Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: You, my friend, determine tonight to exercise determination in your walk with Him. Yes, He saved you, but now it's time to get up and follow Him.

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.

Guest (Male): Are you watching what's happening but wondering what it means? Every day brings new headlines but not always real answers. In Happening Now, Pastor Jack Hibbs breaks it all down through the lens of scripture.

Clear, direct, grounded in truth. From global events to cultural shifts, you'll see what the others miss and why it matters. Watch the latest episode now at 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 Disciplines of Determination. As the world is becoming more and more difficult, there will always be a reason to quit.

But we've really got to stand firm in our faith and stay committed to God and His will for our lives. You see, in life and in faith, there will always be troubles, always problems, discouragement, and people telling us to stop and walk away.

But determination means choosing not to give up, even when there are reasons that seem convincing enough to do just that, give up. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that as Christ followers, we need to be a determined people.

Emotion is going to make us want to quit now and then, but we need to be serious Christians that are filled with enthusiasm and consumed with the things of God. Now with his message called Disciplines of Determination, here is pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Father, that you would not only anoint us by your Holy Spirit that are gathered here right now, but Lord, those that are gathered around their computers, Father, that are with us on service right now live in various parts of the world and across America.

We pray, Father, that there would be no disconnect from our fellowship, from the koinonia of the Holy Spirit, from this sanctuary, Lord, to the ends of the earth. We thank you for all that you've provided for us. We ask in Jesus' name. And again, all God's people said, amen.

Grab your Bibles tonight and turn if you would to Matthew chapter 28. You're probably wearing out that part of your Bible on Wednesday nights. Matthew chapter 28, and you're going to place your finger there, and then you're going to go to Ephesians chapter 6. Matthew chapter 28 and Ephesians chapter 6.

Tonight's message is entitled the Discipline of Determination. In Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, Jesus says, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples." That's what's happening here on Wednesday nights, making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 20, teaching them to observe all things. That is, be obedient to what Christ has commanded that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Now go a little bit to the right to the book of Ephesians. And here is our verse for this evening, Ephesians 6:13 and a little bit of verse 14.

"Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore." What an awesome challenge. And we break it down regarding the discipline of determination. "That you may be able to withstand," Paul says to the church at Ephesus, "in the evil day."

That word implies that as we get closer to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the days are going to increase in evil. Jesus said it. Jesus said that as the days get further off or closer to his second coming, the Bible tells us, Jesus said it, that men's hearts will begin to fail them for fear when they see the events of this world coming upon this world and those who dwell on it.

Jesus said that because of lawlessness, love would grow cold. That word means that there would be a profound, dark, sinister callousness on the hearts of people where people would be maybe robbed or beaten up or raped or murdered, and people wouldn't care. People would pull out their cell phone to record it rather than get involved and help someone.

That's the age we're living in today. A time like this, an evil day. Are we not in an evil day? Horrible things. You can watch murders actually on YouTube and on the internet, uncensored, there. We're living in an evil day. And Jesus said because of callousness, men and women's hearts will become very, very cold and without compassion.

It is the evil day. But Paul says to the church in the last days, in the evil day, to stand. We are to be standing. It's clear that in the last days, as evil advances, the Christian is going to advance as well. There's going to be a grand collision between light and darkness.

Now, I don't know if you have the liberty to watch this or not. I don't know if your conscience is okay with you to do this, but a Christian man wrote a book about World War I, how he perceived that war. And that guy was J.R.R. Tolkien. He wrote Lord of the Rings. And that book exposes a profound collision between light and darkness.

The movie that came out was extremely graphic. I think it's excellent for those who can handle it. It's pretty terrifying because it so portrays evil that you can almost feel it. These orcs and these things representing the demonic world clashing against the light and against the kingdom.

And yet we would look at a movie like that and say, "Oh wow, that's evil." And you walk out of the theater. Hey, let me tell you something, the stuff that's outside the theater is worse than what's on a movie screen. The Bible tells us that we are in the evil day and that we are to stand. And the great thing is we can stand because God is good and powerful and we can be a determined people.

