Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: At the end of life, at the end of time, at the end of the day, we wind up being on top, not because we made it, but because our God sees us to the top. He'll get us there.

David J: 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.

Jack Hibbs: 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.

David J: 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.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series called Disciplines of Life with a message titled Disciplines of Delight. Sure, we can look around and it may seem like non-Christians are happy, healthy, and wealthy to some degree. But the truth is, if we learn to find joy in whatever circumstance we find ourselves, we really are truly blessed. You see, suffering and difficulty accomplish in our lives what nothing else can. And the delight comes when we find out who we really are in Christ. Our true existence and meaning come from the Lord.

So today, Pastor Jack teaches that when we delight in the Lord, we think less of ourselves. And the truth is, this is a great and powerful thing. To see life as God's responsibility, we're free to be what He wants us to be. Now with his message called Disciplines of Delight, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: I want to give you this verse. This is an awesome, wonderful verse, very powerful. Trust me, you're going to want to write it down because you're going to want to pray this verse into your life. It's Psalm 37:4. Very famous verse. It says, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." Keep it up on the screen for a minute. Look at it. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." I believe that's true because it's Bible.

But as soon as I read that verse, I almost want to apologize for it because it sounds carnal. Hey, are you kidding me? If I delight myself in the Lord, He's going to give me everything that I want that's in my heart? You've got to read a little deeper. "Delight yourself also"—what? "In the Lord." Not in the Nordstrom's catalog. Delight yourself in the Home Goods catalog or the Lowe's. No. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Meaning this: that if you delight yourself in the Lord, if you catch the glow of His face... Listen, young people, this is going to sound nuts to you, but actually get alone with no technology. What? Take the phone out of your pocket, go put it in another room. Seriously. Take the headphones out of your ears. Go to another place without any wires connected to you and get alone.

Just begin to pray and talk to Him and say, "Lord, I want to do what Jack was talking about Wednesday night. Help me, God. Help me. I want to think about You. What do I know about You? I know that You're holy. I know that You're light. I know that You're love. God, I know that You are pure and that You're powerful." Start talking to Him. Watch what happens.

Have you taken the time to meet Him? Watch what happens when all of a sudden He begins to turn on the glow, like He did with Moses. He'll begin to pour on the light in your life. And you'll come out of that place of being alone, and you'll be completely pumped up for the day, or for the challenge, or for the issue.

"Delight yourself also in the Lord." And then when it says He'll give you the desires of your heart, it means this: He's not going to give you a Ferrari so you can drive to church faster. That's not what it means. I've already tried that; it doesn't work. It means that as you are delighting just in the person that He is, He begins, as Charles Spurgeon put it, to have intercourse with your heart. It's the deepest relationship that you can experience with God. He begins to change you from glory to glory, from the inside out, a new creation in Christ.

Something begins to happen. And the things, as we sing in the old hymn, "The things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." All the problems, all the issues, the people stuff, the drama in your life, the issues, the finances, the marriage, the kids—all begin to be shaken and sifted. Only that which is worthy remains. You have a much more clear understanding of what you ought to do when you come out of His presence. When you come out of His presence, you always have a clear direction of where you should go now, rather than a life that's seemingly confused all the time. Get alone with Him.

Why? Mark it down. Number one: Delight develops contentment in our hearts. It develops contentment in our hearts. Will you write that down? In Philippians 4:11, we read it. Of course, we'll look at it more deeply right now. It says, "Now that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned"—the word is confirmed by experience—"in whatever state I'm in to be content."

What a wealthy place to be. Imagine how free you can be if Christ rules and reigns your heart. You don't have to get the next greatest thing on the magazine cover this month to keep your identity or your worth going. No. Your identity's in Christ. And now you've learned something—that there's a confirming experience. And what is it, Paul? In whatever condition, whatever situation that I'm in, I have found this out: I'm content.

Wow. Honestly think. What if we all lost our homes right now? Boom, gone. You say, "That would never happen." Let me remind you, you live in Southern California where the earth moves under your feet. It could happen. What would you do then? First of all, whatever we do, we'd be doing it together, which would be kind of cool if you think about it because our Christianity would grow so much in one month of having to live with one another.

Can you imagine? You'd know who's the servant around here anyway. Man, are you going to hang up those socks or what? What's your name anyway? Dude, Bob, your socks stink. You would know one another. And here's somebody griping, grumbling, complaining. Let me tell you something, man, you've got to make it work. And Paul says, "I've learned in whatever condition I'm in, I'm content." Paul's the guy you'd want to go camping with because he makes it work.

Contentment. Can you say that you're content tonight? Can you say that with how much money you make, your hourly pay, whatever it might be, that you're content? How about some of you who are older? Remember that money you were going to retire on? Gone. Are you content with the home you have or your husband or your wife or this or that? Listen, it's a matter of your heart, not their heart.

