WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.840 Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim 2 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:11.040 truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. As a believer, I want to put it 3 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:15.540 to you this way. I only regret that I have one day to live my life for the 4 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:20.840 Kingdom of God because my goal in your goal is to live the rest of your days 5 00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:26.960 until the finish line, to live for the Kingdom of God every day on a grand scale. 6 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:30.960 However God calls you. 7 00:00:31.960 --> 00:00:38.360 You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. 8 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:43.760 Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled 9 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:48.640 life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, 10 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:54.040 that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. 11 00:00:54.760 --> 00:00:59.640 Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. 12 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:07.240 Talking about one life to live for now, there was a young man by the name of Nathan Hale, 13 00:01:07.240 --> 00:01:12.680 and I love this guy. Some of you might remember him, but he was not only a patriot, 14 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:20.280 but he was also an officer, yes, and he was a spy for General George Washington. 15 00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:28.760 And he was caught spying by the British. And so he was taken before British ruler there 16 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:34.280 in East Coast during the colonial war, which was just breaking out, by the way. This took place 17 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:40.600 in late summer of 1776. My goodness, we had just declared our independence on July 4th, 18 00:01:40.600 --> 00:01:47.320 and then just in the late summer's August September ish, he gets captured. And I want to put this 19 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:54.200 quote up by him. Listen to what he said. He said to the commander, and we know this because 20 00:01:54.200 --> 00:02:00.200 British history wrote this down. That's how we know it. He said before the rope went around his 21 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:06.520 neck, and he died, he said, it is the duty of every good officer to obey any orders given 22 00:02:06.520 --> 00:02:12.040 to him by his commander in chief. I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. 23 00:02:12.760 --> 00:02:20.600 And then to the gallow, he went. And what a great statement that is. I love that. As a believer, 24 00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:26.040 I want to put it to you this way. I only regret that I have one day to live my life for the kingdom 25 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:32.200 of God, because my goal in your goal is to live the rest of your days until the finish line, 26 00:02:32.200 --> 00:02:40.120 to live for the kingdom of God every day on a grand scale. However God calls you. 27 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:45.800 So number one is this church. Write it down. It's our only point, and then we'll back it up. 28 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:53.640 One life to live for now, we read this that it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the 29 00:02:53.640 --> 00:02:59.400 mercies of God. We'll stop with verse one, and we'll look at this. And by the way, 30 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:05.240 mark it down. We're looking at it this way. One life to live for now. So give God your attention. 31 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:09.480 Can you write that down, please? Do I have your attention? Can you write down this? 32 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:14.840 So give God your attention. We have a hard time with the word attention, apparently. 33 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:19.960 I know I do. I was constantly in trouble at school for looking out the window. 34 00:03:20.600 --> 00:03:23.560 It wasn't my fault I had the boringest teachers in the world. They're horrible. 35 00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:28.520 Whatever I was going outside was way more exciting than what was happening on the inside. 36 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:35.240 I learned more looking out the window. And then look, I grew up in an age which I wish our young 37 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:41.800 people could grow up again. When we went on trips, we looked out the window of the car and we 38 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:48.920 recognized things. We saw things. We learned things. But attention is something that we've lost 39 00:03:48.920 --> 00:03:54.920 as a discipline in our world today. And we need to regain it. We've got to capture the 40 00:03:54.920 --> 00:04:01.480 disciplines of paying attention. And it's something, listen, and crowd this large. And it's easy 41 00:04:01.480 --> 00:04:06.280 for me to lose your attention. It's easy for you to give up your attention to something. 