ANNOUNCER: The following program is sponsored by
generous friends and partners of Real Life.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
JACK: Listen, without Jesus, we've all been bound to
something, and some of our struggles as a Christian is the
revisitation of those strongholds. And we have to
remind ourselves, I have been set free by the blood of Jesus
Christ, by the resurrected Lord. The empty tomb. God keeps His
word. And I'm not the same person. I'm a brand new person.
ANNOUNCER: Do you want to live your best life? In today's
message, Jack Hibbs breaks it all down and shares critical key
scriptures to doing just that. Find faith, hope and
love as you align with His purpose.
Because in Christ all things are possible.
ANNOUNCER: : The cross. For many, it's become
little more than a symbol we wear
around our necks, display in our homes, or hang
from our rear view mirrors. But what if, instead of being a
decoration or accessory, the cross motivated and shaped the
way we lived every single day? What if it wasn't about hiding
or minimizing our sin, but actually crucifying it in order
to move forward in the freedom Christ offers. In, "Born
Crucified," by L.E. Maxwell, you'll discover what it truly
means to live a cross-centered life. This short yet powerful
book is a classic for every Christian's library, reminding
us that the cross isn't just a symbol, it's the key to victory
over sin and the power to serve God effectively. If you're ready
to experience the freedom and purpose found in a life centered
on the cross, this book is for you. "Born Crucified," 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: Well, friends recently here in Southern California, the
Los Angeles area, as you well know that the fires have not
only ravaged much of the Los Angeles area, but on a scale
that America has never seen before. It's not just a
California crisis, it's a national crisis. And one of the
strange things is, is this is that at a time like that, people
begin searching for their identity. They begin searching
for where they belong. Who are they and what is the meaning of
life? And some people are saying things like, "Where's God in all
of this?" And it's that question that causes me to get excited.
Where's God in all of this? God is exactly where He needs to be
for you. There was a guy walking down the street carrying
somebody's Oscar the other day, and he was arrested by law
enforcement. He was trying to assume someone else's identity.
Friends, listen, you cannot do that. You need to know the Lord
Jesus Christ yourself personally. And by doing that,
here's what you do. You come and you surrender yourself to Jesus
Christ. You don't hang on to your life, and you don't walk
around with a fake religion in your hand. You give your life to
Christ and you live for Him authentically. Real life, that's
what He wants for you. So listen today's message live your best
life that's going to be found in the Bible. So let's grab your
Bibles and let's see what God has to say to us today about who
are we and how do we live our life, a real life for His glory.
(Music)
JACK: So when I read a moment ago what Jesus
had said, "give your life, you'll save it.
If you hang on to your life, you're going to lose it." I ask
myself these questions here. Maybe you can ask yourself the
same. What is it to me to desire to come after Jesus? Am I, Jack
coming after Jesus? I have to answer this question. You have
to answer this question. Even if you ignore it, you're still
answering the question. Am I Jack pursuing Jesus? And then I
had to ask myself, what am I denying? You need to ask
yourself that. What do you listen, when do you say to you,
no? When do you say to you, nope? Because your flesh.
Listen, your flesh will say, "I want that. In fact, I want that.
I want four scoops of it." I had this battle. Do you know why
this is one of my breakdowns of this verse? I'll tell you. Don't
tell anybody. This is between us. It happened just the other
day. We've been out of power for so long. But inside the freezer.
The power is out. The ice cream, the- the Tillamook, the milky
moo, milky moo. It's still frozen. It's full. We've lost
power. Could be gone for days. That would be a very waste of
money if I let all of that melt. What do I do? What do I do?
Should I pray about it? No, um. You start eating it because you
want to be a good steward, not waste anything. You see the
justification. I know how to get all this ice cream under the
guise of, sorry, somebody had to do it. We ain't got no power
because Newsom doesn't know anything about this kind of
stuff. Life is like all of our flesh does that, I want, I want.
We've got to be able to say, "thank God it's through His
power. No flesh. Sit down. I deny you." "What?" "You are
denied." "But I want," "sit down." And we deny. Well, he's
richer, she's younger. Denied. What about that? What about
this? Denied. Can we do that? Jesus says, "you must do that."
