Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: Our lives are like a cup. It's like a glass, and imagine it being filled with pure water. But someone takes a droplet of cyanide and puts one drop in that water. Would you drink that water? I would not drink that water.

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.

Hey everybody, we want you to be aware of a great book, and please listen up. Our friend Charlie Kirk, right before he was assassinated, Charlie Kirk had finished up a book titled Stop in the Name of God. I gotta tell you, friends, you're going to want to get a copy. It teaches you how to rest in our Lord Jesus Christ. Stop in the Name of God by Charlie Kirk. Get a copy for yourself. It's the featured item for this September. That's Stop in the Name of God by Charlie Kirk. Get your copy at jackhibbs.com.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack begins a new series called The Book of Ephesians and a message titled We Are Blessed in God, Part One. Ephesians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote from prison to the church in Ephesus, showing every believer who they really are in Christ.

Right from the start, Paul reminds us that we are a blessed people. You see, God has already given us riches in Christ that no one can ever take away. Ephesus may have been known for their achievements and wealth, but they were a pagan city filled with violence and immorality, and a place where everything you have can be gone in an instant. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that God calls us saints no matter where we live or what we've done. It's not by our own goodness, but by trusting in God who cleanses us and calls us His own. Now with His message called We Are Blessed in God, Part One, here's Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Want to know how blessed we are in God? Jesus says here at verse one, John chapter 15, "I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me," you could circle that if you want, in Me, "that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it." You could say that is a trial.

"Oh man, I'm doing so good. Things are going great and I'm just having a blessed time growing in the Lord." And then chomp, off goes a hand, so to speak, spiritually. A trial comes into your life. Man, what's going on? He's just pruning you so you produce more fruit. That He may bear more fruit.

Verse three: "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me," you ought to circle that, "and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches. And he who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit. And without Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and is gathered. And they throw them into the fire and they are burned."

Verse seven: "If you abide in Me and my words abide in you, you may ask what you desire and it shall be done for you." And then jump over to verse 16. Look at this. He says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed or ordained or called you that you should go and bear forth fruit, that your fruit should remain. And that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you."

Listen, that's God's will. And if you're a believer tonight, believing in Jesus Christ, you're born again by the Spirit of God, you are now in Christ. And by being in the Bible, you are experiencing a relationship with Him that will cause in your life fruit to come out.

In the snow and cold, I was surprised when I was invited to Alinka's house. You would remember her. she was here not too long ago. She stayed with us and we were there. I mean, it's freezing cold. We sit down at the table and there's lemons and limes and oranges. And I don't usually dive into fruit. It's just not my thing, but it was just cold and it seemed so out of place.

In all of that gray and white and darkness, and I mean darkness, my goodness, you get up. It doesn't matter if you get up at six o'clock or about nine o'clock, it's still black outside. Dark, winter, so long. And yet this orange, and I'm eating this thing and I'm putting it in my tea and I'm putting it in my coffee and it was like man, behind my ears and under my heart. It smelled so good and it was so fresh. I don't know where it came from, possibly Israel at that time of the year. I don't know.

But it was such a blessing in the dead of winter to see just the color and the taste of the fruit. And to think that that tree somewhere in some tropical environment was just cranking out fruit. And when things were hard, cold, and rough, people would be enjoying the beautiful work of that tree.

And as that tree somewhere in the Middle East, perhaps, was growing and blossoming and putting out that fruit effortlessly and productively, its only responsibility was to have its roots dug into the soil. And that came naturally. Why? Because it's an orange tree. It wasn't a forklift. It wasn't a vending machine. It was a tree in the earth producing fruit. And a believer in the Bible, in God, will produce fruit. It's just going to happen. It's going to be.

And so this book of Ephesians is going to be talking to us about this. But I wanted to stress the point, and we'll get into it in the next couple weeks, about being in Him, in Christ. It is the will of God that we be in Him. You are called as a believer in Christ.

Let's look at a few things. By the way, we need to realize this stuff, you guys. We've got to grab this and run with it because this entire book talks about the riches that are available to us Christians. And a lot of us are blowing it about using the riches that Christ has given us. Listen to this. God's will for us as believers. It says right here, "to the saints." We touched on this last time. Hagios, the saints. It's us.

It's simply us. And your tendency and my tendency is to say, no way can I be a saint. Oh yeah, yeah you are. And here's the reason why. This whole book is committed to your riches in Christ. Where your riches are at, where your salvation is secure, where you're going. God has laid up the true riches in heaven and we're going to go there. But we need to be careful to walk in those riches now.

There's a woman by the name of, oh I forget her name now, Betty, Betty's her last name. 1916 lived like a pauper. Her son had an injury in his foot. She prolonged and prolonged his treatment and wound up having his leg cut off at the hip because he got his foot hurt. She wouldn't spend the money. She would eat oatmeal, but she wouldn't eat the oatmeal heated up and cooked normally because it cost money to run the gas to heat the water to cook the oatmeal. And she died in New York with a hundred million bucks left to the bank, left to the State of New York in 1916. She lived in absolute poverty because she was paranoid about spending money. $100 million she died leaving behind for the State of New York. You can imagine what they did with that.

