Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: What do I do? What do I do? I’m disillusioned. Are you ready for this? It’s going to sound like I’m pouring salt on a wound. But remember, the same salt that burns is the same salt that heals. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

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.

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David J: On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now in his series called Disciplines of Life and a message titled The Discipline of Disillusionment. 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.

One of the hardest is when life lets us down and we feel like we’ve lost all hope. Disillusionment is that crushing feeling when something we counted on turns out to be false. It’s actually stronger than disappointment, and it can shake us to our core.

But God never leaves us nor forsakes us. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that disillusionment can turn into regret, and regret left unchecked becomes bitterness that poisons everything in our life. But forgiveness sets us free—not for the other person, but for us. Now with his message called The Discipline of Disillusionment, here’s Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: And Peter answered and said to Him, “Lord, if it is You...” I love this. Watch this. “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” You can analyze that forever. Why did Peter say that? Was it a God moment? Did God put it in his head? Probably. You say, “I don’t know, that’s reading too much into it.”

Okay, well, what was going on? He’s in a boat. He hears Jesus say, “Peace. It’s all good. Don’t worry about it.” This is my thought, not Bible, my thought: Peter says, “Call me. If it’s You, call me.” I think Peter is saying, “Get me away from these guys. Get me out of this boat. I don’t want to be in this boat with these guys.”

We just went from thinking we’re going to pass from one world into the next in death. You come walking on the water. I want to be with You any old day, even if it’s walking on water, than in a boat with a bunch of screaming maniac panic people. I can’t take it. Now, you would say, “But Peter’s just like them. They were all crying.” Yes. But when you see the light, you don’t want to hang around that anymore.

When Jesus says, “Be of good cheer. It is I. Don’t be afraid,” the last thing on earth you want to do is hang around with people who are absolutely terrified at their shadow. “Come on, let’s go!” “It’ll never work.” “No, come on, let’s go! Let’s follow Jesus!” “It’ll never happen. You’re going to get killed. Watch out. You’re going to poke your eye out.” Peter says, “That’s it. I’m coming. It’s safer with Jesus on the water than in a boat with all these crybabies.” It’s amazing. Doubt is dangerous.

So, how to overcome it? I’m going to give you just two little statements, and I think it’s beneficial. Receiving the word of God into our hearts. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). So, receiving the word of God, determining I am going to receive the word of God. You say, “What does that look like?” Well, tonight, tomorrow morning, get up and you say, “I’m going to receive the word of God right now,” and you’re going to read it.

Number two is putting ourselves into a place where faith has to be exercised. Number one I can handle. I’m going to pick up the word of God. Okay. Now watch. The next thing you’re supposed to do is put yourself in a place to exercise faith. The Bible, we read it. What are we reading it for? If we’re not determining to put it into practice, then read the newspaper.

When we read the Bible, we’re supposed to put it down afterward and put on our gloves and strap on our helmet and go out into this world. That’s why we’re in the Bible. It makes all the difference in the world. Number three: Disillusionment deceives us by causing regret. Disillusionment. This is painful. Regret is a painful, brutal taskmaster. Disillusionment causes regret.

When we’re disillusioned, we become regretful, and regret causes bitterness. Disillusionment. You and I, we struggle with bitterness because we regret something because we were disillusioned by what? A promise. A broken promise. A vow. And regret sets in. Now listen carefully to this: Regret is a trap. It’s like quicksand.

It’ll destroy your life. Regret, if all of us right now, if we don’t understand and get this discipline of disillusionment down, regret will destroy your life as a Christian. Now, let me tell you. You’re not going to go to hell if you’re a regretful person. If you’re a Christian, you’re going to go to heaven. It’s just horribly miserable until you get there.

Do you know how many Christians are living a horribly miserable life? And when you strip away all of the veneer and you talk to them, there’s deep-seated regret. Why? They’re bitter. Why? “My wife ripped me off. My ex-wife ripped me off. My kids, my mom and dad.” This is where we hear from people all the time. This is the stuff.

Look at these TV programs, which I don’t watch, but I’ve heard about them, where people come on the show and ask, “Now what happened to you?” “Well, when I was nine years old...” And it’s very real stuff. But there’s deep-seated hatred. Why? Because there’s regret. People are angry and hurt. You want to know what the most dangerous thing regarding regret can be in our lives? It is justifiable hurts. A justifiable hurt.

That this thing really did happen to you, and you can even point to the people or person who did it to you. And in a court of law, you win. There’s no doubt about it. But you could win at the Supreme Court and you wouldn’t feel any better. You wouldn’t do any better because regret, if left unchecked, causes bitterness. And bitterness, you can see it on someone’s face.

You’ll hear it out of their mouth. And they’re Christians. But they live all of their Christian life never making an influence for good. And they live their days out in like a Christian daze. They never progress. It’s very sad. It causes bitterness. Psalm 108:12 says, “Give us help from trouble, for the help of man is useless.” That can cause bitterness when we have hoped in others, when we have hoped in their wisdom or their might.

