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- [00:00]
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In today's world, standing for your faith isn't easy, but it is incredibly important. The culture is shifting fast and the pressure to stay silent is growing. In his powerful resource Called to Take a Bold Stand, Pastor Jack Hibbs shares how believers can rise with courage in uncertain times. With biblical insight, real world examples and practical wisdom. This guide will help you speak truth with love and boldness influence culture without compromise and face fear, fear, rejection or opposition without backing down. It's time to live with bold faith, unshakeable hope and kingdom purpose. We'd love to send you a copy of Called to Take a Bold Stand as our thanks for your generous gift of any amount to Real Life. Go to jackibbs.com radio or call 877-777-2346 to request your copy today. Stand firm, be and keep your eyes on Jesus. Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast. With intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.
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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 want nothing to do with them and they have nobody to blame but themselves. And that too is the sovereignty of God.
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You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackibbs.com podcast today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying Amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.
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God's good, good sovereignty is established in his purposes. Verses 2019-21 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 fault for who has resisted his will? That statement means, if God pre programmed 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 eeny, meeny, miny, mo. 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 gonna present the opportunity to you, and you're either gonna dig down your prideful heels into the ground and say, nope, I'm gonna 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 want nothing to do with him. And they have nobody to blame but themselves. And. 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, O man, who are you to reply against God? That's strong, isn't it? Questioning. Questions, questions. Could Listen, depends. Questions can be good, you know. How 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. We don't. 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 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 Astaroth are gods, then serve them. Remarkable. But little kids, I asked you about little kids in your teenagers asking questions. Do they not ask questions? 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 gotta stop the world, my friend, right now. You gotta stop the world. And you gotta 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 that thing works. You've got to answer their question because if you don't answer their question, they're gonna go find either a, a question somewhere else. That's wrong. Secondly, they're gonna know that. Well, I'm not gonna ask dad. He doesn't know anything. Especially when dad goes, I don't know, ask your mom. That's an automatic. 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 ask the greatest. The little ones ask the questions, like the. 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 a 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 gotta answer them. But when you have. 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're not. I've always been. Remember Bill Cosby? I started 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 a 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. 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. Oh, 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'd just go, you made it. You can do anything you want with it. Well, I'm gonna 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 Bible tells us that will the thing form 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. And God was. I mean, look, you got. God was tough on Job. Job was hurting. But that's in the Bible for us. He paid. Job paid the price for you and I. Job's like. He's got pus all over his body. It's dripping. He scraped. He took a. He's scraping the pus, 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 Pleiades 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 always believe that he's hanging on to 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, it's awesome. He can take it. He can take it. In your grief and 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. You know, 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. You know what IQ is, right? You can teach someone. You can teach someone to do a job. You can teach them, right? I've got all these. I got all these schools I went to. I'm not interested in. That means nothing to me. Because your life up into this moment is. 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? Do they. 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 somebody because you're sovereign, that's. I'll wiggle that in. Cause you are the boss or the owner. You know, ask them some 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 form 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 are 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 gonna ask you, in a few moments, I'm gonna 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? You say, 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 fine. 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, he was. He, 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.
- [19:51]
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This Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackibs.com to learn more and stay connected.
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