And a lot of Christians are like that. At our fingertips as Christians, we have got the riches of Christ. And it begins with us as believers Him calling us saints. What does this mean? It means that we are not only ceremonially pronounced clean, but we are positionally clean. Look at you. You may have rushed here from work. The traffic, I understand, is insane out there. You may have not even had a chance to take a shower tonight before coming to Christ. And the guy next to you might say, "Yeah, I'm sitting right next to that guy right about now."

And the fact of the matter is, you know what? This is this outward flesh that's just absolutely fading away. Man, you're going to heaven and you are rich in Christ. God calls you a saint. I talked this week to some people in the Russian... not in, but go to the Russian Orthodox Church. And let me tell you, they don't have this hope that we're talking about, many of them, because they're not reading their Bible. But the saints are worshipped, much like Catholicism, the saints are worshipped.

Well, listen people, open up your Bible and turn to Ephesians chapter one, verse one, and it says "to the saints." The saints who? Well, the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ. The saints who are in Ephesus. That's a filth pot, Las Vegas. The saints who are in Vegas? Yep, the saints who are in Vegas. How can that be? Because Christ is in them. Christ is now in them. They're called saints. By who? By the church? No. By your husband? No. By your wife? Nope. By your neighbor? No. By God.

"Well, you're not acting like a saint." Well, you know what? Maybe I'm not acting like a saint and I am a rotten, stinking sinner, but the fact is, by me trusting in Christ, God has now called me to be His child, making me a saint. It's by His work, people. He's done it. And that is the greatest message we can give. It's a precious, precious message that we can give.

This word "in," note this, in your Bible it could say "at Ephesus," which is very unfortunate. The New King James, I think, says "in," i-n, in Ephesus. That's closest to the actual Greek word that appears in the Greek New Testament. In the Greek New Testament, it's the word "en," and it means the word "in" for us, in. Inside or fixed to Ephesus. To the saints that are fixed in Ephesus.

Now listen carefully. Many of you are blessed by maybe where you live. Well, I know by the people who get these tapes, not all of them live in such comfortable settings as we do. And the scripture would say, you're a saint, man. And I'm with you and I'm speaking to you and my heart is out to you, God says, to those of you who are in Compton or Brooklyn or some place where it's hard. Some place where it's tough. Or what about some third-world city where it's really tough and a person opens up the Bible and finds out that he's called a saint, and then in the very city that he's at, that God is not excluding him from where he's at. It could be a great wealth. It could be some guy in Bel-Air. It could be some bum on the streets of New York City. And God says, "Man, to the saints who are," and fill in the line, you can put Chino Hills. And I like that.

It seems to me cities change in appearance, but not much. And everybody's the same. Faces are different, but you're the same. You feel the same way the people do in Germany. The people getting on the plane in Warsaw, Poland, have the same concerns, same problems.

"Well Jack, how can that be? I can't make my $2,300 a month mortgage payment." I don't know if you should have a $2,300 a month mortgage payment. But be that as it may, listen, it's just as hard as the family that's in some other city trying to make their $50 a month rent payment and they don't have it. And when the Bible says, "Hey man, you're saints, you guys who are right there in Ephesus," what that does to your heart absolutely blesses you.

That word "in" is fixed to. Yeah, you're geographically fixed to Chino Hills or Ontario or Chino or Norco or Corona or Upland. Yeah, that's where you live and God knows it. You don't have to move out from some area to move to some Christian paradise or where the latest, hottest thing's going on. God knows where you're at. No matter where you're fixed, you don't have to say, "Well you know what, I'm going to go sit on top of that mountaintop and maybe God will meet me there." Oh no, He's with the saints at Ephesus and I'm glad, very glad for that.

And He says to the faithful. Understand this in your Bible right now. It's not "to the saints who are at Ephesus," okay, the saints who are in Ephesus on the left side, "and the faithful" on the right side. It's the same guys. To the saints who are at Ephesus and, by the way, they're faithful. This word "faithful" means that they're faithfully following Jesus Christ. They're pursuing the Lord. And I hope that's what we can say about ourselves tonight.

They're following Him and they're also in Christ. Same word. They are fixed geographically at Ephesus, but they are also, listen, the whole point to the entire book: they are fixed spiritually in Christ. Where's Christ? In heaven. That's where you're at. That's where your citizenship is.

And I want to talk to you a minute about how this all happens and then share with you something that happened this week. But how does this stuff happen? How do we get in Christ? How does God do it? Well, jot this down in your notes. Jesus said in John 12:32, "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself." And that has basically two meanings.

When Jesus goes up onto the cross, the entire world will at some point in time have to reckon with Christ on the cross. "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to Me." That's true. Every person's got to face the reality that Jesus went to the cross. You can't get on your little muumuu and sit on some rock and focus on your navel and hum and do a mantra chant and think that you're going to escape the reality and the truth of Christ. Jesus said, "If I be lifted up, all men will be drawn unto Me." Now, that is true. All men must contend with the fact that Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross and for what reason.

