Real Life Radio

David J: Today, on Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: What is true of the scripture, if works didn't get you your salvation, bad works cannot undo your salvation. If you can't get your salvation by good works, then you can't lose it by bad works. It has nothing to do with works at all.

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. One nation born in liberty, rooted in faith, sustained by providence. That's the American story. A new documentary film from Pastor Jack Hibbs and historian Tim Barton filmed at the very places where it happened. Preorder today ahead of its Thanksgiving Day release and receive a free Thanksgiving kids guide with your gift to Real Life. Visit jackhibbs.com or call 877-777-2346 to preorder yours now. Once again, that website jackhibbs.com.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series now called The Book of Ephesians and a message titled Master Moses meet Father Abraham part one. Ephesians is, of course, a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus showing every believer who they really are in Christ. And here, Paul reminds us that we are saved by grace and there's nothing we could ever do to earn it. You see, so many of us wear ourselves out trying to work our way to God, but grace is God's unearned favor, freely given. It's a gift we simply can't buy and we never could repay.

So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that grace means we don't hope we're saved, we can actually know we're saved. If our good works can't earn our salvation, then our failures can never take it away. Now, with his message called Master Moses meet Father Abraham part one, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: People can't handle grace. You're too good to him. He should get less. I should get more. That's that works mentality. God's grace gives. You and I know people. If we were God Now, I can't believe you're blessing him, God. The guy's a crook. Look at him. And then you start thinking, if I did that, you would shoot me on the spot, God. You ever had that thought? It's in it Oh, you did. I didn't think I'd see that many reactions, especially this group over here. I can't believe this. You're so good to them. And I've been guilty of that.

It's a weird thing. It's a corrupt thing. God, I've been a good boy all week. Please bless Sunday. I've studied so hard. I know guys. I know pastors who have been golfing today. So were you really blessed this one? Cuz I've been here all day. Been here all week. Then you fall flat on your face. Come out there and you just open and it's like you know, it's like for me on this side, it's often like licking granite. You know, it's not too filling. Oh, God, how can you not bless this thing? I've been I've been.

I've worked. I And God just goes, I'm sick of hearing about I He loves to show us grace. It's just the way that he is. Listen, people, we are saved by God's grace and that alone. We are not saved by works, by being good enough. Listen, hang on to your seats. This is theologically correct, but rarely ever heard. You are not even saved by faith. And that sounds strange? I thought we were. No, you're not. If you were saved by faith, then salvation would be of you. No, no, I thought faith was a gift of God.

The Bible implies that faith is a gift of God, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that faith is a gift of God. And you might say, yeah, it does right here in Ephesians 8 and 9. No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all. It's just for by grace you have been saved through faith. And where it says, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. In the Greek, it is not faith is a gift of God. It is salvation is a gift of God and you lose it in the English language.

There is no salvation coming to you and I except by the sovereign grace of God only. Our faith does not save us. And you're hearing a lot of trash on radio and TV that your faith can save you. Well, Jack, didn't Jesus say your faith has saved you to the people in the to the women and to the men in the Gospels. If you read it carefully, their faith brought them to the object of their faith, which was Jesus Christ. They came. Their faith was only a vehicle. It is not the mode that saves them.

It says right here for by grace you have been saved. People get this now and we'll get into it heavily next week. Bring your friends. Ask them to take a furlough from maybe their other church or whatever. If especially if it's legalistic, come just next weekend. We're going to cover this thing about how saved we are. And listen, it says in your Bible that you have been saved. Now, what do you think that means? For by grace you have been saved. Are you tonight saying, oh boy, I hope I get saved. I hope I'm saved in the end.

What if somebody What if somebody breaks into your house or into your place and they've got a bazooka and they're going to hold you hostage. What do you think? Man, I hope I'm saved. How do I say this without hurting somebody? If you're hoping that you're saved, you're probably not. Was that subtle enough? Oh, I hope. I hope. What does the Bible say right here? For by grace you have been saved. Listen, you don't hope for salvation. You have it or you don't have it. These things were written 1 John 5. These things were written that you may know that you have eternal life.

The word know is oidas in the Greek and it means that you are perceiving and recognizing and enjoying the fact that you are saved. Now, some denominations have told you you can't know that. And that is absolutely against the Bible. Absolutely against scripture. And though you may love your church where you've come from, you've been told wrong. It's not theologically correct. You have been saved by God grace. The vehicle that drives you there is faith. Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And that's the implication or that's what's implied concerning God's giving it to you.

