Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: That church burned me. That church hurt me. So I'm not going to become a Christian. That's spiritual suicide. The church never died for you on the cross, my friend. The church never raised anybody from the dead. The church never did anything. It's Jesus.

David J: This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J. Thank you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible.

We want you to be aware of a great book. 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. 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 continues his series now called "The Life And Times of Jesus Christ" and his message titled "Christ and the Church". 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. Here, Jesus shows us what His church really is and why it's so much more than we think.

Most of us picture the church as a building, a structure, or an institution. But church is a living, breathing organism, a body of people called out of this world and joined together by Christ. It's supernatural in power, really, and it's dearly loved by Jesus Himself. Today, Pastor Jack reminds us that the church is so much more than a building that we gather in. But before we can ever understand what the church is, we've got to first fix our eyes on the one who created it and the one who gives it life, and that is Jesus Christ.

Before we get into the message, I had a chance to sit down with Pastor Jack and talk about it with him. So let's get into that. Pastor Jack, everybody's got an idea of what the church is, right? A building, an institution. But you say that you can't really understand the church until you look at Jesus first. Talk about that, would you?

Jack Hibbs: The great thing is, thank God, Jesus is not in any way, shape, or form connected to or tied to a building. In America, just about on every corner somewhere, there's a church. But is it a church? We generously give that title to a building that has concrete and steel and glass, and we call it a church. Technically, it's not a church until the people show up. The church is not a building. The church is a living, breathing organism called the family of God.

That is the reality. So when somebody says, "Well, we're having a church building campaign," if you were to really look at those words technically, that means you're having a discipleship act where you're going to build the church, which is the people, not a structure. It's not a structure. The church comes to a structure to worship God, but the building itself must never be worshiped because Christ is not in that; He's in the people that worship Him.

David J: For somebody who's been burned by a bad church experience, you really do say something direct in this: the church never died for you, the church never raised anybody from the dead. It's Jesus. You say, "Look to Him." How do you help somebody make that shift? That seems like a tough one.

Jack Hibbs: They've got to entertain, more and more contemplate and consider that all institutions of this world—be it family, political, monetary—will fail you. You just have to understand this, friends; you have to embrace this reality. No one can keep a promise, even if they have the greatest intentions, because we're humans and we will fail, and our institutions fail us.

Jesus never fails us. And so that is the key to embrace the fact that God will keep His word; He'll keep His promises that He's made to you, and He's committed to that, and He's got the power to do all that.

David J: Christ and the Church. Let's jump into it.

Jack Hibbs: Would you grab your Bibles this morning and turn, if you would, to John's Gospel. Chapter 1. While you're turning there, we'll give you the theme verse of the entire series, Colossians 2:9. You can jot that down later. But while you're going to John Chapter 1, I want you to look there at verse 12. You're very familiar with John Chapter 1, but look at verse 12 for a moment.

It says, "But as many as received Him," you see the capital H on Him, that's Christ, Jesus, "to them," those that received Him, "He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood," that is, not of this world, "nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

That is a great verse that sums up the theme that we're in this morning: Christ and the Church. We're looking this morning at Jesus Christ as we come now to part 11 of our 16-part series of Christ and the Church. What does it mean? What is your concept of church?

Do you realize that this morning most of us as Christians have a wrong view about the church? We somehow think that maybe it's a building, it's a structure; we somehow might think that it is an institution. But the church is a living, breathing organism according to the word of God.

Throughout history, among both Christian and non-Christian alike, misunderstandings have existed about what the church really is. You don't have to go too far to figure out that this view or this misunderstanding is prevalent in churches and in the world today.

Look at some of the magazines that try to make mention. Isn't it a crack-up? Actually, it's pathetic. I say "crack-up" with my tongue in cheek because the Wall Street Journal often makes comments about the church—which, by the way, they're more conservative than most. New York Times will make a comment about the church. Los Angeles Times, USA News and World Report, Time Magazine, Newsweek. By the way, if you are getting your theology from any of those things listed above, you're a mess.

