Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: The body of Christ, because of this area of not being able to handle God’s blessings in the area of wealth, it so freaks out that either it says, “I can’t have that and so it’s evil and dangerous.” That’s easy. Versus, “Lord, I will step up and I will take what you’re giving me and I will use it for the Kingdom of God. I will be a good steward over it. What I’m faithful in little, the Lord will make me faithful in more.” Do you understand that?

David J: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David J, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s word, the Bible.

Jack Hibbs: Hey my friends, come with me on our Bold Faith Hawaii Cruise, June 12th to the 19th, 2027. Listen, we’re going to set sail for seven unforgettable days with myself, Dr. Frank Turek, and special worship with Gia Lucid. It’s going to be a breathtaking trip with destinations like Hilo, Kona, Maui, and the scenic cruise along Kauai’s Napali Coast. You’ll never forget it.

This is more than a vacation; it’s a time of rest, renewal, fellowship, and spiritual strength in the word of God, all centered around the Bible. You can reserve your spot by going to jackhibbs.com. That’s the Bold Faith Hawaii Cruise, June 12th through the 19th, 2027. For more information, go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com.

David J: On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series now called Disciplines of Life and a message titled, "The Discipline of Distinction." The Christian walk is full of disciplines—the trials, the setbacks, the hard seasons that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out.

Today, we learn how to handle the blessings, the success, and the recognition that God may bring without letting it go to our heads. You see, when life is going well, it’s easy to start believing in our own headlines. But everything we have—our money, our influence, our energy—that all belongs to the Lord. The discipline of distinction is learning to manage His blessings without forgetting who gave them.

So, today Pastor Jack teaches us that recognition and fame can be a dangerous gift if we forget where it comes from. We are lost sinners saved by grace, and there’s only one who deserves the glory, and that is Jesus. Now, with his message called "The Discipline of Distinction," here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Distinction is that notoriety. It is that fame. It is that thing whereby God might bless you in life, and if it changes you... it saddens me to say this actually, that it’s too bad, I think, that far too many Christians cannot handle what God may want to give them.

I would bet that if we were able to truly be people that would say, “Lord, all that I have is yours and I’ll use it to the furtherance of your kingdom,” I’m wondering if God, in fact, would not give us more opportunity and responsibility to advance the Kingdom of God. On and on it goes. For what purpose? What is the end of it all?

That you might have a gigantic bank book? No, then forget it. You’re not hearing me right. To have some big house on the hill? No, that’s not it. You’re not hearing me at all. It is to be a literal conduit of what God brings into your life to send out and to use as an opportunity for others to experience Christ. That’s what I’m talking about. You can either be distinguished by amassing it to yourself or by being a conduit, and there’s a big difference.

The Bible says in Romans 10:13, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Listen: “How then shall they call upon Him whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” There is the sender and there is the goer in getting the word of God out to the world, and it takes all of our wealth. A dollar or a hundred dollars, it causes us to say, “God, this is to your glory.”

In 1 John chapter 3, listen to this. In 1 John 3:17, it says, “For whoever has this world’s goods”—you possess things, you have wealth—“and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide or live in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” That’s sad and funny at the same time.

Let’s say you and I have the money to buy somebody lunch and we see a brother or sister hungry and we go, “Hey, what’s the matter?” “Man, I’m hungry.” “Well, go get some food.” “I don’t have any money.” “Dude, that’s a bummer that you don’t have any money. That’s a real drag. Anyway, we’re going to go get something to eat. I’ll pray for you. Bye-bye.”

The Bible says the love of God does not dwell in that person or all those people that we would see somebody in need and turn away from them. You say, “Well, that verse is powerful.” Listen, here’s my point. It takes some degree of wealth to get out from behind that area of protection and say, “Listen, brother, come with us. We’ll buy you lunch.” That’s what I’m talking about tonight.

“Oh, I can’t do that. I might be ten dollars less wealthy.” Then your economy is completely messed up. Let me address this also right now. There’s a false doctrine that is going throughout the body of Christ in America today. By the way, when you’ve lived long enough, this is at least the second time I’ve seen it happen in my lifetime. It’s circulating among young people today, and it’s the “poverty is godliness” doctrine. You can buy books; they’re best-selling Christian books right now. They’re heresy.