And then He says, "to carry your cross." Jesus says, "for each of
us as believers, that we are to carry our own cross," by the
way, our own cross it means you can't carry my cross. I can't
carry yours. Did you know that? Let's make this clear. Jesus
carried His cross to die in the, on that cross for all of our
sins. This is not a this is not a salvation issue for you and I
to pick up our cross and to follow Him means that we pick up
all of the stuff of our lives that we have to deal with in
association with Jesus. In other words, we count the cost, and
the cost is absolutely. I'm following you, Jesus. Come with
me and we go with Him. When people spit, mock, ridicule,
beat us. Whatever it is, it's okay. I'm walking with you,
Jesus. And then to follow Him. The Word to follow Him is a
beautiful Word. And you've even seen posters of this, which is
in some ways illustrated the truth of it, but in some ways
maybe made it too common. But it actually means to walk in the
footsteps of Him. And you see the you'll see the video play on
the internet, where there's somebody walking in the sand in
the ocean and the little kid's footsteps and the parent's step.
That's very sweet. That's exactly what the Word means.
Somebody will say that, "when I walked through this dynamic of
life, you know, on the sand, there was two feet, two sets of
footprints, but there was nobody with me. But of course, it was
Jesus." I understand the pictorial side of all of that,
but the fact of the matter is that to follow Him is to walk in
His footsteps. And we can't do that on our own. So we ask Him,
"Lord, use me." And church, this brings us to the issue of hope.
Faith? Yes, hope. It says that we will be for Him, "holy,
acceptable to God." I won't belabor this other than to say
this. "Holy means set apart for God." That doesn't mean you wear
black clothes and have a bun, your hair pulled back in a bun,
and you don't wear makeup, and you have a carriage with a horse
and- are you hearing me? That holy, holy doesn't mean that.
Holy means you're set apart. I remember you guys, you guys know
I resigned my job to come and start this church. And when I
did that, I was really sad because I loved the corporation
I worked for. It was incredible. And I had no plans to leave. I
planned on retiring from there. But you know what's awesome
about it? Did you know that when when you were hired, they had
for you to sign what is known as a fiduciary agreement? You know
what that is? Anybody know what that is? Raise your hand if you
don't know what that is. It's nothing to be ashamed about. I
didn't know what it was until I got hired there. A fiduciary
agreement is that we're not we're not playing to the legal
side of this. But if you're going to be one of our
employees, we're we're appealing to your to to to better angels,
so to speak, within you because we have you as an employee. We
pick our employees very, very rigorously when you're off the
clock we want you to conduct yourself in such a way as though
you were on the clock. Take care of your body. This is a this is
a corporation. Global. Take care of your body on your days off.
Refrain from using profanity on the clock and off the clock.
Remember that if you wear any of our apparel, you're representing
this corporation globally. And then finally live your best life
healthy and wise, so that each and every Monday you can get
back to giving 100% to our customers. After I read that, I
wanted to sign it. If if the world says things like that and
it's honorable, what about God saying, "just be set aside for
me. And acceptable." And the word acceptable means we already
are acceptable. Jesus made us acceptable. Do you trust Christ?
Do you believe Jesus died on the cross? Do you believe He rose
again from the dead? Listen, you may believe all that. That's
great. But is it a reality of faith and hope in your life?
Don't say anything right now in this room. But can you testify
to the fact that you know that God dwells in you internally?
That there's a perpetual conversation going on in your
life between you and God regarding all matters big and
small. God has called us to bring hope. I tell you, our
world needs hope right now like never before. You're the agent
of hope. Do you think the government's going to bring
hope? Listen, I'm not bashing government. Government's not
designed to bring hope. If any government, if any politician
says, "you can put your hope in me." Doesn't that just sound
like vomitous? I mean, that's just grotesque. No, no human
should say that. The closest as we can come is say, "I promise,"
even that's risky, because somebody with the best
intentions, with the greatest resources can still fail in the
promise, because no one's got the ability to actually keep a
promise. We did a wedding here. It was so perfect yesterday in
between windstorms. It was a perfect wedding. And those two
beautiful people stood there And I said now and to the family and
the audience, and I said, "we're about to recite or I'm about to
give you the vows." I gave them the background from ancient
Hebrew of the origin of vows, what it meant. God's hearing
them. And the whole thing was each of them giving promises to
one another. But I stressed the fact that Jesus had been
welcomed into their lives a long time ago as Lord and Savior.