In the book of Philippians chapter 2, verse 12, the Bible says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Very quickly, all you just heard a moment ago was, "Work out your own salvation. How am I going to do that?" If you read the next verse, it says, "For it is God who has at work within you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." That word "work out your own salvation" means get determined about your Christianity. Get serious about it.

Because you and I are living in an evil day. And let me tell you right now, if you're not getting serious about Jesus, you're going to get swept away in the evil day. So when it says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, it means to be gravely serious about your walk, defending your walk, having a very tender heart towards God.

The opposite of the way the world is going. The world is going callous heart, cold heart, dark heart. Your heart is getting more tender, more illuminated, more loving. Worlds in collision. And so we come before God tonight and we say, "Lord, I want to be determined as a believer. I want to be serious as a Christian. I want to walk with you."

We would use the word enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, that word is a compound word. It means someone who is filled with a spirit or zeal or a passion for a cause. It means to be filled with enthusiasm of special intercourse with God, says Noah Webster, for or of revelation from God. It is to be filled with God to the point where God's interest consume you.

Yes, your personality is what it is. God has given you your personality. Listen, are you guys listening? Don't let anyone ever try to dictate to you what your personality should be. That's like walking up to a Rembrandt and trying to fix the painting. It's a Rembrandt for crying out loud. Don't touch it.

I love Monet. You know who Monet is? I'm a sucker for a museum. Man, if they got a Monet, I'm pulling over. I gotta see it. I've had a chance to see Monets all around the world, they're incredible. I could just stand there and drool looking at them.

Can you imagine somebody walking up and saying, "I'm going to fix that. I don't like the way that..." You slap the guy before even getting near the thing. Slap him in the Lord, that is. With your soft, tender, illuminated heart. But why? Because it's the expression of the creator.

Your personality is what God has given you. Don't have somebody tell you, "Well, I don't, you know, you're too serious for me. You're too funny for me. You're too in between for me like Goldilocks trying to pick something out." Listen, Jesus didn't die for your personality. He died for your sins.

And he painted your existence, your person, the way that he likes. Listen, for those of you who are insecure, maybe you've been beaten down, whatever, I don't know, understand this: Jesus died for your sins. He loves the person that you are. And that should cause you to have a sense of security and excitement which breeds enthusiasm. God, thank you for loving me. Maybe nobody else loves you in the world, but God loves you. And that's enough.

In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5, the Bible says, "For we do not preach ourselves," says Paul, "but Christ Jesus, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness," listen to this, "who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Let me continue on in the second verse 7.

Have you ever seen a reflector when you shine the flashlight at it or the headlights on it? It bounces back at you. That's exactly what that means. Verse 7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels," that's our flesh, "that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." The power is of God. Are you going to make it to heaven? Yes. You know why you can be so sure? Because God will get you there.

You, my friend, determine tonight to exercise determination in your walk with him. Yes, he saved you, but now it's time to get up and follow him.

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: Number one, jot it down. In the disciplines of determination, it's this: there will always be enough reasons to quit. You see, determination is the opposite of us giving up. There will always be enough reasons to quit.

Will you write that down, jot that down because listen, sometimes you and I, we discover that the thing we're working on, the thing that we're excited about, we either lose interest in it or we think now, we conclude now that what I'm working on is not worthy of finishing.

Henry Ford built cars. And the story goes that when he began to work on his very first vehicle, his very first Ford car out in the back of his garage, he was working on it and he was so smart, goofing around, that before it, listen, before he finished the first car, his mind had already gone off on what the next, third, fourth, fifth, sixth generation car would be like. You know what that's like, right? You start something, you think, "Well, I can fix that. I can make it better."

And Henry Ford backed away and this is pretty amazing. As far as I know, he was not a Christian. He concluded, "Wait a minute, if I just discovered by working on this first car what I'm going to do to the next car, then I'm going to restart my enthusiasm. I'm going to get back at working on the original car until it's done."

Listen, because maybe as I continue, I'm going to learn more insights and more insights about the next car. Think about that as a Christian. I'm going to get up and I'm going to do this Christian walk with God. I'm not going to be a pew potato anymore. I'm not going to be a spectator. I'm going to follow Jesus all the way to the end.

