Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: Psalm 37:7 says rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Just wait. Church, listen, just wait. I know it's hard. You wait. And if we're all waiting together, we can encourage one another to wait.

Guest (Male): 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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On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called Disciplines of Life with a message titled Disciplines of Decision. God's guidance in life guarantees certain comforts, one being that if we're in step with Him, then we don't have to make mistakes in our decision-making. You see, we have to recognize our own limitations and ask God for His guidance. We can only understand so much, and we need to let God's word guide us.

So today, Pastor Jack teaches that one discipline of decision-making is to be willing to wait for God's guidance. We can never make a mistake by waiting. It can bring joy and rest by being patient with the Lord. Now with his message called Disciplines of Decision, here's Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Well, how do we, in asking for God's guidance, overcome the limitations, tap into His unlimited knowledge? If we don't do that, we're going to have a problem being submitted to God. And that's the next thing I want you to jot down: how do I make a good decision? Yes, ask God for His guidance. And in that, we're recognizing our own limitations. But also under this, we respond in submission to Him. If He knows everything, it's smart for us to come under His leadership.

Submission to the Lord is a mind-place. It's a mindset of great power. I want tonight to be a little bit personal, and it should be because of these topics. This one right here, when I say that it's a mind-place, I wrote down in my notes that submission under the Lord is a mind-place of great power for me. Personally, it causes me to ask for the "God thing" to get done in my life.

I'm big in my private prayer life of asking the Lord for the God thing to get done in my life. Lord, I want You to do the God thing. And here's the fun part: somebody asked me, what's the God thing? I have no idea. That's the cool part. I want to come to the Lord and I want to pray and ask Him, Lord, do Your God thing in my life.

I'll be honest with you, in my home, I will pray over my family. Even though now they're married and moved away, I'll still pray, Lord, cause this home, this family, this church, to be an object of Your affection. And Lord, according to Your wisdom, spoil us as Your people. You say, what does that mean? I don't know. I don't care. He knows exactly how to answer that prayer. That's the God thing in my life.

God, You do it. You do Your thing. His thing is better than any plan you and I could ever concoct and master and put together and draw. The more we plan things out, the less faith we have. Oh my gosh, it's huge after all. We can give up. We're simply to respond in submission to His will.

In Luke chapter 11, verse 1, it says, "Now Jesus was praying in a certain place." This is how you make godly decisions: pray. And when He had ceased from praying, one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." And so Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed or holy be Your name, Your kingdom come..." Here it is, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Bring heaven down to your situation.

Do you have a situation right now? What is it? What is it? It's your thing. You know what it is. You got it. Is it an issue? Is it a problem? How big is it? "It's so big, Pastor Jack, it's huge!" Good thing it's gigantic and massive and it's bigger than you. You get to call in reinforcements from heaven.

For some reason, we think that it's so gigantic. The answer that we need to get from the Lord is so impossibly gigantic that it's never going to come our way. And yet our God is a big God. He's awesome. Oh, and He's ever faithful. The great thing is to submit to Him.

Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse 8, Paul gives us a great example of biblical submission. And you can count on the answer. Paul was sick, you know, very sick. Paul lived a life that was filled with sickness, it appears from not only the Bible but church history. And in Second Corinthians 12:8, it says there that Paul said, "Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me." He's asking God to heal him. Paul prays three times.

And the Lord, He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness." Notice Paul's answer: "Therefore," or in light of what I just heard from God, "most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities," that's my weaknesses, my problems, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Paul found a secret. And that verse has been dear to us and for generations.

For us who are Christians, when we are weak, we get to say, Lord, I'm weak. Be my strength. It's a dangerous day when we say, God, I've got it from here, take it easy. I'm sure angels go, oh no. But why do so many Christians make so many huge mistakes in decision-making? And I've noticed, maybe you have, certainly in ministry, we hear it all the time. But if you just wait around long enough, somebody will make a decision. It's a horrible decision. And then later, when it all falls apart, guess who gets the blame? God does. I don't know why the Lord did that in my life. Oh, let me tell you.

As a pastor, that's the, you know, "thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." He's not talking about the staff sitting over there behind their desk. And he's not talking about some guy named Rod. There's a staff and there's a rod, and the rod is used to knock the side of the head of a lamb. Hey, wake up! I don't know, you know what, I just, I did this thing and the whole thing imploded and I lost everything and I don't know why God did that to me. Boom!

Don't blame God for your inability to wait on Him. And when we won't submit to God's will, we get all pumped up. I gotta, I gotta have an answer. I gotta do this thing now. Listen, Christian, God is never stressing, wiping His brow. "Oh my gosh, Jack, will you hurry up? Come on, hurry, hurry! I gotta get going here." That's how I am. That's not how He is. Submission is key.

There's a discipline here to learn. James chapter 1, verse 6, says, "Let this man who's asking of God ask in faith, without doubting." Don't doubt, like, God will you hear my prayer? He probably won't. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he's a double-minded man, and he's unstable in all of his ways.