It's not so much that they will keep the promises, it's that
Christ will keep the promises through them. He's so good. But
friends, today there is a world out there that has caused people
to be completely bound up. And I think of Joseph, who did no
wrong. Joseph in the Bible, Joseph in Genesis 37. Joseph he
was taken, remember, he's taken by his brothers and they bound
him up and they threw him in a hole because they hated him.
They were jealous of him. And then they were going to kill
him. Reuben had second thoughts about it. He said, "well, let's
just sell him. Here comes a caravan, a bunch of Midianites.
They're on their way to Egypt. We'll just sell him." Joseph,
who in the Old Testament is a type of Christ. Joseph was sold
by his brothers for silver pieces into slavery. And all the
while in Egypt, God was preparing Joseph to be the
deliverer of the nation of Israel. Sound familiar? Joseph
was human trafficked. Human trafficking. It's evil. It's on
a scale like it's never been. For what reason? Book of
revelation tells you that, "in the last days, there will be
those who will stand in damnation before God who
trafficked in the souls of men." Did you know that's the grand
play of what's going on even here, right now? You're a soul.
God wants you to have hope. I told that couple in that
wedding. I said, "you know, we're all so formal." We all
have our suits on. And even I was wearing a tie. Everybody's
dressed up, flowers, gorgeous. And I said, "you know, if we
were really doing a wedding like they did in Cana or in the
Galilee, it'd be nothing like this. It would be noisy. It
would be laughing. There would be cheering. There would be,
there would be. It's amazing." But we have formalized so much
of such a joyous thing. Did you know that the Bible tells us in
the book of Zephaniah that God, when you arrive in heaven, he's
going to spin- the word, the word in Hebrew is twirl. This is
hard for us to handle, the God of the Bible, when you show up
christian into heaven, He is going to twirl around you, it
says with singing. I think it's chapter 3, verse 7. Don't quote
me on it, but look it up later in the book of Zephaniah. Can
you imagine saying, "I can't handle that?" Well, then
everybody else is going to be very loud and happy, and you're
going to be the only party pooper as the Lord welcomes you
into heaven, He's going to think it's fantastic. You know, He is
from the Middle East, you know? Jesus didn't come from eternity
to Canada or to, you know, Connecticut, where they're so
proper. No, man, he came from Israel. They can't even talk
without passion. He's going to see you and He's going to say,
"awesome. Come here, come here." We're gonna be like, in shock?
"What?" Don't be surprised if He gives you a kiss. Many times you
have been trafficked in this world and sin. Maybe some of you
are hearing this for the first time ever and Jesus wants to set
you free. Listen, in the in the days of Jesus and the days of
Paul in the first century, and it had gone on for a couple
thousand years previously. Did you know that when Paul was
writing to the church at Rome, did you know that you could go
down to the Agora? Because a new shipment of slaves have arrived
from some of Rome's conquests. And this is how they came in.
Male or female alike. They were stripped completely naked before
they took the platform. But first they came in because
they've walked hundreds, if not a thousand miles over the course
of six months. Like this. A fishhook in your bottom lip,
pierced through. Tied to the back of the neck of the person
in front of you. And you were marched into Rome. Then they
would disconnect the lanyard from the back neck piece. You'd
stand on this platform with this hook in your lip. The string
dangling down naked. You were asked to present yourself a
living sacrifice for inspection. Some time was given whereby the
buyers would come up and feel, touched, how strong are you?
Examine you. And then the bidding would begin. And based
upon your particular potentiality, be it sex or
labor. The bidding started. Can you imagine? "20 shekels or 20
pieces. 30 pieces. 50 pieces. 50 pieces. Do I hear more? Many
more than 50 pieces. Sold to the man for 50 pieces." All of a
sudden, Jesus steps on to the platform, then comes in Jesus.
"Excuse me. How much?" "50." "Here's your 50. I'll take
them." "Based on what economy?" "My life." Maybe they would say,
"your life means nothing to us. Who are you?" "I'm the Son of
God." "Yeah, well, so is everybody else in this town."
"My kingdom. I give my kingdom. An eternal kingdom. Where I come
from, we use gold for asphalt. I give my life for them." Jesus
sets us free. You may think that you've been free all your life.
And yet you've been bound to pornography. You've been bound
to drink. You've been bound to pride. You've been bound to I
don't know what bound to fear. Listen. Without Jesus, we've all
been bound to something. And some of our struggles as a
Christian is the revisitation of those strongholds. And we have
to remind ourselves, I have been set free by the blood of Jesus
Christ, by the resurrected Lord. The empty tomb. God keeps His
Word. And I'm not the same person. I'm a brand new person.