And so let's go. And then you might lose interest. What do you do? Do you quit? Listen, there's always, always enough reasons to quit. But that doesn't make them right. Organized sports. I don't know about you. I think they're great. If I had a son or well, my daughter, Ashley, played organized sports.

She wound up going all the way to Orlando with the, I don't know, they won the national championship for cheerleader, who fly in space and flip and crash and gymnastics, wild crazy stuff. Amazing. Organized sports is awesome. You want to know why? It causes you to have a bonding and a camaraderie with a team.

And even though you don't feel like going to practice, you've got to go. Even though you don't feel like running faster, you've got to, or being stronger, you've got to. Whatever it is, it forces you. It's a great discipline. But a wonderful thing about it is this: that it causes you to reach down inside of you and grab something that you didn't think was ever there.

Everybody in my opinion should play some form of organized sports, not to get the trophy. Although let me say this: if you're going to play organized sports, get the trophy. Win the championship. I'm serious. I don't believe in that "I'm going to be a Christian and let everybody else win." No man, do it for the glory of God. Crush all your opponents and get the prize.

Come on, man. Be your best. And just after you beat the guy, pray for him. Tell him you love him anyway. You know? But listen, do your best. Why? It's not if you, listen, it's not if you win or you lose, although it does matter if you win, but here's the thing: it's the character building that is built up in you year in and year out and the commitment and the fact that, you know what? I was able to go the 100 yard this fast last year, maybe this fast this year. Whatever it might be. It's awesome.

Jot this down if you would. There's always reasons to quit, but there will always be, listen, there will always be reasonable reasons to quit. Well, should I quit? Of course. Hey, listen, you want to quit? You'll think of a thousand reasons and they're all going to sound great. "Well, I don't know if I'm going to, listen, it's a tough time right now as a Christian. Boy, then you know, the economy's bad." And you're going to quit Christianity?

So what, you're a fair-weather follower of Jesus? Is that what it is? Jesus had those people around him. He said, "Listen, you guys are following me right now not because you love me, but because you're hungry." Because he just got done feeding 5,000 people and they said, "This is cool. Travel with him, free food." People do that in Christianity.

There's always reasonable reasons to quit. As a Christian, you don't have the right to quit. As a Christian, I don't have a right to make my own decisions. "Well, then I'm not going to be a Christian." Well, that's right, you're not. I don't, listen, I'm supposed to be, we're supposed to be slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls the shots. I, we together get our marching orders from this book, the Bible.

And so listen, Exodus chapter 4, verse 10 says, "Then Moses said to the Lord, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent.'" Listen, these are reasonable reasons to quit. "I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech." Moses stuttered. "And slow of tongue." His tongue was tied.

So the Lord said to him, I love it, this is how God talks. "Who made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what to say." That's God. Don't you recognize that voice? Don't you recognize that kind of speech? That's how he speaks to us.

"Lord, I can't go." God says, "I want you to do that." "I can't do it." Moses, can you imagine Moses? He's an old man. God says, "I want you to go now. I want you to do this." "I can't. I stutter, I stammer." And God says, "Who made the mouth?" "Uh, you did." "Then I'm going to take care, I'll control your mouth. You go."

Listen, what God calls you to do, tells you to do, number one, you will be able to have a bazillion reasonable reasons why you shouldn't do it. Listen, everybody will tell you also, we'll come to this in a moment some more, but people will tell you, friends will tell you, maybe your husband or your wife will tell you, maybe I don't know.

Although you pray that the husband and the wife will be on the same page, walking together in unity on something. Whatever it is, there'll be a thousand million or more reasonable reasons why to quit. In this Christian life, in this Christian experience, the days, listen, I have this on based on a biblical source: the days are going to get rougher.

Oh great, I've come out here on a Wednesday night to be encouraged like this. They're going to get harder. The Bible says it's going to be more difficult and harder. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 1, verse 4, listen to this, a reasonable reason to quit. Jeremiah, he's a young man.

Verse 4, chapter 1, "Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you.'" Listen to this, God is saying, "Go, you go Jeremiah. I ordained you a prophet to the nations. You go Jeremiah." And then said I, Jeremiah speaks, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, I'm a youth. I'm just a young punk kid." And God says, "I'm with you, Jeremiah."