42 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:12.200 And we need to work on that. But how many of you are married by the way? You're married, 43 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:19.240 raise your hands? Okay, there's no use talking to you. How many of you are single? Which poses 44 00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:25.480 the possible opportunity of being married someday? Listen, this is free. One of the hardest things in 45 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:34.120 marriage is for men to pay attention. We're just wired difference. To pay attention is sacrifice. 46 00:04:35.640 --> 00:04:41.480 And to prove it for all of us, our nature as humans when it comes to anything else we can pay 47 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:47.400 attention to it. But when it comes to God's stuff, we wander. And we need to discipline ourselves. 48 00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:51.480 Number one, in this life that you and I are living for now, we're going to have to fight the 49 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:57.160 battle to pay attention. We have got to pay attention. And we've got to ask God, Lord, help me to 50 00:04:57.160 --> 00:05:04.120 pay attention to your word to what you're saying to me. Look, I'm going to upset people. It's just too 51 00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:10.440 bad. Watch this. Let's be honest. Right now, there are tens of thousands of people that are 52 00:05:10.440 --> 00:05:16.280 streaming this message right now all around the world. We know this because we have stuff that 53 00:05:16.280 --> 00:05:22.120 monitors all that stuff. But if you're on any one of those social sites, I'm here right now, 54 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:26.280 how are you doing, wherever you're at? And there's a bunch of people making comments over here. 55 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:34.440 And they're saying things like, Omaha's in the house. And it's cold in Iowa. 56 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:42.120 And what colors your car? And they're all talking to each other. You're not paying attention. 57 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:48.520 They're not even listening to me now. Look, if I had a my way, I'd remove that feature from 58 00:05:48.520 --> 00:05:53.720 YouTube or Facebook because listen, how can you listen to a sermon and you're typing all this 59 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:57.880 stuff and you're looking up the temperature and the weather and looking at the cake and all this 60 00:05:57.880 --> 00:06:03.800 kind of stuff. We don't pay attention. And if we pay attention, a lot of great things would happen 61 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:10.120 like this. We learned from verse one, we would remember and we would revel in the fact of what we've 62 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:16.280 been taught. In Romans 121, it says, I beseech you therefore brethren. And this is a tremendous 63 00:06:16.280 --> 00:06:21.480 truth and watch. I'm going to change it up on you intentionally. I'm not going to give you the 64 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:25.720 definition yet to the word beseech. I'm going to give you the definition first to the word 65 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:33.000 therefore. And I'll tell you why in a moment. Therefore, the word therefore is actually referring to 66 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:42.120 the 11 previous chapters of this entire book. Paul is basically saying, okay, now that we got 67 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:48.920 the chapter 11 and that's behind us, in light of everything I just told you guys from chapter one, 68 00:06:50.760 --> 00:06:58.200 here's the punchline. And it's chapter 12. That's how important this is. The word therefore means 69 00:06:58.280 --> 00:07:04.600 this and you might want to either write this down or take a shot of this. But the therefore here 70 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:13.160 means that what has been said and what is being said is intentional. The requirement needed for 71 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:20.360 moving forward. The therefore means before we can so to speak, lift this 747 up off the ground. 