Faith is not a gift, but it is given if that makes any sense. Faith is not a gift, but it is given by God. How does it happen? When you are listening and you hear the word of God and you respond to that, though you can't take any credit for it because God is the master engineer of it, your faith takes you and drops you off right in front of this house called grace. It's an amazing thing. God's grace. There's nothing that saves us outside of the grace of God. Titus chapter 2 verse 11. Listen to this.

Titus 2:11 says for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Ain't that great? What's this? Doors open up. What's this? It's grace. And they just pour it all over you. Grace. Listen to Peter's commentary about grace. 1 Peter 1:10. Peter says, of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. Why were they so excited about it? Can you imagine Imagine putting yourself in Elijah's shoes, Isaiah's shoes, Ezekiel. Man, the Holy Spirit has been coming upon me. I've been prophesying these things.

A lot of the prophets didn't even understand what they were saying. They're prophesying. They're saying this and they're talking about the grace that is to come. You read the book of Isaiah and he's talking about the grace that's coming to the Gentiles. And he's like God's going to save I don't understand this. And Peter says, they've searched the scriptures to try to figure out this grace that's coming to you. How can it be that God would just save out of the goodness of his hearts? Yeah. That's right. It's faith. And what the Lord has done for us.

People have a hard time with this. Listen to this. It's this grace also. It says that you have been saved. It's this grace that's the power to save us. You have been saved. He has saved us in all eternity. And by the way, eternity people is where you're going. Ain't that great? Where is the fact of all this? In heaven, in eternity. We're going there. We're going to meet it. It says that we have been saved some point in history past, but we're going to eternity. We're on We're in route right now. We're at a We're at a truck stop.

That's what we're doing right now. We're stopped here. Well, we're on our way. We're going to get there soon. And when we get there, we're going to find out what Harry Ironside wrote about. Great old guy Harry Ironside. Buy his commentaries. You enjoy them immensely. Ironside says that it's going to be like walking up to a door. The moment we die, we walk up to a door and it's going to say on that door, all whosoever will written across the top. Wow. All so whosoever will come in. And he opens the door and he walks in and there's this great party and Noah's there and Jeremiah's there and they're all there and Daniel playing with the lions and everything is just great.

And he's going, man, look at this. And he's going to shut the door and look over the door and over the top of the door it's going to say called saved before the foundation of the world wherever laid. You open the door, you walk in, you find out they were waiting for you all along. You walk down the walk down there's a table and it's got your name on the table. How'd you know, God? I knew. When did you know? Forever. So really I'm kind of like just coming in on this thing, but it's been done for the whole time.

That's right. Boy, if I would Man, if I would have known that, I would have been much more faithful and down on earth and I would have been I wouldn't have to eat malanga all my life and I could have I could have eaten Mexican food instead of worrying. You know, my stomach was so nervous all the time and I used to you know, think about am I really going to be saved and the whole thing is it's that was that was done. That's right. Oh, man. Imagine how we're going to feel. Can you Oh, I would have been bold.

Yeah, I know. You I was trying to get you to be bold, but you I would have been so sure. I try I told I wrote my book. It's like you know, 2 and 1/2 in thick I wrote this thing trying to tell you. You wouldn't believe where I was telling you in there. Oh, man. Ain't that something? It's all done.

Guest (Male): 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: Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? We'll end with this. Pick it up next week. You came in here tonight not one of you. Safe to say. Came in here and said, I hope that chair holds me up. Looks like it could, but I 'm not sure. Kind of put your foot on it and the usher knocks your foot off of it and Get your foot off of there. Sit on it. Either sit down or get out. What are you doing? I'm just checking this thing out. You didn't do that. You came in here and you're looking around and you sat down.

You never thought about it. Why? You put your faith in the chair. Listen. Are you sitting on faith right now? No. You're sitting on the chair. The chair saved you from hitting the ground. You put faith in the chair to hold you up. Jesus is that chair. You come to him and you sit on his lap. You don't hit the floor because Jesus is that chair. Did your faith save you? No. The chair saved you. You picked up all of you and put it in the chair. But it's the chair that kept you from hitting the ground.

Harry Houdini put a string across Niagara. Now, a string. I'm sure it was a more than a string. And Houdini walks across and walks back. People are going insanely nuts. Oh my, you're so great. You are so great. This is the guy that was so great that when he died, he says when I die, bury me and put a telephone in my coffin cuz I'll call you when I get to the other side. They buried him with a telephone. No, people are still waiting for that call. He didn't have enough money for the long distance.

He was a strange guy. But anyway, the thing is um he gets a wheelbarrow, goes across Niagara with a wheelbarrow, pushes the wheelbarrow across. People are going nuts. How many of you think I can do that again? Oh, the people are going crazy. Of course you can. You're the great Houdini. He goes great to this one guy. Get in the wheelbarrow. No way. I thought you said I could do this again. I did. Well, get in the wheelbarrow. I'm not getting in that wheelbarrow. The guy would not get in the wheelbarrow. He believed Houdini existed.