If you're letting Newsweek dictate to you what Christianity is or isn't, you're going to be very, very messed up because they don't even know what Christianity is. Ask them to define it. We'll talk about that a little bit more and we'll see some examples today. But you can ask people in the church, "What is the church?" and even in this church, where we make it a point not to put pomp and glory on the aesthetics of a place, on my wardrobe... we go out of our way to make sure that you have brown carpet, brown walls... you know why? We want to look to Jesus. It's not the building; it's not the aesthetics.

Christ and the Church. What is it about? What is it really? Paul the Apostle, as we'll see in a moment, is going to tell us it's a mystery. It's an amazing thing. In fact, we'll see also that the marriage relationship between a husband and wife is first of all based upon and predicated upon something that precedes it, and that is the relationship between God the Father and Israel. The Bible says in the book of Jeremiah that God the Father is married to Israel. I said married. He's married to her, Israel. That's what He says in the Old Testament.

Also, and for us more importantly, the Bible says that Jesus is engaged to who? Yeah, us, the church. A lot of people today, even in Christianity, don't understand what this amazing, strange, mysterious relationship is with God, with Jesus, and the church. But the Bible makes it very, very clear what that church or what the church ought to be.

In fact, Jesus and the seven letters to the seven churches... and I don't know why, in my Bible it's not this way, I think it's a grave mistake. In my Bible in the book of Revelation to the letters of the seven churches, Jesus is speaking. Did you know that? It's His last writing. It's found in the book of Revelation. He addresses seven churches, which by the way comprises any one of us at any given time, both as individual people.

Of course, it's a historical and prophetic announcement, but for us individually. At any moment, I can be a Philadelphian. At any moment, I can be a Laodicean. Do you ever go through those seasons of your Christian experience where you're like one of those at the church at Ephesus? You're an Ephesian. You're fighting the enemy with the sword of the spirit and you're so moving on in Christ and you're filled with the Holy Spirit and you know it.

Then Jesus says, "Well, that's great, but you left your first love." We can go through that. In my Bible, the letters to the seven churches, the red letters don't appear; in some of your Bibles they do. It should be in red. Jesus spoke it in Revelation to the church and churches. And what would He speak to us?

Do you know Jesus, according to Malachi 3:16, that God right now is writing a commentary about this church generally? That's from this side of the wall to the other side of the wall, which contains you, the church. He's writing a commentary about it, us, as a congregation of people, but as individuals.

He's writing a commentary. Malachi 3:16. Very interesting passage of scripture to keep in mind. The church. This is introduction, don't panic. It's a huge introduction this morning. Are you ready? You guys okay today? The church. The word in Greek is ekklesia for church. The word means "the ones who have been called out of," meaning from something, called out of something. Gee, what do you think that something is? We know it's the world. Called out of the world by Christ into the fellowship of His wonderful light and relationship.

The called-out ones. A group placed together. The word can also be translated "the meeting". I like that. That's a neat name for a church, huh? The Meeting. It's a meeting. A congregation, a community. Members of the church, both on earth—I like this—the ekklesia is both the members of the church in the world and those in heaven.

Now all of a sudden, the verse comes to your mind as it does mine, that the book of Hebrews tells us that in heaven there's a great cloud of witnesses. Where are they? They're in heaven. They're part of the body of Christ. That's exciting to know.

In our thinking, we must be careful that we do not Americanize or Westernize or Easternize this concept of the church because denominations have done that and you're very aware of that. Do not raise your hand. This is a Calvary Chapel. Do you know what that means? That means we're all a bunch of mixed-up group of people.

It's true. Don't raise your hand, but how many of you come from the Catholic Church? How many of you come from the Methodist Church? How many of you come from the Lutheran Church? How many of you come from the Baptist? And you say, "Well, that's one of the questions I wanted to ask. What's the division all about?" That's a great question.

