Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: It is humbling for the human to say, "I am coming to Jesus Christ, not Calvary Chapel, not the Baptist church, not the Catholic church, not the Methodist church." None of those entities died for your sins. Jesus alone died for our sins.

David J: 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. America's founding wasn't just political, it was biblical. In the American Story: The Beginnings, Tim and David Barton uncover the scripture-anchored principles that shaped this nation from day one. It's the history they don't teach anymore, and the history every American needs.

Give a gift to Real Life and receive the book, plus a free kids' guide for America's 250th birthday. And check out our Faith and Freedom collection, bold apparel to wear in celebration of America. Visit jackhibbs.com or call 877-777-2346. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now with his series called The Life and Times of Jesus Christ and a message titled "Christ and His Redemption."

Now, this is a series about who Jesus really is. Not the Jesus of popular opinion, but the Jesus of the Bible, God Himself, who stepped into our world. In this message, we'll discover why everyone of us needs to be redeemed and why Christ alone is the only one who can do that. Redemption means someone pays a price for someone to go free. Deep down, we all know we can't save ourselves, and no matter how hard we try, we can't earn our way to God.

The good news is that we don't have to. Jesus already paid that price for us. Today, Pastor Jack teaches that every person in every culture is searching for a way to be made right with God. We can't buy it, can't work for it, or hand it off to someone else because Christ alone is our redeemer. Before we get into the message, I had a chance to sit down with Pastor Jack and talk about it with him. Let's get into that.

We're continuing now with our Life and Times of Jesus Christ series, and we're calling this "Christ and His Redemption." You start out, Pastor Jack, with Blue Chip redemption stamps as a kid, right? Hoping that Mom would spend a whole ton at the supermarket or the gas station so that you'd rack up more of them. Now, the young people in our audience are going, "What? Blue Chip? Green stamps? What?"

Jack Hibbs: They are correct. It is the time when dinosaurs ruled the earth, so it does go back. When I was a little kid, my thinking was this: put more stuff in the basket. If we just put more food and boxes and stuff in the basket, the more my mom will have to spend and the greater the redemption at the store. I got to go down with those little stamps and cash in those things and get a really cool toy like a Tonka truck.

To me, it was all free. Everything was free. What a great world. Everything's free, and I get to get whatever I want. Wow, how cool is that? Well, it's not free. Someone had to pay for me to be a recipient of those redemption stamps. Somebody paid the price at the cross so that I could experience the redemption price of my life. I'm a sinner, you're a sinner too, my friend, lost without Christ.

He went and he redeemed. He did it all. All my sin was put into his basket, and he paid for it, and I got to go free. There's nothing fair about that. That's not fair. Salvation's not fair because fair is you and I inheriting hell. But God is redemptive. He takes what's ruined, and he delivers it and makes it right.

David J: That's heavy. Life and Times of Jesus Christ, and this is "Christ and His Redemption." Let's jump in.

Jack Hibbs: Colossians chapter 2, verse 9, is the theme verse that we've selected for this entire 16-week series: "For in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form." We look to Christ and his redemption. It's possible this morning that you are a totally committed Christian. It's possible this morning that you think you're a Christian. It's certainly possible this morning that you're not a Christian at all, or maybe you're doubting that relationship with God.

We have a lot of things to cover this morning, and it's my heart's desire that we're faithful to them all. I want to bring this topic of redemption to you in a way that might be palatable for even an atheist. When we hear the word redemption, it's so exciting to hear. I know what that means. As a believer, I know the definition of the word. It's a word for some of us that's been in our vocabulary or in our understanding for a long time.

Some of you in here are old enough to remember, like I do, growing up in San Diego and then in Orange County. I used to get so excited when it was time for my mom to go to the grocery store and spend as much money as possible because when we would go, she would either get Blue Chip stamps or the green stamps. Both of those stamps were empowered by having built within them the ability to redeem something from those associated stores.

You couldn't go down to a Blue Chip store and say, "I'd like to buy that." You had to have the redemption stamps. It's exciting. I remember being a little kid, and I got one of my most favorite Tonka trucks. Do they even make Tonkas anymore? Are they big like they used to be and are they made out of—well, are they made out of metal? No, see? What are we raising our kids on? This is terrible. We used to get metal Tonka trucks.

I remember the best one I ever got was from the Blue Chip redemption store in Huntington Beach. It was so awesome. I remember going down there that day, and also getting my first football from that redemption store. How was that possible? Because somebody paid a certain sum of money that purchased so many stamps or sheets of stamps. I would go home with my little sponge, get it wet, rub on the back, and put it into the page of the book.

As you went through the various pages and added up the pages, you were allotted certain redemptive toys or items. Somebody had to pay the price, and I got to go free and get those goods and be blessed by it. The word redemption in the Bible sense certainly means that in a wonderful way. To be redeemed means that someone pays a price and someone goes free.

