Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: God is the governor of time and he may not be answering and coming to the rescue the way that you want him to in your disability. God just fix this in my life! Why is Jeff going to have brain surgery tomorrow? We will find out later as to why God does these things. He uses these things in a broken world.

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 his series called Disciplines of Life and a message titled Discipline of Disability. As humans, we all have some kind of limitation. But hard situations can serve a purpose. Having a disability doesn't just mean a physical condition. It can be anything that makes life difficult.

We often feel like our struggles make us unique, but all of us have something that we're dealing with. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that there is a purpose in our disabilities. Even bad circumstances can lead to meaningful outcomes. So, instead of seeing our troubles as pointless suffering that nothing good will ever come from, God can use those times to help us grow spiritually. Now with his message called Discipline of Disability, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: This is a tremendous statement. He's talking about challenges and urgencies that have come upon his life. This is the apostle Paul and he's in jail. The guy is in a place where nobody wants to be. And he's in a first-century jail. It's not like jails today or jails in California. This is horrible stuff.

And he's in jail, and you know what he's in jail for? He's been found guilty of being a Christian, convicted of being a witness for Jesus Christ. How cool is that? Man, what are you in here for? Can you imagine? He's Paul, he's just this little nerd of a guy student. All these big burly Roman Empire gladiators, Jedi. What are you in here for? Preaching the gospel. Preaching the what? Can you imagine?

He says, "These things, they've happened to me." It's almost like, oh Paul, golly, somebody send him some chocolates. This is horrible. Look what happened to him. Can you believe it? No, Paul is saying, "Wait a minute. You guys need to know something. These things that have happened to me..." He's talking about his situation. Every one of us has a situation right now, do we not? If you don't have a situation, what are you doing? Or what are you not doing tonight to not have a situation?

And whatever your situation is, the Lord wants to be right in the middle of it. And if you just say, "Lord, yes, I want you in the middle of it," oh, he loves that stuff. He comes in, starts moving things around, he starts doing things. And Paul announces that his thing had not just happened to him. You say, "Oh, Pastor, life's been so difficult to me, and it's been such a hard thing. And I just feel so defeated, I feel so down, I feel so alone." What book are you reading?

He's with you. He's working. And Paul, he's chained to these incredible Centurion guards. And we know that from the book of Ephesians, he begins to state the armament of what it takes to be a believer because he saw what it took and what the Roman Empire wanted out of a soldier. And Paul is saying, "You know what? In your situation, here's the deal." And he can say it with power.

He's coming up to us right now and he's speaking to us from the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is using his words and he's saying, "I'm in jail. I know what it's like. And here's the deal. This just didn't happen to me. This has been a plan of God. God's at work in my life." You can't stop somebody like this. In Philippians 4:11, the Bible says, "For I have learned in whatever state that I'm in to be content." You can insert California right there.

For whatever I've learned, he says, "I've learned this, that I can be content in whatever situation, whatever condition, whatever is going on in my life." And what is happening in your life? What's going on right now? Is it pressure from within? Is it pressure from without? Is it evil? Is it danger? Is it threats? Are you being misrepresented? Is it a financial thing? Whatever is it? He's there. He's with you.

Is it a relationship thing? Not knowing who likes you, who loves you. Does anybody? He's there. He's in the moment. Our situation transcends this world. A lot of bad stuff happening, but listen, it could be worse. What if it gets worse? So what if it gets worse? We're going to retire someday, okay? And Wall Street won't have a thing to do with it. It'll be Golden Street with God. Retirement with Jesus. This world is not our home. And it's a good thing.

There's something to be learned in this situation that you're living through right now. The Lord loves you. Maybe somebody's telling you they love you. "If you love me, you'll do this. If you love me, that or the other." Jesus says this: "I love you." And the whole thing is the Bible says it's the goodness of God that leads a man to repentance. Isn't that amazing? You might be sitting here tonight saying, "I don't need God. My life's been so good. I'm doing great without God." You funny guy.

The Bible says it's the goodness of God that's leading you to repentance. You look around at your empire and you go, "Wow, God's been good to me." You say, "Well, what if somebody doesn't come to Christ by goodness?" Well, he has other means. He's got a lot of tools in his toolbox. Many a time, it seems like it's happening more and more, a woman will say, "Pastor, will you pray for me because my husband has left the home?" And I always feel a deep sense of satisfaction coming from them when I pray for them because this is how I pray.

So I'll say, "Where's your husband?" "I don't know, he left with some lady and he's out." So I'll say, "Well, let's pray for him. What's his name? Billy Bob." Okay, let's pray for Billy Bob. If your name is Billy Bob, you're in trouble. Here you go. And I'll pray with her and I'll say, "Lord, wherever Billy Bob is right now in his waywardness from you and his waywardness from his family, I'm asking you, Father, right now in Jesus' name, that you would do whatever severe mercy is needed."