Paul the Apostle in the book of Corinthians condemns those divisions. Did you know that? You think Jesus is a Lutheran? You think Jesus is a Catholic? You think Jesus is a Baptist? We all know He goes to Calvary—no, I'm kidding. I'm joking. Is Jesus from Calvary Chapel? No. Oh gosh, no.

Where do these divisions come from? From people hobby-horsing a doctrine or a view and making it an issue. Factions and arguments and opinions that are not yielded to the authority of the Bible. That's where we get these spin-offs. It's unfortunate. It wasn't so in the mind of God. He didn't want it that way.

Paul in the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians condemns the division. Some people say, "Well, I'm of Paul." "Well, I'm of Apollos." They're all boasting. "I'm a Cephas," that is Peter. "I was converted under Peter's preaching. I'm something." "Well, that's nothing. I was converted under Paul's teaching. We're the Paulites." "Well, we're the Peterites." "Well, we're the Apolloites."

And then the real spiritual knuckleheads showed up and said, "We're of Christ." They were the real ones. They were like, "Oh, you guys... you came to the Lord through Paul? We came to the Lord at one of Jesus' outreaches." They were the most spiritually snubbed or snobby. Divisions offend God.

That's not the church. You can't drive down the street and say, "There's the church." No. If you see the people going into the church, then you can say, "There goes the church." The church is a group of people. It's a living organism. It's an amazing thing. It's mysterious and yet it's so much misunderstood.

Jot this down by way of introduction: it's supernatural, the church is. It's why so many people have a hard time with it. It's supernatural, a real church is, His church is. It's universal in fellowship, that is the work of God. The church of God enjoys what is called in the Greek the koinonia, the fellowship of brothers and sisters here in Chino Hills and in Africa.

The true fellowship is universal. That is, those who are born again in South America, though you may meet them in a moment, though they be born again, there's an immediate bonding in the spirit. And some of you know what I'm talking about.

It's a supernatural thing where you meet somebody and they've been born again in Canada. They've never been here at all. They show up. You meet them, and you talk with them, and there's an amazing connection. You want to be with them. Do you know what I'm talking about? You want to be with them. How long have you known them? 45, 55 seconds. You want to be with them. Can't explain it. You just enjoy their company. There's this koinonia of the spirit. It's a supernatural thing, the church is. It was an Old Testament mystery, though.

In 1 Peter Chapter 1, verse 10, it says, "Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or by what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them," that is, in the prophets, "was indicating when He testified beforehand concerning the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow."

The prophets, Isaiah specifically, prophesied that the Gentiles would come to know God, and yet he didn't even understand what he was talking about.

The Holy Spirit would project that word through Isaiah and Isaiah had to be wondering, "How in the world are the Gentiles going to get saved?" Did you know the church is basically comprised of Gentiles? How many in here are Gentiles? That means you're a non-Jew. You're not Jewish. Yeah, most of us are Gentiles.

There's some Jews and that's part of the beauty of this thing, and we'll see in a moment how God has brought both Jew and Gentile together in the fellowship of the church. But it's an Old Testament mystery, but it's a New Testament reality. Old Testament mystery, New Testament reality.

Revelation 5:9. Revelation Chapter 5, verse 9 says, "And they sang," whoever they are, listen up, "They sang a new song, and they said this: 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals, for You were the one who was slain, and You've redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.'" That's everyone, Jew and Gentile alike.

A mysterious reality. Isaiah again speaks, Isaiah 11, verse 10. Isaiah 11:10. He says, "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse that comes forth." Guess who that is, the root of Jesse? Jesus.

"Who shall stand as a banner to all the nations, for the Gentiles shall seek after Him." Isn't that beautiful? Isaiah 11, verse 10. Ephesians Chapter 2, verse 11. Ephesians 2:11 says, "Remember that you once were Gentiles in the flesh, who are called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision."