The one that goes free is the one that does not have the power or the ability of him or herself to set ourselves free or to obtain that blessing. You can't do it. The whole word redemption has that built into it. Someone pays the price. Is there anybody in here that could raise your hand with me and say someone has sinned against you? They hurt you, they lied about you, they ripped you off. Raise your hand.

The rest of you are lying or you're still asleep. All of us have been ripped off in some way, haven't we? It's true. Some of us have said, "I've been ripped off mostly by professing Christians." So have I. Me too. The world has done me okay in that respect. People who call themselves Christians have gotten the best of me. Does that mean I throw Jesus away? Does that mean I throw the concept of the church away?

Jesus is holy and righteous. The church is good. It's like a friend of mine said who's been a pastor for years. He says, "I love ministry. It's people that drive me nuts." Isn't that true? I just love the church. Some people come to church and they have baggage because it's painful baggage. They were hurt and they were damaged. They come to a new church, and their whole concept is, "I'm not going to get to know anybody."

They're almost like the three monkeys. "I'm going to hear no evil. See no evil. I'm not going to speak any evil." And if I could have a fourth monkey in there, "I don't want any evil spoken to me." Of course, none of us do. But for those of you who are visiting and someone's dragged you here—dragged you either by dragging you or drugged you to get here—you're thinking, "Yeah, that's exactly what I feel about the church. In fact, the church is full of a bunch of hypocrites." We all have to agree. Amen?

We have to agree because whatever the law states, the criteria is established. Whatever deviates from the law, whoever deviates from 55 miles an hour literally qualifies to be labeled for life as a lawbreaker. Once you break the speed limit of 55, you don't back up and undo it. It's done. That's true in our material, natural universe. It's even more true in the universe of God. When someone sins, we have sinned.

You may go to Tony Robbins's course, or you may log on to somebody who might counsel you or talk to Dr. Laura and somehow feel better because you've gone to this course and paid your penance. But you're still in that sin. "But I called Dr. Laura." I don't care. "But I've called Pastor Jack." I don't care. The Bible doesn't qualify that. "I've gone to my priest, or I've gone to my cardinal, or I've gone to the Pope."

The Bible says it doesn't count. Hebrews chapter 9 and Hebrews chapter 10 say that you can't go to the Pope, you can't go to Pastor Jack, you can't go to the priest and have your sin be forgiven you. This is what the Bible says. All of a sudden, that comes against our concept and our logic of religion. "Don't tell me this, Jack. I want to be able to go to somebody and they help me."

You can go to a doctor and be terminally ill, and that doctor can say to you, "You know what? You're okay. You're all right." Isn't that what you want to hear? Come on, let's be honest. That's exactly what you want to hear. That's exactly what I want to hear. I want an authority, somebody who's in the know to tell me I'm okay. But what is the truth? The truth is every one of us as humans has a hard time dealing with the concept of redemption.

The only way that we will embrace it is if we ourselves are the redeemer. Not too long ago, someone came up to me who has a shallow grip on Christianity. I know her feelings were true, and that her heart was extremely sincere, but she wanted her friend saved so much that in her prayer, she said, "God, take my salvation from me and give it to her." That's a very noble, loving thing to pray.

Is it theologically accurate? Will God do that? The answer to that is absolutely no. And I told her, "No, you can't do that." Why? Because now you would have to say to Jesus, "Scoot over. There's two of us up here now because I have become the redeemer of my friend." Christ alone redeems. We would love to play the role of the redeemer. The Mormon church, for example, if they don't evangelize you into their cult, what they will do is get your name and be baptized for you, becoming the savior of your soul.

You can die and go to this waiting place, because they don't believe in what Jesus said about hell, and you can be baptized, they say, and save that person. You can bring them out of that place and present them into a state of salvation. That means now, according to Mormonism, there are thousands of deliverers, of messiahs, of saviors, of redeemers. This is Mormon doctrine. It's false, though we love our Mormon friends.

I have a lot of them, but it's false doctrine. It is humbling for the human to say, "I am coming to Jesus Christ, not Calvary Chapel, not the Baptist church, not the Catholic church, not the Methodist church." None of those entities died for your sins. Jesus alone died for our sins.

David J: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And now let's get back to today's message. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: We come to him and we say, "Lord Jesus, receive me as your child that has been wayward. I come to you, and I receive you, Lord, as my savior, and I'm asking you to write my name in your book of life." When you come to Christ, you are saved on the grounds of a certain item that a lot of people wear around their neck: the cross. On the basis of the cross, we experience redemption. We experience salvation.

Man may go about this world trying to generate or to accomplish some form of redemption for his own soul. It will not work. It doesn't work that way. In our note-taking this morning as we look to this study, "Christ and Redemption," I'm going to ask you to consider a few things. The first thing is that man has a need for redemption. Every man. If any of you study psychology or sociology or if any of you have traveled to some great extent, you will know this.

Did you know there is not one culture in the world that you can go to that is exempt from man's attempt to redeem himself? Even in the high and holy days of socialism in the Soviet Union, there was a form of redemption. We didn't believe in God, but there was still a form of redemption. That form of redemption is to either impress—I'm really excited about this message, so you have to bear with me for a moment. I may get very Pentecostal today.

