Real Life Radio

David Jay: Today, on Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: So, one of the things that it's going to set aside a believer from a non-believer if you ask me, is this, a believer is going to be a worshiper of God. But listen, before that can happen as us being worshipers of God, we've got to understand and realize what God's done for us.

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

Jack Hibbs: Hey, I'm very excited to promote this new book by Dr. Tim LaHaye, not only a mentor of mine, but a precious friend, a man who encouraged me to write books. Dr. Tim LaHaye, he has written a book, How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself. And so I really would encourage you to get a copy of this book. He answers so many of our questions. For many of us who study the Bible, Bible prophecy naturally generates questions and we might even feel kind of left out in a particular area. I bet with all of your knowledge of Bible prophecy, there's still a hole somewhere.

And this book is going to help you as you walk you through how to study Bible prophecy for yourself. Remember, Dr. Tim LaHaye is the one that brought you the remarkable Left Behind series among many other books. He is simple, he is foundational. You're not going to hear anything strange or odd. Tim LaHaye, How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself.

David Jay: That's How to Study Bible Prophecy for Yourself by Tim LaHaye. Get it for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called The Book of Ephesians and a message titled, Are You Sealed by the Holy Spirit? Part 1. Ephesians is a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus showing every believer who they really are in Christ. And here Paul wants us to know for certain that we belong to him. You see, so many people hope they're saved and going to heaven, but they're not really sure.

The truth is God doesn't want us guessing about where we'll spend eternity. He wants us to know without a doubt that we really are his through the salvation of his son, Jesus Christ. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that the more we truly know God, the more we'll realize how much he is worthy of our praise. Songs of worship aren't something we work up on a Sunday morning. It flows naturally from a heart that understands all that the Lord has done for us. 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. Are you sealed by the Holy Spirit? And this is Part 1. Um, in this message we really get into how you can you can know about someone, right?

Jack Hibbs: Mhm.

David Jay: Uh, and then there's actually knowing that person. It's it's it's a big difference. And they're they're two different things, right?

Jack Hibbs: Completely. We all know something about somebody. It's it's the keyword. You can know something about someone. You can know something about them, but do you know them? All of those listening right now, they they know about George Washington, but how much do they actually know George Washington? So you can know all about God. Most people do know about a god or gods in their world and their religion, but do you know Jesus Christ? Well, I've heard about him.

David Jay: Yeah.

Jack Hibbs: So you've heard about him, but do you know him? So to be sealed with the Holy Spirit, salvation in Christ Jesus is actually the work of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who seals us with ownership unto the day of redemption. To tremendous term, we don't have the time to get into it right now, but it means that what God purchases, he stamps with his ownership logo, so to speak. He puts his seal of ownership on it. He stamps it.

David Jay: Yeah.

Jack Hibbs: And right now, all of you who believe, you have been stamped by the Holy Spirit awaiting the day of redemption. In other words, Christ is coming or today, maybe today's the day that you pass from this world to his. And what is what the Holy Spirit does is that you've you've been kept and preserved by the Holy Spirit, but now's your time to go home. That fact that Christ owns you is something that the Holy Spirit is incumbent upon fulfilling where it's the Spirit's job to get you into the presence of Christ. You have been stamped and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

And that's why John says these things have been written that you might know you have eternal life.

David Jay: Are you sealed by the Holy Spirit? Part 1. Let's jump in.

Jack Hibbs: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed or happy be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him, that is Jesus, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to the adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he has made us accepted in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself that in the dispensation or the unveiling of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his own will.

Here we go in our text tonight that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And the title of the message tonight is, Are you sealed by the Holy Spirit? Are you? Do you know that for a fact? Who is sealed by the Holy Spirit? What does it take to be sealed by the Holy Spirit? What does it really mean?