You say, "What is that severe mercy?" That means, Lord, I'm asking you, Father, to use whatever leverage you'd like and you need to to get that guy to bow his knee. "Well, what does that mean?" I have no idea. I don't need to know. "Were you asking God to break his leg?" Could be. It could be. Could be a broken nose. Could be a thought. "I'm going home. I'm going back home." I just, Lord, get him. And then we pray, "Well, you know, he ran off with his secretary."

Then we pray, "Lord, the next time they even try to get together," and I'm not joking, I'm telling you right now, "Lord, just cause him to throw up violently. Just get sick as a dog." I'm dead serious about that. "Jack, you don't mean that." I do. And it's biblical prayer, by the way. David prayed prayers like that. David said, "Lord, save my enemies. If you're not going to save them, break their teeth off in their mouth." David prayed prayers like that.

Okay, next. Purpose. Disabilities are anything but common in our lives because God is so in them, they're not something routine. They happen a lot, but you know what? We start thinking, "Well, this happens to everybody. This is life." But you're just not anybody. God is God, and he's working in your life, which leads us to this: purpose. There's something to be known in the purpose of what God is doing in our lives. God has a timetable, and his timetable drives me crazy.

And I'll prove it to you. 2 Peter 3:8 says, "Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day." What does that mean? It means he lives in eternity. That's all it means. Does that mean you count and then you can figure out how many days in the thousand years and then it's going to be one? No. It means he is eternal. God's not going like this: "Man, I wish they'd hurry up down there."

There's no time where he lives. How freakish is that? You know, we've kind of had little hints of that stuff in life. Have you ever had that deja vu thing they call it? I don't know why they call that, but have you ever had that happen in your head? And you know doctors will tell you that they don't quite understand it, but they think it's like a mini stroke. They've talked about mini strokes. They've talked about other things as to why this happens. They don't know why it happens.

But it's like, "Hey, this is freaky weird. A red car's going to go down the street in about three seconds." There it goes. You know what I'm talking about? Have you ever been in a really bad accident? Anybody? Car accident? I have. Have you noticed what happens to time when you're in a car accident? Listen to this. Did you hear that? It's wild. We got broadsided on PCH and Beach Boulevard. Boom. Some guy stoned on marijuana had three pounds of marijuana in the car, stolen car, blows the intersection, and t-bones us in the intersection.

Here's the freaky thing. We're going across and we see the guy coming, and he is flying. And we're like, "Man, okay, it's going to be a great day. Look at the beach, it's awesome." [Makes slow-motion sound effects]. You know what I'm talking about? And the car's coming and it feels like an eternity. And the car hits and the glass and everything's flying. It seems like it takes forever. Does anybody remember when that's taking place how fast your brain is processing everything? Super fast.

I think that's God's mercy. I think in an accident like that, you could have easily accepted Jesus Christ seriously in nanoseconds of time. I think that's a flirtation with eternity. I really do. The purpose, there's something to be known about that. God is the governor of time and he may not be answering and coming to the rescue the way that you want him to in your disability. "God just fix this in my life! Why is Jeff going to have brain surgery tomorrow?" We will find out later as to why God does these things. He uses these things in a broken world.

400-plus years Israel was enslaved in Egypt for having disobeyed God. 400 years. 400 years. God wasn't waiting. I don't understand how he does that. And you don't either. But there's one thing, it's always now with God. He's never late, he's never early. He's always on it. "Well, why doesn't he do this?" You know, when we say that, we say things like that because we're upset. We say things like that because we're upset with the timing of it.

We get tired quickly. We get frustrated quickly. "Why doesn't he do something about this?" He's got a plan. We trust him with what he's doing. "Well, I want a man." And then you get a man, and then you don't want the man. "If I just had a woman in my life, I'd be fine." It's hilarious. Wait on God. He never makes a mistake. Exodus 13:16 says, "For by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt." I love that. At the right time, he called his people out of Egypt. That's powerful.

Number two is this: the discipline of disability is this: that disabilities become power tools to God. They really do. I don't understand it. In Philippians 1:13, our text this evening is this: "So that it has become evident," circle the word evident, "to the whole palace guard," those are a bunch of Romans, "and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ." Why you here, Paul? Jesus wants me here. I'm in jail for being a Christian. And how in the world, think about this, how does this make sense?

Church, listen, was Paul a public preacher? Yes. Was he an evangelist? Yes. Was he a church planter? Yes. Was he an apostle? Yes. Did he travel more than most of us? Yes. On a donkey and camel and all that stuff. Crazy, huh? 2,000 years ago, that guy covered more ground. You ought to look at the map of the missionary journeys of Paul. Amazing. What's he doing in prison? If I would have been God's counselor, excuse me Lord, you got a good man locked up there. Why don't you put some bum in prison that doesn't get around? Let Paul go, he gets everywhere.