They’re heresy, but it’s all about not owning anything anymore. Now, listen to this. It’s amazing. I went through that as a new believer. There were some very famous Christians when I was a brand new believer, and they said, “It’s wrong for you to own anything. Give it all away and come to our camp, or come to our center, or to our commune.” And I’ve got to tell you, Lisa and I, we were just married and we actually signed up for one of those things. We were going.

By the grace of God, the Lord intervened. It’s just the same today. People are saying, “Give up all that you have and come and do what we’re doing.” Every one of those people who are saying to do that have all made millions of dollars in advance before they come up with that doctrine. All of them are loaded. Every one of them. And it’s going on today, and all these people are saying, “Well, I’m not going to own anything. I’m not going to work. I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to go and I’m going to wait on the Lord.”

Do you know what the Bible says about that? Then you’re not going to eat any food. And here’s the amazing thing: “Oh man, we’re going to follow Jesus. We’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.” Watch out for that. It breeds a false sense of humility. It breeds tremendous arrogance and self-righteousness. What happens is it leaves you broke and others wealthy, who’ve wiggled it out of your custody, out of your stewardship.

On top of the matter, if everybody did that doctrine, then who’s going to feed the homeless? Who’s going to reach the end of the world with the gospel? Who’s going to fund missionaries? Who’s going to... are you hearing me? It’s a false doctrine, but it appeases the flesh and many young people today are using it as an excuse to punch out of what... are you ready for this? It’s a trick of Satan. Here it is.

Anybody can be poor, but we’re not really poor because I can claim to be poor but rely upon the government to feed me, clothe me, and take care of me. You see, I’m living a lie. “Oh, I’m going to follow Jesus and I’m not going to own anything.” Well, first of all, that’s not biblical, but let’s just follow through with this. You make that declaration, you’re going to follow that teaching, and then guess what happens? You wind up asking others in the body of Christ to fund your ministry.

“I’m not going to work. I’m going to pray. I’m going to sit on the mountaintop. Oh, by the way, can you send me a hundred dollars a month?” Do you hear this? This is a big deal and a lot of young Christians are falling for that today. Now, here’s the greatest thing. Anybody can receive a handout. Very few Christians can be blessed by God and manage it without it going to their heads and hearts. Think of this.

The body of Christ, because of this area of not being able to handle God’s blessings in the area of wealth, it so freaks out that either it says, “I can’t have that and so it’s evil and dangerous.” That’s easy. Versus, “Lord, I will step up and I will take what you’re giving me and I will use it for the Kingdom of God. I will be a good steward over it. What I’m faithful in little, the Lord will make me faithful in more.” Do you understand that? This is a big deal.

Christians don’t even want to think about this stuff. Personally, I believe it’s because Christians cannot and will refuse to be good stewards over what God has given them. This is a scourge. And I thank God for men like Dave Ramsey, or Crown Financial, or some of these other ministries teaching people how to be good stewards and managers over what God has given them. See, that’s the difficulty. That is the discipline of distinction when it comes to what we have.

Number two is this: it is the godly stewardship of recognition. You see, King Uzziah couldn’t handle wealth and he couldn’t handle recognition. It all went to his head eventually. Fame—the word recognition means fame, notoriety, prominence, reputation. In Matthew 4:23, the Bible says, “And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then his fame—recognition—went throughout all Syria.”

Jesus—what a great example. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Because we think of Jesus, obviously of course, but it’s a strange thing in our thinking as Christians that one of God’s servants would experience recognition or notoriety or prominence. Seems kind of odd, but it happens. Isaiah the prophet—you all love him, he’s great—Isaiah was a very famous man. In fact, Isaiah the prophet came from a wealthy home. He was in King Uzziah’s court, and you know Isaiah chapter 6: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.”