This is a very, very serious thing in the Christian church today. Men and women, young men and women as well, need to be people of faith that comes from the Bible. Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And this is the deal: when we pray, we pray Bible. And when we pray Bible, we can pray believing, we can pray trusting. He will answer His word.

And here's the cool thing: you don't have to be unstable about your request. Meaning that when the answer comes, you don't have to back up and wonder, is this God or not God? Church, listen, don't pray generic prayers. When you see the prayers in the Bible, they're very specific prayers. Don't pray like, Lord, bless me. I mean, you can pray that, but when He blesses you, how are you going to know if He's blessed you and answered the prayer if you say, bless me? What does that mean? Well, if you take a breath the next after you pray the prayer, oh, He's blessing, yeah. Isn't He? He's blessing you. But what are you asking for?

When you submit to Him and in that moment of submission and you're saying, Lord, I'm asking You in my life to answer me in this thing or to bring this about in my life if it be Your will. Pray specifically. Watch what He does. Are you a young man here this evening and you're praying for direction and God in your life? You want God to speak to you, you want direction? Pray specific.

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: The moment you begin to pray specific prayers, I believe God goes to work in your life because you're going to recognize the specific answer when He answers. Your faith will explode. And the next prayer you pray will be bigger than the one you had prayed earlier. Why? Because you're pumped up now. You're ready to go to battle.

You're right now ready to take on those dark things in your life or the dark things in your son's life or in your daughter's life or your wife or your husband's life. You're ready to go to war because you know God's listening and there's nothing like it. Oh, He's always listening. But we don't always catch the answer.

James 4, verse 3, says, "You ask and you don't receive because you ask amiss, off-target, that you may spend it on your own pleasures." We make a lot of jokes about that verse, you know, when we say, oh Lord, you know, allow me to win the lotto and I'll give it all to You, God. You know, and then the winning numbers, you're scratching them. Nobody would do that because that's gambling and you don't gamble with God's money. That's for people who go to some other church. They're scratching the numbers: 5, 22, 36. What did I say, God? Did I say I'd give you everything? How about 50 percent? And the closer you get to the winning number, you start backing off of your commitment.

That's ridiculous. You pray to ask something for yourself. Oh Lord, if You just... I could make it to hospital visitations much quicker if I had a Ferrari. Doesn't work that way. I mean, people might pray that way, but it doesn't work that way.

And then also this: we need to be willing to ask for His guidance and that we are to react from a position of strength, from confidence, when we begin to ask. You have a journal? If you don't have a journal, you ought to start a journal. And you gotta stay at it. I'm horrible at journals. I have journals all over the house; none of them are completed. I've never finished any of them. Now I have one on my computer, which is kind of cool right now. It's working pretty good, actually. And it's kind of fun.

But I think this is important. When we ask God for guidance, we need to react after we pray. We need to react from a position of strength and confidence. There's nothing like it, church. You know this, that if you've spent time with God before you go out into the day, have you noticed that there's a skip in your spirit? There's a little bit of what the old Puritans called an unction in your life. Somebody walks by and says, hey! And you just go, what? You want Jesus? What's the story? You want a piece of Him? Right. You want me to witness to you?

I mean, it's just different. Start the day with God; it's different. And when you come out of that corner, the whole day, the whole ministry, the whole marriage or school or job or project is different. Even if some in that gathering won't cooperate, it's still different for you. Strength and confidence.

James 1, verse 5, says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Man, that's a promise. How many of you need to be wiser? If I had five more hands, I'd raise my hands. Wisdom's a funny thing because it has nothing to do with knowledge. Somebody could be here right now with 10 PhDs, and they could be as unwise as I don't know what. Have you ever seen real smart people academically, but man, do they make the most bozo decisions in life? And you go, man, if that's smart, I don't want it. Right? Have you seen that happen?

I used to know a guy in high school. The guy was a genius. Went off to work for NASA. You know what? At school, the guy they almost had to put a helmet on him. He'd walk through glass doors, he would run into poles. It's like, put the books down. The guy got hurt. Put the books down, look around when you walk. Smart, but not all that wise. Listen, wisdom is the appropriate application of knowledge gained. How do you apply the knowledge? That's called wisdom. People on the street have great wisdom: the application of that knowledge. Very important. Confidence, strength.

Here's a great verse for all of us to be confident and strong with: Psalm chapter 1, verse 1. "Blessed, happy." You know what's interesting? That word in the Hebrew means welfare, not according to our government welfare. Welfare means fair well, welfare, to do good, to do well in life. To be blessed and prospering, to be happy.

Psalm 1:1, "Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the what? The law of the Lord and in His law he meditates." That's the keyword, he meditates day and night. Wow. Strength and confidence to meditate in the word of God. How do I make a good decision, Pastor Jack? Meditate in the word of God. And here's the temptation: "Oh, come on, isn't that going to take a long time?" Nope. I'd rather spend 40 minutes gleaning from God's word and waiting for an answer than a lifetime of trying to correct a mistake.