And if you ask me, this is a bad use of resources. God is so brilliant. Why would he take a man who was a public man like Paul and put him in prison for a season? Did you see that in the Bible? "It has become evident." The word evident is the word "to shine." Can you write that down? To shine, to blaze. The word means to be ablaze, to spread around or to move quickly like a Southern California brush fire. You can't outrun them.

Look what he says. He said it's become evident. The news that I'm in jail has spread like wildfire. It's taken off. The Lord uses strange things, you guys. And they become power tools in the hands of God. Accidents, injury, imprisonment. I don't understand it. I don't need to understand it. But the news of Paul's imprisonment spread like wildfire, that he was found guilty and imprisoned for being a Christian. What an honor. Jesus was using Paul's arrest to advance the kingdom of God.

You say, how can that happen? How can anything good come out of this thing? I feel like I'm shut down. I feel like I'm sequestered, like I'm in a box. You ever feel like that in life? You can be standing on a mountain top and feel like you're imprisoned. Maybe tonight you're saying, how does my life matter? There's nothing coming out of my life. How do you know? Who's watching you? You don't know. You say, "I only know three people in my life."

Hey, what if one of those people turned out to be the next Billy Graham and they're watching your life? Oh man, that's just so out there, freaky. You know what? My God is out there, freaky. He does amazing stuff that you'll never figure out. Can you imagine Noah? He tells everybody, "It's going to rain." "What's rain?" The Bible says up until then, water came up from the ground at night. Dew watered the earth. "Going to rain." What a dope. Building a boat.

In God's time. In fact, not only in God's time does he make things right. Isn't it amazing, you guys? You've lived long enough to realize. And what are we now? What century is this? 21st century. All this debate about God. It's never going to end until he comes back because man's heart's that way. But here's a cool thing. As time goes on, if you're going to be a non-believer, have you noticed it's getting really hard to be a non-believer?

I mean, you know it's true because whenever there's an event in the world, every news channel in the universe turns to the Bible. They call in all the theologians. "What's going on?" "What do you want to know for?" That's what I want to do. "What's happening?" "Why should you ask? You don't care about me 364 days out of the year. All of a sudden, there's a big earthquake or some attack in the Middle East and CNN calls. What's happening?"

"I'll tell you what's happening. Jesus died on the cross for your sins." "No, no, we want to talk about the end of the world." "No, you don't want to talk about the end of the world because you ain't ready to meet the end of the world." "Oh, don't get into that religious stuff. We just want to know what Bible prophecy says." Isn't that funny? Bible prophecy is salvation, dude. It's getting saved. "Well, we want to know about the meaning of the 10 toes on Daniel's statue." You need to know about the purpose of your life. It's funny, it's amazing.

God uses stuff. And when God goes to work, people will know it. Verse 13 says, "So that it has become evident." It's spread like wildfire. Galatians 6:17 says, "From now on, let no man trouble me," Paul speaks, "for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." You know what that means? You ever seen people getting tattoos? I've seen people getting tattoos. I don't know why you'd do that. Put ink in your skin in a needle. What's wrong with you?

I see a needle, man, I run the other way. You get a tattoo. What's that? This is like "Mom" on there or whatever. I've been to prison to preach the gospel. Thank God I've never been to prison. I spoke to a bunch of guys condemned out in Ironwood prison in the desert. Blythe area. It's like a hundred in the winter. And I was terrified. I was terrified because they took my clothes away. I had to wear a suit like everyone else was wearing, a jumpsuit.

Wait a minute. They have my wallet, the guards have my wallet, they have all my ID. I'm wearing an orange suit. Here's your Bible. And man, you walk out there, and it's... I can't talk about some of the stuff that's going on. Let me tell you, you do not want to go to prison. And everybody looked at me and I said, it was a God moment. I said, "Let's get something straight right now." Dear Jesus, God of heaven and earth help me.

"Let's just get something straight right here right now. The only difference between me and you is that I have not been caught! Right?" "What do you mean?" You guys, I actually was going 100 miles an hour once in a 45. Any police officers in here tonight? You should have taken me straight to jail. It was a CHP officer. He found me, he caught me. I was working three jobs. I was a young idiot. And I was racing from one job to the next job trying to sleep in between stoplights.

And I got busted. And according, I guess, according to the law, I was told by that guy, "I can take you in right now. You are absolutely insane." Think about it. In God's court, we all got caught. God knows everything. You say, "Yeah, but what about the tattoo and the mark in Jesus?" Listen, Paul says, "I bear the marks of Jesus in my body." You know what he's talking about? The beatings, the scars. His back had been ripped open. The Bible says that Paul was stoned by his adversaries and left for dead. I think he died. I actually think God brought him back. Can you imagine? You can go online and watch people being stoned to death. Oh, you should. I'm not joking. You want to get your eyes and your brain clear about Islam? Go look at Islamic countries and what they do. You should see it. Wake up, America.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Discipline of Disability. Thanks for spending time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Disciplines of Life. It's a series that highlights 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.

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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.