We're going to look at that tonight. We're going to be seeing and stressing the position and the security of our salvation that we find in Christ. And this thing about Are you sealed in the Holy Spirit? You better know tonight by the time we leave if you are sealed or not. And uh I want to warn you up front, there may be some things in this message that 's going to offend some of you. I want you all to be very alert. I uh don't know if you drink coffee or not, but if you if you've drank coffee before the service, then you're probably going to be doing okay.

Uh, if if you have a tendency to doze off, I'm going to ask if the ushers would get out maybe some prodding sticks to keep you alert because it's so important what we're going to be looking at tonight. It is so absolutely Christian doctrine. It's so necessary that we understand this. Are you really sealed by the Holy Spirit? And what does that mean? Can you go to heaven and not be sealed by the Holy Spirit? It's very important. I don't know about you, but growing up uh in San Diego and then moving up into Orange County, we had in San Diego and in Orange County these uh uh Stater Brothers.

They've been around forever. Stater Brothers um markets. And uh I remember growing up and when I would come home from school, I would always look in the trash bags. We didn't have plastic bags then. We had the trash bags or grocery bags. And uh I would reach in there and get the blue chip stamps or the green chip stamps because we had those books. And remember you would save so many of them, then you would dip the sponge or the the uh washcloth in the water and wipe them and paste them down and the books would get soaked.

Remember how wet they used to be and the pages would stick together? And I would save those and I I got Tonka trucks, footballs, uh a gas-powered airplane, you know, that you'd stand in the circle and get sick and throw up as you go around and around. And uh you know, we got a lot of things that that way. And uh it's very exciting. And those little stamps uh you would go down to the redemption store and you would take the books and place them on the counter and they would give you a tag or a number.

You'd go down to the next counter and they would give you the item. Remember you pick it out. I I've got you know, 900 pages filled and that's what I want right there. And uh that whole process of redemption is where as time goes on, the dispensation of the fullness of times would come. And when that moment came, when that book was filled, you would go down and take what is really the purchased possession. Now, you didn't get that item on the shelf for free. Even though as a little child, I felt it was free.

I felt like that, but I wasn't the one paying for the groceries, you see. Uh, I would simply get the stickers and go for it. It was a neat feeling. But when time had come, I'd go down and get that thing that I wanted. And in some ways God has worked out salvation like that in our lives. There is in the dispensation of the fullness of times as time comes to a conclusion, God has been drawing all things in heaven and in earth you into the culmination of what will ultimately bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ.

We studied last time that even the evil that's in the world today that we despise and hate and and cry over, God is somehow going to bring that to his own glory. And that's an amazing thing to consider. But we need to have that concept in mind that there is this act of redemption. There's this act of getting something that you redeem it out of the store and take it as a purchased possession. Then there's the good old Kmart uh where you see something, you don't have the money, but you like it, you don't want to lose it, so you grab it, go down to that little counter and you say I want to put $5 down.

Here's my name and you put it on layaway. And it's got your name on it and they store it for you and you can make payments on it. And then there comes a day when you got it and you go down there and you bring it home and I think it's a great thing uh that you do, that you can do. And God also uh works that out for us to understand that Christ has purchased us, but we, as we'll see tonight, literally are on layaway. And we're going to see how all of this works into this thing about being sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Very important. We are chosen in Christ. We are sealed by the Lord. In fact, we are sealed in the Lord by the Lord for the Lord. And we'll see that tonight. First thing in your note taking, verse 12. God's divine election produces within us praise. God's divine election that he has given us as believers will produce in us praise, worship, adoration of God. Verse 12 it says that we who first trusted in Christ, here it is, should be to the praise of his glory. Should be to the praise of his glory. One mark that should be upon every believer's life.

Every one of our lives this evening if we're believers, one of the things that should set us aside from the rest of the world is that we are people prone to worship, prone to praise. We should be worshipers of God. The word in the Greek is It means to turn and kiss literally. If you look it up in your Greek New Testament or in a dictionary in the Greek, it it means to lick the hand of the master as a dog. It means to lick the hand. And uh we as humans uh would say that it means to turn and kiss the hand or to turn and kiss the Lord to love him, to literally show the act of worship.