The great words of Isaiah. He was very famous. Abraham was famous. King David—can you think of anybody more famous than King David? He had recognition. Peter had recognition; people recognized Peter. Paul was known. The Bible tells us that the apostles became well known. In fact, they were recognized and beaten up. We know from history that George Whitefield was world-famous, the great preacher of England, and he came and preached during the Revolutionary period in America.

Jonathan Edwards, America’s great preacher, known today, still today as the greatest mind America has ever produced. The smartest guy, Jonathan Edwards—tremendous pastor, preacher, very famous. Billy Graham—obviously very famous. One interesting thing about Billy Graham, one of the things about his ministry is that he could actually show up in a country and have access to a king or prime minister or a president without any notification. That’s very Old Testament prophet-like.

But the danger of this, about recognition, if we’re going to exercise the discipline of distinction, we need to be careful that if we have stuff, or if somebody knows you—do five people know you? Do ten people know you? How are you handling that? And again, boy, sounds like I’m really beating up on Christianity tonight, but listen, we need a spanking. When we have Christian superstars... we’re supposed to be servants of all.

And we’ve got these people where it’s, “Oh, come and hear this guy speak,” or these speakers, and, “Boy, pay 300 dollars for this ticket and you’ll come and hear this speaker.” I think that’s weird. One of the things—it’ll be just us here right now and a whole lot of people listening in—but one of the things that I do—this is between us, this is private, it’s fun though—when I’m invited to speak places, they will say, “Well, thank you for coming and here’s your honorarium.”

And I’ll say, “Do you have a missions account?” “Yeah.” “So you have missionaries?” “Yes, we do.” “Give it to them.” “What? Give it to them.” And it’s funny because it’s sad to hear this: “No one’s ever done this before. We don’t know what to do with... the check’s already made out, what do we do?” I go, “Look, that’s not my problem.” Notoriety. And it’s almost like, “And this coming this speaker, this thing, but wait, there’s more from blah blah blah, it’s this speaker.”

And it’s all in Christianity, and we stoke the flames of fame and notoriety. No, no, no, listen. As Christians, we need to remember we were lost, lonely, decrepit, rotten, stinking sinners saved by the grace of God. And there’s only one person that we are to recognize, and that’s Jesus. If anybody deserves a parking spot labeled “no parking, this is reserved for,” put Jesus on there. In fact, we ought to do that, huh? We ought to have a curb out there, reserved parking for—no, that sounds kind of weird though. Jesus, he’s not going to come in a car. We’ll have to have a horse set up or something, I don’t know.

But it’s a very sad thing that the God of our magnitude, the God of the Bible, the one and only God of the universe, has to compete in our hearts over things. And some of those things is the recognition. Oh my, be careful. It’s a dangerous day when you begin to believe what people say about you in the positive. It’s always good—Charles Spurgeon said it’s always good to read your critic’s mail. Why? Because it keeps your feet on the ground.

In fact, he also said in one of his books, "Lectures to My Students," he says, “Remember this at the end of the day, preacher, with all that you’ve heard: you’re not as good as they say you are and you’re not as bad as they say you are.” Isn’t that a great word? Just keep your feet on the ground. That’s a great thing. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Recognition. But look, what if you are recognized? Now, all of a sudden it’s better, you think. Now, look, I don’t get what you’re talking about. If you’re not recognized, if somebody doesn’t see you... I had a meeting with the ushers last Sunday and I said, “You guys need to remember something. You guys are ushers. And when you go out to dinner on Tuesday night, people are sitting at the restaurant saying, ‘You see that guy? That guy’s an usher at second service over there.’” And when I told that to the ushers, they went, “Oh.”

If you’re not recognized, that’s easy. But if you’re recognized, now you need to exercise the discipline of distinction. Because what are you going to do with it? “Well, so, yes, it’s I.” What, are you crazy? It takes a discipline. And King Uzziah began to see himself as something, not remembering God had made him. He owned everything, not remembering God had given it. This is serious.

The third thing is this: the discipline of distinction is the godly stewardship of influence. Influence means power when you strip it all away. It means power, sway, control. Influence. If you have influence, you have control over situations. If you can influence, if your company, the ministry, your name, what you stand for influences others, that’s scary. These things can grow and increase for the good or for the worse.