Some of you are married to non-believers. Some of you tell me, "I think I married Satan." And it's your contentment in Christ that will get you through that relationship. Don't be surprised. Listen, you don't have to worry about going to the foreign mission field to lead somebody to Christ. If you married the devil, you just stay true, stay firm, and you witness to that person. They are your mission field. I know that you'd sign up to go to the next trip to Africa or—where's the church going next? Haiti. I'm signing up. Why? I want to get away from my husband. That doesn't work, and that's not good.

But delight develops a contentment of the heart. Psalm 17:15 says, "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness, and I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." That's awesome. What a beautiful verse that is. Psalm 20:7: "Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." You have to remember this over and over again. And I know that's easy to say. Jesus put it this way. Now listen carefully.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:31, "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?' For after all these things do the unbelievers seek. For your heavenly Father knows what you have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God." Listen, especially you young people, put God first in your life now and watch what happens. That's why I can't wait for these Sundays that are coming up in August to celebrate God's faithfulness, God's generosity, God's ability to speak.

And you young people, you thinking about life, future, ministry, I want you to hear these Sunday mornings. God has been faithful. We've been unfaithful; God's been faithful. We've been dopes; He's been amazing. But if your heart is open to follow Him, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. That is a promise given by Jesus. The letters are written in red in your Bible. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own stuff. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Don't be worrying about tomorrow. God says, "You follow Me and I'll take care of tomorrow." That is an absolute fact. Did you guys hear me?

Trust Him, seek Him, put Him first. Watch what happens. He will never let you down. Ever. He has never let us down. He has never let you down. If you think He's let you down, He didn't let you down; He just didn't answer the way you wanted Him to answer because He knew that if He gave you that thing, you'd hurt yourself with it. Right? I mean, it's true.

Okay, here's a great passage of scripture. 1 Timothy 6:6. Paul says, "Now godliness with contentment is great wealth, great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we shall carry nothing out." That's a verse for Wall Street. "And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content." But how much clothing? See, this is the American view. How much food? Like freezers in the garage stuff full? Like steak? What? No. And then clothes—how much clothes? Like 400 pairs of shoes or what? No.

"But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." That means their pursuit for wealth destroys their lives and then sucks them down into hell. Wow. "For the love of money"—money's not evil. What is? The love of it is evil. Money can be great if you use it for God's glory. "But the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some having strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Is that not amazing? Is that not our 21st century? Wow.

David J: 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: So delight develops contentment in our hearts. But how does it do that? Well, by recognizing and truly believing this next verse. Jot it down before we move to the second point. It's 1 Corinthians 10:26. 1 Corinthians 10:26 is true. It's in the Bible. It's for real. "For the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness." And I want you to underline fullness. It's great. The earth is the Lord's and every bit of sand and everything that you can even imagine regarding this earth, it's His. The sparrows are His. The clouds are His. In fact, the Bible says in the Old Testament that the Lord uses the clouds to ride upon. Don't you like that kind of talk? I like that.

There's nothing you cannot think of in this world that's not His. That's why it's funny to see people—I'm sorry. I think as you get older, you get kind of sarcastic with the way you see things. Because you look in a magazine, you look at some ad. And it shows some guy—it's so funny because he's got these incredibly ripped abs. Okay? And he's basically pretty much hairless, ripped abs, wearing all this Gucci clothes on. The dude's like 13 years old and he's got his sunglasses like this.

And there's a Learjet behind him. Have you seen the commercials like that? And there's like a Bentley car parked right there. The guy's not even old enough to park the car, and he's selling cologne. It's like "Armani." And he's like this. Who are they fooling? You think, "Oh my—" First, do you see people like that really? It's absolutely hilarious. But the world says, "This is what you've got to be like. This is the meaning of life." It's an absolute joke.

The Lord owns it all. For people to act like they own it. Wouldn't it be great to go to Bel Air? We should take a field trip there on a Wednesday night. Go to Bel Air, go grab one of those big gates—Sylvester Stallone's house—and say, "Hey! The Lord owns this house! You know, let us in! The Lord owns this house!"

But people, when you get deceived by that, you walk around and you begin to think you can't smile. Why? Because I'm somebody. I'm really rich and important. You can't smile when you're rich and important, I guess. You have to be... You don't have Jesus, you've got nothing. "No, you don't tell me that. I've got all this stuff." You've got nothing. It's all going to burn. You can't take it with you. Jesus will never leave you, but you can't take this world with you.

Point number two: Delight strengthens our faith in God. Delight strengthens our faith in God. This is amazing because here it is, listen: We choose to delight in the Lord. And we all experience this. When something happens in life, in a split second you will choose to go carnal, flesh, freak out, or follow the Lord. And some—listen, it may be also something happens... and then you realize, "Wait a minute, I'm a Christian. God's on the throne. It's going to be okay." You know what I'm talking about?

And then there's some people that are just amazing. The place blows up and they just go, "Praise the Lord. It's all good." I'm not like that. I like to shoot, aim, and then figure out what's going on. But we're all different. He didn't die for our personalities; He died for our sins. But the thing is that we all meet at a common place, and that place is Christ. And we delight in Him. The Lord knows the things that are coming to our world. The Lord knows.