Number two, our second point tonight: the disciplines of decision is this. We need to be willing to wait for His guidance. Oh, this is the killer. We need to be willing to wait. We need to be willing to wait for His guidance this way: waiting favors our cause, church, so be patient. Waiting favors your cause, Christian, so be patient.

Patient. We need to wake up to this. Listen, we, I don't know how old you are. I'm, I forget how old I am now. I'm 52 or something. I don't know; I'm getting close to the Denny's afternoon special, that's all I know I'm getting. But I know that in my lifetime growing up, I was raised in an interesting time because there were no fast-food restaurants when I was growing up. And then all of a sudden, I think it was about 12 or 13, when some guy, some guy down in San Diego invented a McDonald's. And a McDonald's came to Orange County. Like, what is that? Wait, you actually go by, they actually, you drive by and they put food in your car. What?

From that time on, a culture was born of impatience. Now, if you don't get your Taco Bell stuff, you wait like three minutes, if they don't serve you in three minutes, it's supposed to be like discounted or something, I don't know what their thing is. Fast, fast, fast! Come on, come on! So we go like this: "Dear God, answer me now! Let's go! I need this answer! God, I'm going to give You two minutes. Come on, I gotta get to work!" And you wonder why you don't get an answer. He doesn't work like that. He'll never change.

No matter what she wants Him to do, He'll never change. He's patient. If you could hear God's foot just tapping up in heaven, it's tapping all the time. "Jack, slow down. Just wait." Waiting favors our cause as a believer.

The book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 3, says, "For the vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it waits or tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, and it will not tarry." What does that mean? It means God knows what's up, He knows the answer that He's going to give you. You wait.

Oh, this is the one where we just have such a hard time with. We want stuff to happen. We look around at people, we look around what's on the TV, or we look around what might be in the movie theater and we start thinking about our own lives. "My goodness, I'm 21 and I don't have this and I don't have that and I need to make it happen." This is a scourge on our culture. "I'm 30 and I still don't have this," or "I'm 40," or "I'm this" and "I'm that."

And then we have what are these things? Midlife crises. What is that all about? What, what is that thing? What is that? I don't know. You see, you see guys, their shirts are open down to here with a gold chain. They, they, you know, they take their suburban and they get a little a red convertible Yugo or whatever. And they have this big, "What's the deal? I thought I would have had more in life by now." Well, we can fix that. We'll just ship you to Mexico for a month and get your perspective fixed. Think about it. You have shoes, don't you?

We've got this thing where we begin to judge our status in light of what the world offers. You and I will never, never achieve what the world is trying to sell us. It's Madison Avenue. Wake up. "Well, I don't look like him." You'll never look like him. "Well, I don't look like her." You'll never look like her. First of all, they're all a bunch of airbrushed things. But you look at that and you go, man... Hey, wait a minute. Wait on God. We cannot outwait Him.

You say, Jack, what if I wait too long? I don't think it's possible. You can disobey Him once He speaks. That's a problem. That's our third point; I'm getting ahead of myself. That's obeying Him. But when you're saying, Lord lead me, Lord guide me, show me, if He has not shown you yet, wait.

Man. I won't name any names; it wouldn't be right. Someone came up to me about a week and a half ago, and they were a little bit upset. I could tell. Because things aren't going good in their family. And so the person said, "You know what, I mean, God... I mean, you have really two wonderful son-in-laws. They love God and your daughters, you know, you never had any problem with them doing drugs and stuff like that and they're serving and..." Almost to the point where I felt like I should be apologizing. "I'm sorry!"

And I felt the Lord, I didn't hear any rumbles of thunder or anything, but I felt the Lord say, "Bless Me now, Jack. This is your opportunity. Bless Me now." And I don't know if you know what that means, but I knew exactly what it meant. I told her, I said, listen, first of all, when we got pregnant with these kids, we laid our hands on her tummy and prayed for God to fill those babies with His Holy Spirit. And when I used to pray, I used to say, Lord, bless this baby. I'm not joking you guys. I said I told you I was nuts, but sometimes there's a benefit to being crazy.

And we led them in the way of the Lord every day of their lives. So now their lives are blessed because God blesses obedience. And I'm supposed to apologize for that? I can't do it. You know why? It'd be robbing God of His faithfulness. Can't do it. God blesses obedience. But that's the third point. We're not there yet. We're talking about being willing to wait for Him.

Psalm 37:7 says rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Just wait. Church, listen, just wait. I know it's hard. You wait. And if we're all waiting together, we can encourage one another to wait.

Guest (Male): Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs. Here on Real Life Radio and his message called Disciplines of Decision. So glad you could spend some time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Disciplines of Life. It's a series highlighting the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others in a lost and broken world. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Hey everybody, have you ever thought about what's after life? Do you know that the Bible teaches life is after life? If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, my good friend Philip De Courcy has written a great book, and that's the title: Life After Life: Exploring the Bible's Wonderful Promises About Heaven and Eternity. Published by Harvest House Publishers, get a copy for yourself.

Life After Life by Philip De Courcy, exploring the Bible's promises about heaven and eternity. It's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That's 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 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.