72 00:07:21.080 --> 00:07:27.560 This is what you must remember. Everything about those 11 chapters are needed for this very 73 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:36.040 purpose. And Paul now gets right back into after those three chapters of Israel, 9, 10, 11. He gets 74 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:41.640 back to the discipleship of the believer. And I don't know if you know it or not, some of you might 75 00:07:41.640 --> 00:07:46.280 be visiting here for the first time you don't know or you stumbled in here. This is a discipling 76 00:07:46.280 --> 00:07:52.200 church. This is a church different than many other kinds of churches. Why? If you've noticed or 77 00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:59.720 you will notice, it's more, it resembles more of a worshipful college course than anything else. 78 00:08:00.440 --> 00:08:06.200 Because this is our time as a church that we study to know how we ought to live. It's for us to 79 00:08:06.200 --> 00:08:12.680 become or to stay relevant in this world concerning the things of God. Are you paying attention? Do you 80 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:18.840 have that? We have come here today to refuel to go back out to do the work of God. This is not an 81 00:08:18.840 --> 00:08:25.240 entertainment service. This is not a place service. This is not theater. This is boot camp 82 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:31.400 before we go and we're deployed into the world. Okay? That's very important. Now this word, 83 00:08:31.400 --> 00:08:37.480 therefore, the Greek is a very interesting word, very short word, very big meaning. It actually means 84 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:47.000 the ven, the ven or the wherefore. It means here is the reason or the point. All of this is speaking 85 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:55.080 of a practical faith in action. That's why true, listen, true Christianity is very active and very 86 00:08:55.080 --> 00:09:00.920 lived out. Why? Because we have to do that? No. Because the Spirit of God takes control of this. 87 00:09:00.920 --> 00:09:06.840 Listen, by virtue of how much the Word of God is in us. If you have a lot of Bible in you, 88 00:09:06.840 --> 00:09:12.840 you're going to be controlled by God. So to speak, the Holy Spirit's got a lot more to work with 89 00:09:12.920 --> 00:09:19.800 as you ingest the Bible. Does that make sense? Very, very necessary to know that. Paul is basically 90 00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:28.200 saying in the word BC, which is that word that precedes, but he says this way. He says, 91 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:36.200 I beseech you therefore, brethren, so he's speaking to the believers, and that word BC is this, 92 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:43.720 and you might recognize it. It's a very, very common and popular word in biblical studies. 93 00:09:43.720 --> 00:09:52.440 It is the Greek word, pericletos, or pericleto, and pera, we know what pera means, pera shoot, 94 00:09:53.320 --> 00:10:01.240 pera glider, pera means alongside in Greek. The word kaleo means comforter, one who comes alongside 95 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:06.440 you, pera, to come for you. This is beautiful. Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren. 96 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:12.280 I, Paul, am coming alongside you. I'm putting my arm around you, and I'm whispering in your ear. 97 00:10:12.280 --> 00:10:20.840 I'm telling you things. I'm speaking to you. I am tutoring you. I am, what will we say today? 98 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:28.520 You see people walking around with their Bose headphones or beats or the ear pod things. 99 00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:32.040 You know all these things that give us brain cancer? Those things? 100 00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:37.640 And sometimes you see people walking around. Lisa just made this comment there. She was, look at that guy. 101 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:41.880 She was like, that guy looks like he's nuts until you see that he's got some wire coming out of his 102 00:10:41.880 --> 00:10:46.840 ear, because he's like, what? And there's nobody near him. He's like, oh my goodness. I thought the guy 103 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:52.840 was like freaking out on something. No, he's having a conversation with somebody. Imagine God put 104 00:10:52.920 --> 00:10:59.240 in his earpiece. Excuse me. His earpiece in your ear, and he's speaking to you every day along the 105 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:07.560 way. This is how you live your life. Turn left, turn right. Do this, say this. That's what he wants 106 00:11:07.560 --> 00:11:12.920 to do. And Paul is living it out this way. He's saying, I'm going to come alongside you, and he uses 107 00:11:12.920 --> 00:11:18.760 the exact same word that defines the Holy Spirit, the paracaleo, the one who's going to come alongside 108 00:11:18.760 --> 00:11:23.640 you and come for you. That's one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit. I love that. He's announcing to us. 109 00:11:23.640 --> 00:11:28.360 Basically Paul is saying, attention blaze. I have a very important announcement to make. 110 00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:36.600 And he gives us the word. So mark this down if you would everybody. What kind of things do we need 111 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:42.600 to remember? What kind of a thing was he announcing to us? Well, there's the issue of condemnation. 