselves. Now I'm going
to show you a verse. I'm going to, are you guys awake? I'm
going to show you a verse. I'm going to confess right up front.
So, I'm not trying to bamboozle you. There is the traditional
view of this verse, traditional, and I get it. And I agree with
the traditional view of the verse, but because I'm not
normal, I'm going to introduce to you another way of looking at
it. I think both are true. How do I know for sure? I don't.
When we're in heaven, I'll tell you which one it was. Okay. It's
Matthew 13, the great parable chapter, Matthew 13. So, keep in
mind legalistic pursuit of God through the law, versus the
pursuit of God by faith and grace. Jesus is speaking, "again
the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which
a man found and hid. And for joy over it goes and sells all that
he has and buys that field. And again, the Kingdom of heaven is
like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he
had found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that
he had and bought it." Traditional interpretation.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a
field." When a, a lost man, some somebody who's lost a sinner
finds it, he hides and hides, hides it, and for joy over it he
goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. In other
words, the field is the treasure that he's pursuing. He's the
sinner. He sees it. He sells everything. He buys it. Verse
45, "again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant." So,
this is a sinner, "seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he
had found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that
he had and bought it." This verse is, and it's accurate. You
can argue that this verse is a call to discipleship. Take up
your cross and follow me Jesus said. Are you tracking with me?
That this is what you give up to get Christ? And I get it. And I
and I agree with the traditional interpretation. Allow me to read
it a different way. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like
treasure hidden in a field." Is it possible that the field is
the world? And that you and I, as broken and as weary, and as
worn as we are, are actually treasures to him? For the joy
that was set before him, the Bible says he endured the cross.
Is it possible? Which a man, could this man be Christ? Found
and hid, and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has
and buys that field. Excuse me, but he's the one that was rich
and became poor the Bible says, for our sake. He left heaven to
come here. Do you understand? You don't do that. That's a
downgrade. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant."
Maybe this is Jesus, seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he
had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he
had and bought it." Did he not buy salvation for you? Did he
ask you at any time, can you pay 10%? How about a down payment
and then you can have it all. He bought it. He did it. He brought
it. He presented it. And he's doing it to some of you today.
You're the one that's of great value in price. And you and I
have been listening to this world, all of our lives about
how whatever issues we have, we've got issues, you've got
issues, I've got them, you've got them. We've all got them.
So, no one's left out. You got them. I got troubles. You got
trouble. All God's people got troubles. But God looks at you
and he says, you are such great value and wealth. I'm going to
come from heaven to earth, and I'm going to die on the cross
for you. And I'm going to set your soul free, and I'm going to
set your spirit alive. And I'm going to resurrect your
body someday in glory from the dead. This is
the gospel. What an awesome God we have.
JACK: So can I ask you this question? How are you going to
get to heaven? There's only one answer that the Bible gives us.
There's only one answer that God will accept. So, were you
listening to the message, to the challenge? You and I. Listen,
you and I are broken, weary, tired people apart from Christ.
Now, let's be honest Christians get tired. We do get weary. But
the great thing is this in human nature, we get tired, we get
weary. But God has given us a life that you can live that
transcends all of that. And this is not wishful thinking,
friends. This is transformative doctrine. We are actually the
treasures of God. He loves us so much and you are of great value
to God. So listen, he came from heaven to earth that he might
set you and I free. This is the crux of the gospel itself. This
is how you and I get to heaven by realizing that you and I
cannot do anything to get there. We can't buy it. We cannot
establish a morality to obtain it. We can't trade for it. God
did this because he loved you. And like any loving parent, God
is saying, please come to me. So commit your ways to him. You'll
never be let down. God will never disappoint you, my
friends. So, listen, let's, let's close in prayer. Dear
Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, I come to you now, and I ask you
to forgive me of my sins and to wash me clean in the blood of
Jesus Christ. I recognize today you don't want religion. You
don't want my morality. You don't want my money. You don't
want my, my anything else that I possess. You want my heart, and
you want my faith to be placed in you. And so, I do that now,
in Jesus' name. And all God's people said Amen. Hey, listen,
if you have prayed that prayer, we want to connect with you. And
you can do that by simply going to jackhibbs.com. Why? Because
we want to give you material. We want to know you.
We want to pray. This is for real. This is Real Life. You can
follow us at Facebook, Instagram and other social media
platforms. But our desire is to get you plugged in with Jesus
and that would be forever. God bless you and
we look forward to seeing you in heaven.
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 Doctor
Kevin Leman, you'll discover timeless principles of biblical
leadership that apply to every area of life. Through compelling
storytelling, doctor 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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ANNOUNCER: The preceding program was sponsored by
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