And it means to kiss the hand or to turn and kiss. It's our call to worship. And as believers, we need to be people who worship God. Now, do we need to muster it up? Do we need to pump it up? Do we really need to get some driving music and uh get people to start, you know, quivering and shaking around and you know, get it going. Let's lather it up. You know, I know churches that do that and I am not knocking that. I just I just don't worship the Lord like that. Um, if it hey, it's if it's your thing, fine, you know.

It's between you and the Lord, I guess. But I get a little nervous about having to lather something up. Why? Because we ought to be worshiping God first of all at all times. Let his praise continually be in our mouths. That is an attitude of our heart. It's not something that we lather up on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning. It is to be an attitude of the heart. Are we worshipers of God? It's something that God has put within us by virtue of us knowing him. So I want to ask you tonight, don't respond, don't indict yourself.

Are you a worshiper of God? Do you come in here on Sundays or on Wednesdays and just well, here we go, you know, we're just we'll wait for the word to come. We'll go through these songs and well, that's a strange instrument John's playing this night and um you know, okay, you know, it's a couple more songs and I think we'll be you know, into the word or listen. If that's your attitude, it needs to change immediately. And it can change immediately. I have I fought the worship group a long time about printing up the words of the songs on the back of the bulletin.

I fought them for about a year and a half on that for a couple of reasons, but one of the things that I justified one of my reasons, you know, we have to pay uh people to have those words printed on the back every week. I have a hard time with that. The Lord giveth and man chargeth through the noseth. Uh, I have a really hard time with that stuff. But uh I love the artist and the men who God gave these songs to, but attorneys stepped in and they get most of the money. Uh, anyway, I could go on all night about that one.

But uh one of the things was, you know, I I I have a tendency to be concerned about having printed songs up because we don't commit them to memory if they're printed up. We'll just pull it out and read it. And besides, we can't clap when we're reading it in front of us. I think we ought to commit it to memory. Why? It goes into your heart. Driving down the street, you'll start singing the song and it will come out of your heart. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Uh, the scriptures tells us that we should have psalms and hymns and spiritual songs really flowing out of our heart, out of our lives.

Well, how's that going to happen? Well, it's only going to happen if we we are instilling it within us. We need to be memorizing the songs of worship and praise to the Lord. So one of the things that it's going to set aside a believer from a non-believer if you ask me, is this, a believer is going to be a worshiper of God.

David Jay: 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: But listen, before that can happen before that can happen as as us being worshipers of God, we've got to understand and realize what God's done for us. Maybe you're not so much a worshiper of God because you don't understand all that he's done for you. The knowledge of God will always result in thanksgiving and praise. Come on, think. If we know someone well and we like what we know about them, what will you do about that? You will want to be with them. People who you get to know, you know, you've seen the license plate frame that says to know me is to love me.

What does that mean? It all depends on who they are. You know, to know me is to love me. Well, that's a pretty big statement there. Maybe to know you is to can't stand you. It's pretty arrogant to know me is to love me. But there's a lot of truth though to that statement. To know them is to love them. I tell you what, you can't love them until you know them. It's very important. Do we know the Lord? John chapter 4 verse 23, you know this well. John chapter 4 verse 23 says, but the hour is coming, Jesus said, and now is.

It's now present when the true worshipers of God will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, spirit and in truth. For the Father seeks such to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. To worship him in spirit is an attitude of our heart that we are literally going outside of ourselves and we are experiencing God in an intimate personal relationship. But truth means knowledgeably that we're knowing God in an intellectual way, not coldly or not in a a removed way, but literally I mean by intellectual, by knowledge to truly know him.