112 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:46.760 I'll give you four of them that we've come to this far. The issue of condemnation. 113 00:11:48.280 --> 00:11:56.760 The Bible tells us in Romans 3 20, listen, therefore by the deeds of the law that is your morality, 114 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:05.400 you trying to be good enough to please God, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For by the law 115 00:12:05.400 --> 00:12:12.440 is the knowledge of sin. Condemnation resides upon all those who do not know Jesus. It is 116 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:18.200 vitally important you hear and give attention to one about the say. This is not me. I'm just repeating 117 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:28.600 what is biblical truth. A believer who knows the Lord Jesus Christ may not feel forgiven. In fact, 118 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:35.080 I'm going to put it to you this way. What does feeling forgive and feel like? It's not a feeling. 119 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:42.280 Some of you love the Lord and you're right with God but you don't feel like it. 120 00:12:43.800 --> 00:12:47.960 And one of those reasons might be because you're listening to voices inside your head and most 121 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:55.720 of those voices are your own. And you are quite the judge of you. You beat yourself up. 122 00:12:55.720 --> 00:13:03.240 And then the pendulum swings to the other side where that's not the case and we can always justify 123 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:10.360 ourselves and whatever we do. That's not of God. But for him to be announcing to us that the 124 00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:15.560 the work of the Spirit comes alongside you and comforts you. The important thing is to understand 125 00:13:15.560 --> 00:13:22.200 this that as believers it's not based upon your feeling or your assessment of how your day is going. 126 00:13:22.760 --> 00:13:29.800 What does the Bible say? If you answer what the Bible says regardless of your feelings, 127 00:13:29.800 --> 00:13:40.280 that's called faith. What does the Bible say when you say to the Lord, God, I sinned against you, 128 00:13:40.280 --> 00:13:46.200 I should have had that thought. Please forgive me. Watch this. I'm going to exaggerate something 129 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:53.000 here. Please forgive me. I ask you to forgive me in Jesus name. Amen. And then you walk away 130 00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:00.360 an all day long, you're depressed. Why? You keep, I was nine o'clock. I had a horrible thought. 131 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:07.400 Well, did you confess it to God and tell them to forgive you and did you move on? Oh, yeah, 132 00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:13.560 I did. Well, what are you moping for? Oh, I had a horrible thought at nine o'clock. 133 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:21.400 Yeah, you just told me you took care of that. He says, he says, if you ask him for forgiveness, 134 00:14:21.400 --> 00:14:27.880 he's going to forgive you. What are you doing? No, no, he's forgiven me, but I was horrible and 135 00:14:27.880 --> 00:14:35.720 then a clock thought. You know what? We would make better Muslims. You know what Muslims do? They 136 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:42.520 sin and then they take out, I forget what they call it, but they flood themselves. Some of them 137 00:14:42.520 --> 00:14:48.200 to the point of blood on the back. I have one of those things in my office, by the way. It's a, 138 00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:55.880 it's from the Middle East. It's a handle with about 27 razor blades on it and you go like this and 139 00:14:55.880 --> 00:15:05.160 you bleed for forgiveness. Excuse me. There's one who bled for our forgiveness and his name is Jesus 140 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:13.640 Christ and your blood, your blood couldn't forgive anybody anyway. His blood saves my blood stinks. 141 00:15:15.400 --> 00:15:20.760 Think about that for a moment. Then by the way, how insulting is that to God that we could come 142 00:15:20.760 --> 00:15:26.280 in and help God out? No, you can't. No, the issue of condemnation is gone in Jesus. 143 00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:33.080 And then the second thing is justification, the issue of justification. What is this justification? 144 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:38.200 To the Christian, the real born again, Christian. Not the Sunday Christian, the everyday Christian. 145 00:15:39.800 --> 00:15:45.560 They revel in the doctrine of justification. What does that mean? That Christ, that God the Father 146 00:15:45.560 --> 00:15:50.360 put on Christ Jesus, the sins of mankind. Did you know that? That's what he was doing at the cross. 