And the second thing is that He says, "I will draw all men unto myself." That is, He will be delivering to us redemption. For the Bible teaches us there's no name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. It's Jesus.

So how do we become in Christ? Listen, it's the only way you're going to go to heaven, in Christ. We need to first of all realize that Jesus went to the cross for us. Ezekiel 36, beginning at verse 26, this is what God said through the prophet Ezekiel. Such an Old Testament verse, such a New Testament truth. He says, "I will give you a new heart and I will put my Spirit in you. And I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I will give you a fleshly heart, one that's alive. And I will put my Spirit in you and I will cause you," listen, God will cause you, "to walk in His statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them."

I talked to a young lady this week who said, "Christianity is so hard. It's so hard. The pressure's constantly, constantly being put upon us in school to go drink or to go party or to go have sex, and it's so hard." You know what? I guess it is hard to say no to those things because the flesh of ours is saying, "Yeah, you know, let's go, let's do it." Stupid flesh. Have you noticed how stupid our flesh is? It's so dumb. "Oh, let's go do it." Five minutes later, "Why'd I do that?" Stupid flesh.

And we're going to war with that flesh and the Spirit until the day we go to heaven. Aren't you glad that after that day we get hit by a truck or get raptured, I don't care how it happens anymore. I'm getting so desperate. I don't care anymore. The Lord doesn't have to come. My brakes just need to fail on my car. That's okay. It's all right. You can only die for so long and then it's heaven. Ah, I can't wait. Geez, this place is nuts.

How does it happen? God puts His Spirit in you. When does it happen? First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12 is when this happens. Paul says, "For this body is one, the body of Christ, but it has many members. But all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ. For by one Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, we were all baptized into the body of Jesus. Whether we are Jews or Greeks, or whether we are slave or free people, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit."

If you are in Christ, man, and you've received the Lord, you are in Him. We are one and you're a saint. Paul says, "We then, as workers together with Him, also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain." We'll talk about the grace of God in a moment. "For He says, 'In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.' Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation."

I gotta tell you something right now. That day we were on the Metro and we're going from one place to another and we were sitting there. There's about five of us. And one of the girls that we're with, one of the Russian girls, I leaned over to her and I said, "Let's pray." And I tell you guys, I didn't see a vision, I didn't have a little angel go, "Do it, man, say this." It was nothing spiritual or supernatural about it, I thought.

And we're just standing there and the thing's going like this. And I leaned over and I said, "Let's pray for your dad's salvation right now." And she goes, "Hey, sure." I said, "Lord, in Jesus' name, if you want her dad to get saved, I just ask you to open the door. We're not going to push on any doors. I just ask you to open the door. Amen." That was it.

So she said, "Well, you know, I don't think he's going to get saved. He kind of wonders why I even go to church and I don't know if it's going to happen." So we wound up getting to their place that night for dinner and we're sitting there and it was fantastic. We were the first Westerners to ever visit their home. And the translator that was with me told me, "I've never seen a spread like this in my life." And it was very humbling but very precious.

And the mom and the dad were just putting out all these things and we were eating and just having a great time. And it came time for the dishes to be picked up from the table. And I had totally forgotten that I had prayed that prayer. And the father says, "So how many times have you been here?" So I told him and he said, "Wawski" or something.

And I was at one end of the table, he was at the other end of the table, and the other people are on the side of the table. And Pastor Paul was sitting next to him and Alinka was on my left side. And he said, "What do you guys, you know, what are you doing? What message are you doing? What is this? There's a lot of messages, you know, that's been coming to our city and I've heard a lot of them."

And I just went and her eyes got this big. And immediately, if you could have a little faith meter, I'm not kidding, you could see the faith meter in her heart go up 25 notches just then, instantly. And I looked at her and I went, because he couldn't understand me, I said, "Why don't you leave? Why don't you just go?" And she goes, "No, I want to stay." I go, "No, I think you should go." "No, I want to stay." "No, you go."

And so she stepped out and it was just Paul and I and him. And I said, "Do you really want to know what it is that we told your daughter a couple years ago and what we're telling the people when we come here?" And he said, "Yeah, I'd like to hear this." And an hour and 20 minutes, the gospel was shared with him.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio and His message called We Are Blessed in God, Part One. Thanks for joining us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Book of Ephesians. It's a series through Paul's letter to the Ephesians, discovering the riches, the walk, and the warfare of every believer. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Looking for an inspiring way to pass some time? Or maybe just need some help to get through your workday? How about listening while you work? The Jack Hibbs Podcast brings you real stories, real people with real-life experiences. From inspiring journeys to thought-provoking conversations, we've got it all. So discover a world of knowledge, laughter, and connection. The Jack Hibbs Podcast and so much more are available on our website at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com where faith meets real life.

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.