The object of your devotion—and every human has an object or objects of their devotion—they will bow to that object. If it's socialism and atheism, they will bow to that system to either worship and impress and somehow earn the favor of a Mao Zedong or earn the favor of a Stalin or a Lenin. (That's both of them together at the same time: a Stenon!) You will worship.

Missionaries and explorers have found in the deepest, darkest reaches of man's existence, in the jungles in South America or in the remote regions of Africa where people have not been reached, there are gods that are worshipped in those cultures. In some cultures, in fact, Japan, it is believed by most of the world today that Japan worships materialism. We can't relate to that in any way, shape, or form, can we?

But that's what Japan's being labeled. People will bow to a god. People will do anything and everything to make atonement. One of man's greatest problems is his inability to look at himself honestly and to say, "I need to be redeemed. I need atonement." Paul talks about this word, a very huge word: propitiation. Someone would come and pay the price for me.

It's possible that you're sitting here this morning and you're saying, "I don't need anybody to pay the price for me. I'm a self-made man. I do my own thing. I've come from nowhere, and I've made it to the top." Well, that's great, and we're very happy for you, honestly. But the fact of the matter is all along the way, there has been stapled onto your existence all kinds of riff-raff and debris and garbage that you've picked up along the way.

You will know this to be true as we go through the study this morning. I want you to write out the study because I hope it comes to a wonderful conclusion for you. This act of redemption, this need for redemption, and the power of redemption. So what we see is that there is this very, very important internal thing. Man became, according to scripture, a fallen creature. Man became a fallen creature.

I want you to underline as you take your notes that he became one. Why? Because the Bible says that man was not always a fallen creature. The Bible says that God created man in his own image. Though he was a created being, meaning less than God, he was not fallen. The Bible says that we enjoyed this fellowship with God somewhere.

They understand the area of the cradle of the civilization of man's birth, somewhere around the areas of today where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers are, somewhere around the region of Israel, Iran, Iraq, was this area of Eden. Wonderfully, there's a lot of scientific evidence pointing to how that is true, how not only was that area the beginning place of humankind, but we know this mathematically, in engineering, and linguistically.

In this place where man was established, where man began, the Bible talks about a perfect place, a utopia governed by God. And man in his disobedience rebelled against God and he fell. The scripture says God told them, "The day that you eat of this fruit, you will surely die." Now, you know that they ate of that fruit. We don't know what fruit it is. Was it an apple? The way my computer's been acting lately, I'm certain it was an apple.

God puts within us and has engineered with every one of us this ability to decide, this volition. We have this power. God's given it to us. The Bible says that Adam and Eve sinned against God. Built-in internally to every human being is this passion for eternity. We want to live longer. Even as a young child and as we grow older and even older, there is this thing.

You interview old people, you talk to Grandpa or Grandma, and there's this internal thing about them that they want to dwell on the past. Why? There was this youth. And even in their heart, did you know that for Grandma and Grandpa today, in their thinking, they think much younger than what they feel? Some of you in here are like 22, 25, and you're going, "I don't have a clue of what you're talking about."

You will later. I promise you. I'm 41, and I feel 21, and I'm trying to do things that I did when I was 21, and I'm tearing my body apart trying to do it. God created man. It's a fact and it's a scientific fact. You can look at the evidence, it's everywhere. God created us, but man became a fallen creature. Man is fallen. There's no doubt about it.

Everything there is within us to desire the forever, to desire a good life, to fight against, ward off, and ignore death. We don't want to talk about that. When I do a funeral, I always announce how tragic this interruption has been that's brought us together. Isn't it funny how that is so true that death is a bizarre and strange interruption to life? When you go to a funeral, doesn't it all seem dislocated and strange?

It is strange. Death was not to happen to us originally. But the Bible says because of sin, death entered the world. In Romans chapter 2, God says that the moralist needs redemption. Can you jot that down? The moralist. Do you know anybody who thinks they're good? That to me cracks me up. "I'm good." Aren't you a little arrogant about that? "No, I'm just being honest with myself." Well, now you're prideful. "No, I'm rightly evaluating my situation." It's just unbelievable. Don't ever underestimate man's ability to justify himself.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "Christ and His Redemption." Thanks for joining us today. This message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. It's a series about the real Jesus of the Bible, God in the flesh, and why knowing him more deeply changes everything. We'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Hey everybody, we're very excited about this special offer. It's called Bold Stand. It's a back-to-school faith guide for your young ones. It's going to help them take a stand for Christ even in the public school culture. It's very well done. It's a pamphlet they can put in their backpack or put within the pages of any book. It's very colorful, it's in cartoon style, and I think your kids are going to love it. So please get a copy for yourself: Bold Stand back-to-school faith guide. Get this and more at jackhibbs.com.

Thank you again so much for listening. 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 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.