147 00:15:51.640 --> 00:15:56.760 And when Jesus died for our sins, he paid the debt that you owed to God. But when he rose 148 00:15:56.760 --> 00:16:02.280 again from the dead, he rose again from the dead for our justification. When meaning he worked the 149 00:16:02.280 --> 00:16:09.320 work on the cross and then he got up out of the grave and applies the work that he did, he is now 150 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:15.640 the one who implements the working actions of his laborers. It's called justification. Meaning what? 151 00:16:15.640 --> 00:16:20.920 Meaning I, you who trust him, were forgiven of all sins and not only forgiven of all sins, 152 00:16:20.920 --> 00:16:25.720 that sins pass present and future. That'll keep you up tonight. How does God do that? How could 153 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:34.120 Christ pay for such a great price? Only God could. But justification is this which he not just 154 00:16:34.760 --> 00:16:40.840 expunges the record or he somehow says, well, you know, we erased it. Oh, no, no, no, listen, 155 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:48.120 God's word for justification for every believer is that he removes not only sin, he removes the 156 00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:56.120 remembrance of sin. When God looks at his kids, he sees nothing but the blood of Jesus covering you. 157 00:16:56.120 --> 00:17:00.440 In other words, the righteousness of Christ. Shed for you. Shed for me. What's wrong with you guys? 158 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:09.400 You should all clap. You should all be clapping. Really? Oh my goodness. See, it's crazy for us to 159 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:16.280 look back at nine o'clock. Oh, I remember 39 years ago. Are you a believer? Do you trust Christ? Yes, 160 00:17:16.280 --> 00:17:20.760 I do. Well, then knock it off. Seriously, ridiculous. What are you doing? You're just keeping 161 00:17:20.760 --> 00:17:25.240 yourself back in Satan's love in it because he can't take your soul, but he'll sterilize you so you 162 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:35.640 don't tell anybody else. No, you move on with him all the way, justified, justified. And then thirdly, 163 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:42.920 there's the issue of assurance. I didn't read the verse Romans 5, 1 for justification. Look at 164 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:47.800 this. Romans 5, 1, sorry, let me back up. Look at this verse. Therefore, having been justified, 165 00:17:47.800 --> 00:17:55.480 notice best tense. By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Kaboom, right? 166 00:17:55.480 --> 00:18:03.000 Right there. Assurance. Romans chapter 8 verse 1. Assurance. There is therefore now no condemnation 167 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:07.320 to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. 168 00:18:07.320 --> 00:18:11.400 Let me make something clear. Who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit? 169 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:17.640 That's not a qualifier. It is a reality. Let me explain. Don't think for a moment that if you walk 170 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:22.520 according that you do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit, that qualifies 171 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:28.200 you now to have no condemnation. Did you guys all hear that? Don't mess it up. That would be 172 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:33.640 damaging the Scripture. Because there's no condemnation upon your life anymore, 173 00:18:34.280 --> 00:18:42.760 you now walk in the spirit by the power of God. You don't earn it. You don't achieve it because 174 00:18:42.760 --> 00:18:50.040 God's done this. You live it. Right? So watch this. As far as the east is from the west so far, 175 00:18:50.040 --> 00:18:58.120 have I removed from you your sins? God says, I have taken your sins and I've cast them into the depths 176 00:18:58.120 --> 00:19:03.560 of the sea. And I like what J. Vernon McGee says, once God puts them in the depths of the sea, 177 00:19:03.560 --> 00:19:11.560 he puts up a little buoy and it says no fishing here. So stop going back to 9 a.m. So stop going 178 00:19:11.560 --> 00:19:19.320 back to 37 years ago, will you? As a believer, your greatest passion is to live for Christ today. 179 00:19:20.600 --> 00:19:25.320 God has given you and I as far as we know today. Right? We can't do so many things. 180 00:19:25.320 --> 00:19:30.520 Will we see the sunset? We don't know. But we've got right now. And if we're living for the right 181 00:19:30.520 --> 00:19:35.000 now for him, for his glory. Oh wow. It's a great way to live. 182 00:19:39.800 --> 00:19:45.720 This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. 183 00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:52.920 Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more 184 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:55.160 and stay connected.