Maybe we’ve hoped in the strong arm of man, we can easily enter into regret or bitterness when that happens. “You said that you were going to rescue me. You said that you were going to change things. You said that you were going to love me,” and things change. You say, “Jack, that’s why I’m not going to love anybody.” We’re coming to that at the end here pretty soon.

Hebrews 12:12 says, “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down...” pictures of a man exhausted and defeated. “...and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace...” Listen everyone, fall short of the grace of God, “...lest any root of bitterness spring up, causing trouble, and by this many become defiled.”

Bitterness spreads. In families, there’ll be that bitter person. Maybe it’s a grandma or grandpa, it’s an aunt or an uncle, it’s a cousin. Someone is bitter. “Oh, here they come.” They come to the holiday dinner and oh, man, there it is. And often, most often, it’s the person that’s doing most of the drinking because they’re miserable. They’re bitter.

And bitterness is a lie. Bitterness tells you the more miserable you are... and you walk around grumbling and griping, “This stupid government, and I can’t stand it, and you know what, all those Christians, and everything’s wrong.” I read a story a long time ago. There was a man, it’s a turn of the century in a farmhouse, big family. And a little kid was goofing around before dinner.

And the little kid stuck his hand and mushed up all the Limburger cheese. Have you ever smelled Limburger cheese? I’ve been to Limburg, Germany, where the cheese came from. And that stuff stinks. Limburger cheese. And the little kid walked over, and he didn’t know anything. He’s walking around, and there’s Grandpa laying on the couch sleeping, big mustache. And the little guy is petting his grandpa’s mustache. Just petting it.

Then the little guy wanders off. The grandpa wakes up. The guy goes, “This house stinks!” He gets up, walks into the other room. All of his family’s in there cooking. “You guys all stink!” Walks outside, opens the door. “The whole world stinks!” He had Limburger cheese all over his mustache. Bitterness is like that. It’s on your mustache. You stink. All of you stink. The whole world stinks.

No, you’re the one who stinks. You’re like Pig-Pen in Charlie Brown. Everywhere you go, there’s fumes rising up from wherever you’re at. And bitterness, nobody wants to be around a bitter person. And you say, “Well, Jack, you know what, you’re making fun of my bitterness, and I don’t appreciate it.” You know what, you want to live? You got to kill the bitterness. Only you can do it. Nobody can do it.

You can go to your therapist, you’re just going to spend money. Nobody can do it but you. Let’s just face that fact right now. You can’t get somebody, you can’t pay someone to take away your bitterness. It ain’t going to happen. It’s only between you and God that bitterness is fixed. Period. You can travel the world, I’ll save you the flight. Go straight to God.

You can run around the world, you’ll still be bitter because it’s down in the heart and you got to let it go. Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is necessary for edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all...” what? “...bitterness...” Notice it’s first in the list.

Watch what comes after that: wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another. You choose to do that. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. That’s the key to bitterness. You want to unleash bitterness from your life and get it away from you so you can be free? The answer is forgiveness.

Listen, forgiveness in your life, exercised as I told you before, is not for the other guy. That’s a lie from Satan. People think, “I’m not going to forgive. Why should I forgive that guy?” And it blows my mind. Where did that thought come from but from Satan himself? “I’m not going to forgive that guy.” Excuse me, sir. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.

That’s like being starved to death and there’s a turkey dinner on the table. “I’m not going to eat that.” You don’t even know what you’re talking about, dude. You need that. God gave us the ability to forgive others so we could go free. It’s for you to be relieved. “Well, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of forgiving them.” They don’t care! You think they care?

You think they’re missing sleep over it? It’s for you to be set free. So, how do we stop bitterness? Matthew 6:14: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Why? You’re refusing to be set free.

Number four and we’ll be done at this point: Disillusionment deceives us by building walls. Notice the progression. Anybody taking notes? What was the first one? Confusion. What was second? Doubt. What’s the third? Regret. And look at this fourth one: walls. Some of you didn’t know the answer and it’s on the screens. But you see how it starts so benign: confusion.

What’s the big deal? Leads to doubt. That’s okay. Regret. Oh, that’s a bitter thing. Takes years, by the way. Could take years. Walls. Walls are a big deal. Walls most always take years. It deceives us. Listen to this quote: “Just keep on handing me another brick and I will build a wall so high and so thick that you’ll never be able to hurt me again. Just hand me another brick.”

People like this, living life, been hurt in the past, not going to feel again, not going to love again, not going to serve God again. “I’m just going to hunker down, wait till the end.” And your justification is, “I’m not going to get hurt again.” Well, I don’t think that’s very Christian. I think if you’re really living Christianity, you’re going to get run over about as many times as a person can get run over.