And the more we know him or listen, someone, the more prone we will be to love them. And maybe we're not worshiping God or we're not prone to worshiping God because we really don't know his nature. You may be wonderfully saved, but you haven't advanced on to know him. Now, I got to tell you something. When I got saved and even quite a few years into it um we always sat, I know none of you would do this, we always sat in the same spot at Calvary Chapel, always. For years. And in a church that huge, that's how you get to meet people by the way.

And those people literally became our best friends over the years and they still are great friends. And uh there was a guy that always used to sit to my right. Lisa would be to my left. We'd start worshiping. And I'm doing pretty fine. I got my eyes closed and I've got my hands up there because I want to and I'm same with my with my hands up. Lord, this is a prayer of mine as we're singing. I am giving that back unto you, God. I I'm making this song a prayer and it's a neat way to worship the Lord.

And Lord, I want you to know that I'm I'm giving this to you and I love you and and you're great. And I would be doing fine until I would feel or sense or hear God, I love you and and I would look and tears are flowing down his cheeks and he's wiping the snot from his nose. And he is just Oh God, oh Lord. And I I would look at him and right in the middle, there's a thousands of people behind me and I would just You know why? Listen, I began Hey, you know what?

What's going on? God, what is the deal? I would like to do that with to you. I don't do that to you. And I began to match my form of worship to his form of worship. You see that I should be worshiping like him. And he's bawling and all and then sit down and oh oh Lord. And I'm What is this? What is wrong with me? I'd go home and Lisa, what's wrong with me? I'm not experiencing God like he is. I Well, you know what? The guy had known the Lord a lot longer than I had known the Lord.

And he was very committed to God and he would sit alone. He would read chapters of the Bible. He was single, lived next door to us. We'd wake up in the morning and you'd hear and it's Oh man. He's just And you know what? It was a neat thing, but I was comparing myself with him and that is wrong. Paul says you're a fool if you compare yourself with those around you. Shouldn't do it. But you see, I'm thinking that this guy is really close to God. The fact of the matter is the reason why he worshiped like that is because for his makeup, for his emotional state and his spiritual state and his personality, that was his way of worshiping the Lord and it was not my way of worshiping the Lord.

But the fact though was he knew God's nature much better than I did at that time. He knew who he was worshiping in spirit and in truth. He knew that Jesus had truly truly forgiven him. There's a lot of attractive people in the world today. A lot of good-looking people. When you see somebody who's attractive and you look, you're not looking at them knowledgeably. You're looking at them Oh. Attractive person in the world. Okay. If you never talk to them, if you never speak with them, if you just, which is sin, continue to look at them, you enter into the lust mode.

How can you do that? How can you enter into the lust mode? It's easy if you don't know them, but you keep looking at them. But if you meet them, get to know them and you you're experiencing, you start, you know, talking with them and maybe even you're meet them at church, you start fellowshiping together and serving the Lord together. Listen, don't take this wrong, but being attracted to somebody and at that level on the on the ground of appearance only is a a lustful foundation that will eventually lead to infatuation which will eventually quickly fade out and be dead and gone.

Why? Because you don't know them. But you can take someone who's just, you know, not all that good-looking. Just really relax in the physical appearance of things and yet get to know them and they become extremely beautiful. And you fall in love with what you know about them. You've known them and so you fall in love with them. Not fall in love or lust at them. You see? Big difference. If we know God, we are going to worship him out of a heart of praise and adoration and enjoying him verse 12 is talking about because we know him.

David Jay: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called, Are You Sealed by the Holy Spirit? Part 1. Thanks for spending some time with 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 warfare of every believer. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: Hey everybody, I just want to make sure that you remember that on this Friday we are so grateful for you and your prayer support. And so let's do this together. Wherever you're at, keep driving. Don't close your eyes. But for the rest of you, let's do this. Father, we commit this weekend into your hands. Watch over us, keep us safe, grant us, Lord, your great favor. And come Sunday morning, may we take somebody with us to the house of God to worship you, Lord, for you alone are worthy. In Jesus' name. Amen.

David Jay: 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.

Jack Hibbs: 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.