Influence is like a vineyard. If you take care of it, it produces great, great fruit. If you don’t, it can really hurt people. In Acts chapter 9, verse 15, remember this: Paul, Saul, gets converted, soon to be called Paul, to be Paul the apostle. And in Acts chapter 9, everyone’s terrified of him, no one wants to talk to him. And the Lord speaks to Ananias and says, “The Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must—what?—suffer for my name’s sake.’”

Boy, I tell you what, can you leave it on the screen for a second, guys? Check that out. That’s perfect. I pray this for me and for you, literally. I’m not kidding. In fact, that was a good time of Lisa and I’s prayer this morning was for your spiritual strength, growth, development, and maturity with all that’s coming upon our world in short order—that you’d be strong. Now watch this, look at that verse. The Lord says, “He’s a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles, the kings, and the children of Israel.”

Hey, that’s us, too, okay? “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” Notice the front end: “Yes! Oh, he’s going to share in front of kings and the whole nation of Israel and the Gentile world!” You keep reading the verse: “and how many things he must suffer.” That’s the balance. That’s a good thing. God will use you and I to advance the Kingdom of God by whatever means you and I have, but guess what? All along the way, he will see to it, custom-made for you and I, that we suffer enough to the level that keeps the ministry in our lives usable.

The moment you and I do what Uzziah did, and what far too many do, is they begin to exalt themselves. And that’s a dangerous thing. Influence. Influence gone bad. Behind the scenes at this church for—well, since the inception of this church—you can ask anyone who’s been here since the beginning, this is one of our prayers: “Dear Lord, whatever you do, you do it in and through us, and if we cannot handle it, don’t let us know that we’re doing it.”

Think about that prayer for a second. God, do what you want to do, but if you know, and you do know, that if we can’t handle what you do through us—meaning a big head about it—then don’t let us know. Does that make sense? Let us know in heaven. But if we can’t handle it now, don’t let us know now.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a particular song being sung, or a certain group, it doesn’t matter, it was one of our teams doing worship. And it was the young guys, the young group. Remember the high schoolers? They did Sunday worship. And they were walking back out of here, they were going back to the green room. And I said, “Hey, listen up. You better... that was great. You better make sure that goes to your heart and not your head.” And they went, “Oh, yeah.” But you know what? That little word could keep their feet on the ground.

Influence. In Luke 16:10, Jesus says, “He who is faithful in what is least is also faithful in much.” Man’s inability to manage influence is scary. Adolf Hitler—did not Germany love him? You remember, do you know history? They loved him. Then what happened? Man’s inability to manage influence, power, is amazing. It’s terrible. Proverbs 28:11 says, “The rich man is wise in his own eyes.” And I’m not just talking rich in money—rich in time, rich in influence, rich in fill in the blank—is wise in his own eyes when he forgets God.

Jesus said, “But he who is greatest among you... this is awesome. Is this not the spirit of the kingdom? He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Man, that sums it up perfectly, doesn’t it? To exercise the discipline of distinction is to realize, “God, I’m yours. I know who I am. In that I was, I was a lost sinner. Now I’m a saved sinner. And I’m asking you to use my life to your glory, God.”

Another prayer that we pray often is, “Lord, establish your authority through us,” versus, “Lord, establish my authority.” What a dope. You ain’t got any. We don’t have any of that. “Oh, Pastor, you clearly don’t know who you’re talking about. I am the president of the...” Oh, listen. You are because God allowed it to be. That’s how you got that. We need to be very careful. Jeremiah 45:5 says, “Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not.” Don’t pursue them.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio and his message called, "The Discipline of Distinction." Thanks for joining us here today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called, "Disciplines of Life." It’s a series on the disciplines that God builds into the Christian life: the trials, the setbacks, the hard seasons that He uses to shape a believer’s character and to deepen our faith. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you’d like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what’s going on with this ministry. And please, if you’re ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We’d love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today, and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.

This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.