He was standing right in front of him. He had faith, but he wouldn't put his faith in Houdini's ability to get him across Niagara even though it had been proven earlier that he could make it across. We can say we have faith in God, but if we are still trying to be good enough and add to what God has done for us, we're not writing in his wheelbarrow. We're not with him. We're working and we're missing it. That's why grace changes everything. Grace allows us to start all over again, no matter what kind of life you've had.

Grace takes everything back to zero. Well, I've only sinned a little bit. I've sinned a lot. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. I've worked all day. You give me a denarius. He's worked an hour and you paid him the same way. It doesn't matter. God's gracious. Our responsibility is to do what that prodigal son did and that is to repent. That is to stop living where you're at and run home. All the work part of it God has done. And here's the beautiful thing and next week we'll dive into this. You are saved through faith uh for by grace you have been saved through faith.

It's all in the past tense. And just on verse eight alone is assurance and the doctrine and the safe teaching that if you have been saved and your works had nothing to do with it, then you shall be saved. And any works or any bad works cannot affect it at all. And churches will not talk about this because they'll they the pastors cringe because what is true of the scripture is if works didn't get you your salvation, bad works cannot undo your salvation. If you can't get your salvation by good works, then you can't lose it by bad works.

It has nothing to do with works at all. And you mention that into a congregation, pastors don't want you to say things like that. Or uh churches don't want pastors to say things like that because you know what people will do and a carnally minded church is or grace abounds and must be available to us. So let's go out and sin. And a Christian can't even think like that. Not at all. What it does do though for you is totally liberate you to live after the Lord. Next week we'll talk about how incredibly saved we are in him because of what he's done.

Let's pray. Father, what a great and wonderful wonderful God you are that we are so so blessed, Lord, to have had your goodness bestowed upon us. Lord Jesus, in this room tonight there are people, Father, who have had such a bad past and tough past. And Lord, even reading today from uh Duke University, the psychologist who said that the second greatest cause for people to be mentally ill or emotionally disabled is because they cannot escape from their past. And how wonderful it is that the Bible says, Paul tells us, forget those things that are behind and press on to the high calling which is in Christ Jesus.

Lord, I pray that even tonight there would be some ready to dump the past and leave it in your hands and to get up and to run with you, Lord, by the grace of God. While we're praying right now, please maybe that's you tonight and you need to accept the grace of God that comes through Jesus Christ salvation. Cleansed and given new life. Start life all over again. Wouldn't you like to do that? Start all over again. If there's anybody in here tonight that you would admit in your heart right now before the Lord, you could tell God, you could tell him, Lord, I I I have sinned and if I die tonight, I I'm in trouble.

I am hoping to be saved. No, you can know tonight just by receiving him. If you'd like to have your sins forgiven, the Holy Spirit move inside of you, come on in to live and give you everlasting life. Why don't you put your hand up right now wherever you're at. God bless you. And you and you and you. And you. Anyone else? It's free. I know it's Yes, in the back. God bless you too. Yeah, it's free. God bless you too. It's free. Those of you who have raised your hands, you can put your hands down.

Christians, brothers and sisters, you know that you need a new dosage of his grace and the reality of it in your life. And so, Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters tonight, Lord, who have walked with you for a while. Lord, they just need a baptism filling overflowing of your new and abounding grace upon them. And Lord, to our brand new brothers and sisters tonight all over the place, Lord, we thank you for them. We pray this prayer right now. Those of you who raised your hands, join with us helping you along in this prayer.

And the Lord will hear this prayer out of your mouth. It's your will. And a moment ago your will was changed and enabled you to raise your hand up commanding the muscles and all to go up. Well, now out of your lips according to Romans 10 eight uh nine and 10 you'll be making confession of Jesus Christ and you'll be saved past tense again. So believe that the Lord will hear you now and pray this prayer with us. Repeat this after us. Lord Jesus, I receive you today. I ask you, Lord, to cleanse me of my sins.

I come just as I am. Receive me now, Lord. Cleanse me. Wash me. I ask you to forgive me. And Lord, I ask you now to baptize me in the power of your Holy Spirit according to the words of your son Jesus. I receive you now in Jesus name. Amen.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio in his message called Master Moses meet Father Abraham 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 triumph of every believer. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Guest (Female): 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/nogod. 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 nogod tab at jackhibbs.com.

Jack Hibbs: 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.

David J: 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.