He says that at that time you were without Christ in the world, being in the flesh and being alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. And we were strangers from the covenants of His promise, having no hope without God in the world.

But now through Christ Jesus, you who were once far away from God, He has brought you near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace and He has made both Jew and Gentile one and He has broken down the middle wall of separation.

If you're Jewish, your jaw kind of hangs open because the word that's being implied here is that the Temple Mount had the area of the Court of the Gentiles where they could come. They were the proselytes. They had been converted to Judaism, but they could only go so far. They couldn't go any further.

What this passage in Ephesians is talking about is that God has torn down that wall, that the Jew and the Gentile come together. And listen, not only is that wall torn down, but the Bible tells us that Jesus, when He died in the Temple in Jerusalem, the veil was torn from the top to the bottom, exposing the Holy of Holies, signifying that both Jew and Gentile can come into the presence of God together.

How so? By virtue of Christ's death on the cross, by virtue of this wonderful creation called the church. I think like never before, and I'm a little bit intense about what I'm going to say next.

We need to get our eyes on Jesus first if we're ever going to understand what a church is. Can somebody say amen? We need to look at Jesus first before we'll ever understand what a church is or what it ought to be. Because if you reverse that, you're going to run around like a lot of millions of people have, and they don't like what they see in a church, and they project that activity or poor witness or misrepresentation onto who?

Jesus. And they'll say, "You know what? That church burned me. That church hurt me. So I'm not going to become a Christian."

That's spiritual suicide. The church never died for you on the cross, my friend. The church never rose anybody from the dead. The church never did anything. It's Jesus. Look to Him. The concept of the church simply means those who have been called out of this world.

Romans 11:25. Romans 11:25 says, "For I do not want you, brethren, to be ignorant of this very mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceit, that blindness has happened to the Jews in part until the completion of the Gentiles has come in."

Did you know that God has blinded, not Satan? You ought to listen to this carefully. And boy, we're going to have a terrible day today. I haven't even started on my notes yet. Did you know that the Bible says that Satan has blinded the minds of those in this world who do not believe?

But the Bible says that God has blinded the eyes of the Jews who don't believe. Not Satan. Did you hear me? If you're sitting here this morning saying, "I don't believe you," that's because Satan has blinded your eyes.

But if you're Jewish, like the nation of Israel, the Jew as Ezekiel said many of them would come back into their land in unbelief, they are blinded. Did Satan blind them according to the Bible? No. The Bible says God has blinded them so that the Gentiles can be brought into the family, grafted into the tree of salvation, the church. Isn't that amazing?

Paul says in Romans 11, "Don't get cocky about it, you Gentile." God's blinded the Jew, He's focused on you to get saved, which is called the church.

Because the Bible says Jesus, His Son, is going to marry a Gentile bride. Isn't that interesting? Just like Isaac and Rebekah, just like Boaz and Ruth. Interesting. Though there'll be a little bit of Jewish blood in her. That's neat. The Jew for the last 2,000 years has been banished to the nations of the world, but now in the end, they've been brought back in. Why? Because God's getting ready to work with them again. That ought to be a wake-up call to you this morning. Very, very important.

Romans 16, verse 25. Still the introduction. Romans 16:25 says, "Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel," Paul says, "by the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret since the world began, but now has been made revealed or manifested by the prophetic scriptures, having been made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God." That mystery, my friend, is the anti-hell device for every believer: the church.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio, and his message called "Christ and the Church". Thanks for being with us today. You know, 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. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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Jack Hibbs: Hey my friends, come with me on our bold faith Hawaii cruise, June 12th to the 19th, 2027. Listen, we're going to set sail for seven unforgettable days with myself, Dr. Frank Turek, and special worship with Gia Lucid. It's going to be a breathtaking trip. This is more than a vacation; it's a time of rest, renewal, fellowship, and spiritual strength in the word of God. All centered around the Bible. You can reserve your spot by going to jackhibbs.com.

David J: 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.