I mean, let me be honest with you. If you brought your friend here tonight who’s not a Christian, let me just be honest. It’s an awesome life being a Christian and it’s a wonderful peace no matter what happens in life to know that you’re living in the truth. But we’re not of this world, as we talked about on Sunday. And this world will not only run us over as Christians, it’ll back up and run us over again.

And God is greater than all the pain that we can experience. Disillusionment. I read today this quote, I want to give it to you. It says, “Maybe you have felt the heavy hand on you from God and you’re more like a bird in a cage than a free and liberated soul that you are. Remember this: The Lord’s hard word is not His last word.”

Maybe God is saying to you, “You know what, you’re all these things that Jack pointed out tonight,” and that’s a hard word to hear tonight from the Lord, but it’s not His last word. Because His last word is, “Come to me, you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus said that. Psalm 30, verse 5 says, “For His anger is but for a moment, but His favor is for life; weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

You build a wall to protect yourself. I’ll paraphrase it for time’s sake. Psalm 42 is awesome. The psalmist is crying out, “My heart is like a deer. It pants for You, God. My soul longs for You.” And as he’s crying in his distress, he says to himself, “Why so downcast, O my soul? Why are you so depressed, my soul?” And there’s Selah, he waits. I’m so, so disillusioned.

And then his help comes from the Lord. My soul will take strength in the Lord. Disillusionment is destroyed by three golden spikes. One: Tonight, church, choose to become fearless again. Listen, disillusionment says, “I can never take another risk.” I’m telling you right now, trust God and become fearless again. Number two: become obedient to God again.

I wish I could talk to somebody, they’re not here right now. There’s tens of thousands of Christians that are no longer going to church because something happened to them. They got angry, bitter, disillusioned, whatever. And they decided to no longer go and fellowship with God’s people any longer. And if somehow you know somebody or somebody’s listening tonight, I’m going to say, forget them. Forget the people that have hurt you.

Follow God. Become obedient to Him again. Put your eyes on Jesus and stop looking at people and get over it. Number three is this: choosing to become trusting again. This is a biggie, huh? Choosing to become trusting again, that you will trust, and you’ll trust the Lord. Confusion, doubt, bitterness, loneliness, because that’s what this causes in our lives if we build up walls.

Loneliness. You can be in a room full of people and you’re lonely. And Jesus said, listen, this is the final word. You say, “Jack, none of this stuff that you said puts any help into my court.” Well, I thought you’d say that, so I built this verse in right here right now. There’s stuff that has gone on in maybe all of our lives that the answer we’ve not found even in a Bible study.

What do I do? What do I do? I’m disillusioned. Are you ready for this? It’s going to sound like pouring salt on a wound. But remember, the same salt that burns is the same salt that heals. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” There comes a time in all of our lives. This is a bitter pill, people.

You can close your Bible, we’re done. This is the biggie. There comes a time when we are so disillusioned and we don’t see the answer coming. And you know what the absolute ultimate answer is? Deny yourself. Deny yourself. Stop putting your feelings and your position and your justifiable hurts and all of your argument front and center. Take it off the mantle and throw it away.

This is tough medicine and it’s the best. Deny yourself. Stop thinking about you. Stop looking at your hurts, pains, and the wrongs that have been perpetrated against you. Get over it by taking it to Him. And you tell Him tonight, if you’ve got to go climb a mountain top tonight, if you’ve got to drive around all night or take a walk, do it.

But you say, “Lord, I have to have victory in my life in this situation. It’s disillusionment’s killing me and I’m coming to You tonight, God, and I’m just going to take the shortest route possible, and that is this: I am choosing now to deny myself. I am going to quit thinking about this. I’m going to give it up and I’m going to follow You, Jesus. I’m not bringing it up again. And if I bring it up again, God, don’t listen to me.

Because I’m done with it. I am not that important to have me ruin my life. Because the more it is of me, myself, and I, the more miserable you are.” Father, this is Your word. It is holy, it is pure, it is power. And Father, tonight all we need to do is simply choose to obey You in these things. And the discipline of disillusionment is this:

We give it to You, God. We cry out to You. We take Your word and we trust it completely. We will not listen to men to the left or to the right. We will not give audience to those who undermine Your word, to take away the authority of Your Son, to deny the Holy Spirit. We will not listen but to the word of God. We will not succumb to our own devices.

We choose tonight to say to You, Lord, we deny ourselves, and we are going to become soldiers of Yours. We’re going to become followers of Yours. We’re going to become fishers of men. We’re going to become lovers of God. And we’re going to stop talking about us and start praising You. In Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, Amen.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio and his message called The Discipline of Disillusionment. Thanks so much for being with us 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, and 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.

So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you’d like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com/knowgod. That’s K-N-O-W God. And there you’ll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you’ll find in knowing God. Don’t miss out. That’s the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.

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.