God's in control and at the end of the day—remember this. If you are not a Christian here tonight and you love to make fun of Christians, Christians are really fun to make fun of. I mean, we're great. But here's the thing: At the end of life, at the end of time, at the end of the day, we wind up being on top, not because we made it, but because our God sees us to the top. He'll get us there.

And everything that you're doing, striving to get to the top, your claws are on the wall trying to make it up. God takes the Christian and goes, "Pink!" Just like a little kid, pick them up and put them on the wall. It's pretty amazing. To delight in Him strengthens our faith. And Philippians 4:12, look at the next verse. He says, "I know how to be abased." I know how to hardly ever get a chance to have some food pulses. I know how to spend time in jail. Paul was in jail many times. I know how to get beat up. Isn't that amazing? Paul says, "Yeah, I know how to get flogged with the Roman cat o' nine tails. I've been left for dead. I got stoned and they threw me on the side of the road thinking I was dead." Paul says, "I've learned that."

Can you imagine if Paul showed up tonight? Door opens up, sanctuary doors open up, Paul walks down here. "Hey, what's going on, church? Oh yeah." Can you imagine? He'd be all scarred up. According to church history, he's kind of ugly. His eyes were really ridiculously close together. He had a big sharp hooked nose. And he was bow-legged, short, bald-headed, and his eyes were sore and pussy from eye infection. That's why he had to have his letters dictated often. Not always, but often. Can you imagine Paul showing up?

And he starts to talk to us about things. You know what he'd say? "I want to tell you guys, I remember being so beat up that Luke spent a month putting me back together, Doctor Luke. We don't know everything that happened to him. But he was so brutally beaten. He was so left for dead. He was so shipwrecked. He spent a day and a night in the open ocean in a storm hanging onto a piece of wood. And that Mediterranean's got sharks in it on top of it. And he's out there bobbing around, little Paul, serving the Lord." Can you imagine Satan saying to you, "Hey, how's your God treating you now?" Think about that. Paul would have said, "Shut up! I'm serving my God if I get swallowed by a shark or shipwrecked or whatever." How do you stop a guy like that? We should all be like that.

We've got 2,000 years of experience to glean from, and we walk around—no. Delighting in the Lord strengthens our faith in God. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your heart with all diligence." That's a military term. Garrison your heart with forces. Get your mind under control. Stop goofing off. Get your emotions under control. "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." Isn't that great? Paul encouraged himself in the Lord. He was powerful.

Isaiah 41:10 says, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." How many of you are right-handed? Raise your hand. How many are left-handed? Raise your hand. That's it? See, God's right-handed. He said, "I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." That's good. He strengthens our faith. Delighting in Him, our faith will be strengthened.

What does that mean? We'll have a new attitude about God in every situation. We'll have a new attitude about other people. Don't we need that? America needs that. Our world needs that. We'll have a new attitude about life. We'll have a new attitude about love and about possessions. We'll have a new attitude about forever, eternal things. We'll really live in light of eternity.

The Bible says in Psalm 138:8, "The Lord will perfect"—that is, complete—"that which concerns me. Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of Your hands." He won't. I wrote down three examples real quickly about how God finishes His work. He will not give up. Watch this. Think about Moses. What do you know about Moses? Think about Moses. God called that little guy when he was just born. There was a death sentence on his life, was there not? And he gets put in a little—he gets put in a little basket and put into the Nile. The word for basket in Hebrew, Moses was put in a coffin.

His mom and dad, they believed the Lord, and they put him in a little, little reed basket which is the word for coffin. But they sent him in faith. Can you imagine? That is something. That you take your baby boy, you go down to the river, and you launch your little guy out into the water. And on top of it, the Bible says he was so incredibly cute. Little baby Moses. Moses was a cute little guy. In fact, it says it three or four times throughout all of scripture how cute he was. And his mama and his daddy put him out in the water in faith, trusting.

And what happened to that guy's life? That he was picked up by Pharaoh's daughter and he became known as the son of Pharaoh, the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Pharaoh's his grandpa. Moses becomes the second most powerful man in the world. And God gets a hold of his heart and says, "Hey, you belong to these people." And the Bible says that Moses chose to be with his people rather than the riches of Egypt that were there for just a little while. God's people are still today. Where's Egypt? Israel exists. Where's the Egyptian empire? Where are the Pharaohs? I know where Moses is, though.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio, and his message called Disciplines of Delight. Thanks for listening today. We sure appreciate you being here. 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.

Daniel Cohen: Daniel Cohen here from Israel. If you love Pastor Jack Hibbs' fearless approach to teaching God's word, you'll love the Real Life Network. It's built for warriors who want the truth—God's truth. On The Daniel Cohen Show, we bring you stories the mainstream media downplays. It's time to start getting your news from people you trust. And it's totally free. Sign up now at reallifenetwork.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.