And then we end here. And I really mean it. We end with
this. It is the fact that when it says your reasonable service
that you you are to present yourself to God in a reasonable
service. The translation of the word reasonable is where we get
the word logic. The translation of the word service is where we
get the word proskuneo. You say, "what?" Yeah. Proskuneo is an
awesome word. Proskuneo means, It means this, if you were
speaking the Greek language, and if your child came up to you and
grabbed onto your hand and held your hand like so, or if your
dog came up and started licking your hand. That word in Greek is
proskuneo. Because Jesus provides you salvation from all
damnation and all of your sins, and gives you as a gift, eternal
life. To all those who would say, "I'm a sinner and I need
you to save me, Lord Jesus," our reasonable, logical response to
that is worship service proskuneo. It means to lick the
hand like a puppy. Have you noticed how fun it is to be
around a puppy? They just lick everything. They're just
licking, licking, licking a little licking machines and they
have that amazing puppy breath. Ladies, you should invent a
perfume called poodle or something, I don't know. Isn't
it just a beautiful thing? Why would God use these words if He
didn't love you, why did He use these words? He wrote the Bible.
Why did He use these words? Present your life to me. I want
you to live. It's logical. It's worship.
And to worship. Is to draw near to Him.
JACK: So live your best life. How is that possible? You know,
there's books written about your best life now. Your best life
today. There's books that could say your best life is still
ahead. Look, that stuff. I don't know from the author's angle,
but I know this. As believers, it is true. Live your best life
now through Jesus Christ. Let Him define it. And you can know
this for sure that the best of your life is still ahead. It's
called heaven. So do you want faith, hope, and love to flow
out of you? Then draw near to the Lord Jesus Himself. Only
Christ is the source for all of those beautiful things that
people are searching for, especially in the time of
crisis. And so without Him, listen, we cannot do anything.
But with Him we can do everything. Nothing is
impossible when God calls you and I to do something for His
glory. Listen, are you ready to pray? Why don't you just pray
with me right now? I'll lead you through this prayer. But you
mean it from your heart. Dear Lord Jesus, I come to you. And I
recognize that your name is a very important name because I
hear it's your name that gets cursed and cussed and sworn at.
And yet I'm hearing right now in a Bible study that it's your
name that is being exalted, praised, and honored. I
understand that you died on the cross. That's the message,
anyway, for my sins, and that you rose again from the dead.
And so, Lord, if that's true, and I believe it is, if you're
God, save me. If you're God, change my life. I give you my
life and I surrender my life to you. Come into my life and make
me a brand new person. In Jesus name, Amen. If you've prayed
that prayer, we want to know it. We will not bother you, but we
want to reach out to you and be available to you. And you can do
that by simply going to JackHibbs.com and letting us
know that you prayed that prayer, and we'll be praying for
you. God bless you. Until next time.
ANNOUNCER: You are watching Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
ANNOUNCER: The cross. For many, it's become little more than a
symbol we wear around our necks, display in our homes, or hang
from our rear view mirrors. But what if, instead of being a
decoration or accessory, the cross motivated and shaped the
way we lived every single day? What if it wasn't about hiding
or minimizing our sin, but actually crucifying it in order
to move forward in the freedom Christ offers. In "Born
Crucified," by L.E. Maxwell. You'll discover what it truly
means to live a cross-centered life. This short yet powerful
book is a classic for every Christian's library, reminding
us that the cross isn't just a symbol, it's the key to victory
over sin and the power to serve God effectively. If you're ready
to experience the freedom and purpose found in a life centered
on the cross, this book is for you. "Born crucified," 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.
JACK: Well friends listen up. We are living in remarkable
moments, remarkable times, and you literally need the real life
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In fact, we have just been meeting on how we can reach you
live 24/7, 365, in the event of an emergency,
in the event of a crisis, in the event of war in the Middle East
or in the United States. How can you connect with us and get
biblically based, honest news in light of what's going on in the
world around you? Reallifenetwork.com we cannot be
canceled. And for this reason, now we see the clarity of why
God brought us to do this channel in the first place.
Reallifenetwork.com. Sign up. Subscribe. Get ready because we
will come to you. Even if we're in our
pajamas in the middle of the night,
we will literally be broadcasting the truth to you.
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.