Those are reasonable, I stutter or I'm young. Those are good arguments. Everybody in the neighborhood would remind these guys, Moses and Jeremiah, "You shouldn't do this. Don't you know how young you are? You look like a fool. And who's going to listen to a kid?

And Moses, I can't get three, I can't understand three words coming out of your mouth." That's how God gets the glory. He loves it. Listen, I don't know if you've come to figure this out, have seen this happen in your life, I hope so, but there will never be in our Christian experience, there will never be enough time, there will never be enough help, there will never be enough people alongside you, there will never be enough money, there will never be enough energy, there'll never be enough of anything. You understand that?

That's the way it is. Well, we can't, you know what, we can't do it until we have enough. You know, churches, a lot of churches get in trouble because they'll have this big thing, "We're going to have a drive. We're going to have a construction drive. We'll have a thermometer on the stage and we'll have all the numbers there and we want you to pledge."

Pledge. Well, everybody, people and they don't want to look like an idiot, so everybody pledges. It's just a pledge. "Yeah, I'll give a thousand bucks." And here's what happens, with good intentions, they'll embark upon the promise of a human rather than the provision of God. And then they wonder, "Oh no." Be very, very careful. Listen, God will lead, God will guide, God will provide.

And here's the thing. People will come and give reasonable reasons why you should quit what is going on in your life. Don't quit. People will sit down, maybe it is a husband or a wife, and give reasonable reasons why the marriage should come to an end.

There are no reasonable reasons why the marriage should come to an end. God wants it to be fixed, to be worked out, to be healed. "Yeah, but my husband or my wife committed adultery and I now I get to divorce them." That's the second option. The first option is for God to heal that relationship.

Forgiveness, mercy, grace, that comes first. Zechariah 4:10 says, "For who has despised the day of small things?" God always begins with small things. And maybe it's a little bit of forgiveness, or maybe it's a little bit of repentance, or a little bit of mercy. But listen, there will always be reasonable reasons why you should quit your commitment to Jesus Christ. Don't do it.

Count the cost, my friend, of what you're fighting for and then fight for it to the end. Just listen, count the cost of what you're fighting for. Is it of eternal value? You want to be fighting for something that is eternal.

David J.: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio and his message called Disciplines of Determination. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Disciplines of Life. It's a great series highlighting the disciplines of a Christ-follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

David J.: I love the book of the month. Pastor Jack, it's Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers? written by your friend, Erwin Lutzer. It's a great book, isn't it?

Jack Hibbs: It is a great book and just the title alone is going to make it a best-seller because who cannot relate to this? Powerful.

David J.: Right. So for someone who's been praying for a long time and hasn't really seen an answer, an answer that they want, for that matter, how does this book encourage them to keep going?

Jack Hibbs: You know, Davy, first of all, just because we pray doesn't mean it's a prayer that should be answered. We don't always know how we ought to pray. Scripture makes that very clear. We do know that Jesus said in John 15, verse 7, that if we pray the scriptures really, if his word abides in us, we can ask God.

So just because we pray doesn't mean we're asking the right thing. And Dr. Lutzer will point this out in the book. What we want to do is when we pray is to have our will come under the authority of God's will. That's what prayer does. Prayer is not a Christmas list. It is the transformation of our will coming in alignment with God's will.

And this is a great book for people to get that answered. Why isn't the prayer, I've been praying to win the lotto for 30 years, and the lottery I have not won it yet. Why isn't God answering my prayer? Well, because God loves you, my friend. That's why he's not answering your prayer.

David J.: Right. So if somebody's faith has taken a hit because they feel like God hasn't answered them, how could this book help rebuild their trust?

Jack Hibbs: Yeah, it's going to point them to the scriptures. That's where they need to realize, wait a minute, I've been blaming God for not performing for me. Wait, he loves me. Father knows best. In fact, over time, we can all agree, and friend, listen up if that's your question, is over time we often realize, I'm so glad God did not answer my prayer request. I was off on that.

And so, getting back into the word of God and this book will help you do that, will cause you to trust God again because listen, God's trustworthy, period. It's our emotions that got us sideways in this area, not his theology. He's true.

David J.: Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers? by Dr. Erwin Lutzer is available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. 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.

Guest (Male): 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.