Real Life Radio

Announcer (Male): Today on Real Life Radio. You want a victorious Christian life? You must make room for your Christian life. You will not succeed, you will not grow stronger, you will not be dynamic for the kingdom if the things of the world come first.

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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With biblical truth, real-life conviction, and a forward from Franklin Graham, Jack equips you to face fear without flinching, stand strong when others fall away, and live with purpose, clarity, and holy sacrifice in a chaotic world. This is the moment to rise above intimidation, to hold fast to truth, and to let your faith influence a culture desperate for life. Don't wait. Order Called to Take a Bold Stand by Pastor Jack Hibbs for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. That's jackhibbs.com/realradio.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called First Samuel in a message titled Getting the Victory in Life, Part Two. Samuel of the Old Testament was, of course, the last judge of Israel and the first of its prophets. So, as we continue now in chapter seven, we'll learn how to live a victorious Christian life with hope and a renewed vision to start doing what we should be doing.

You see, we often take the baggage of our old life and what we've gone through and project the trouble we've had onto God. Instead, we just need to keep the good and acknowledge that God is good, not just sometimes, but always. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that Samuel knew the vital importance of creating a life of memorable worship that reminds us of all the things that God has done in our lives. The sacrifice of praise might be costly, but it's powerful enough to overcome our greatest challenges. Now with his message called Getting the Victory in Life, Part Two, here is pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: The Lord and I made a deal a long time ago that if the offer comes, I'll pray that God would not want me to go, that I'm going to go. Lord, if you don't want me to go, just not have it happen. Because I'm going to use my body for you until I die. So I'm going to go and do this. If you don't want me to go, you stop it from happening. I'm very open to you stopping it.

And I'll go. And it's a weird, torturous thing because flying there or driving there, I'm thinking, "God, what am I going to say? Talk to me, okay? Tell me what, go ahead, you can talk right now. It'd be great if you told me what to say." It's a weird thing. And Paul said it perfectly. He says we die daily.

And I got to tell you, I die daily. It's the weirdest thing. But the good thing is, Lord, keep letting me die. You live your life through me as much as you want, please. Keep me out of the way and do your thing because I tell you, sometimes it's very, very good to be afraid.

I love seeing a little kid when they're afraid. They hide right behind their dad's knee. Have you noticed that? They hang on to his calf or his knee or his thigh and they just peek out once in a while. That's a great place to be. Why is it all of the Lord? Zechariah chapter four verse six tells us, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel." And I tell you, with a name like Zerubbabel, you want to have the word of the Lord being spoken to you. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord. Not by pulling off a big show, not by forcing your way, but by the Spirit of God. That's how things are done the right way.

Verse eight we learn living a dependent life upon God is a calling upon God's others. Say what? Yeah, his people. So the children of Israel said to Samuel, "Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us." Living a dependent life upon God is a very important thing because God wants to use us to touch others in the family of God. Very important.

Isaiah 55 verse six tells us, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near." There's a window right now for all of us that are in the hearing of this message, that God is calling you to bless other people. That's quite a project, you know that? To bless others? Do you imagine if we didn't get anything out of this message tonight but this: leave this building determined to bless other people?

Well, what does that mean? I don't know. That's for again, you to find out, for me to find out. Because I'm going to guess that the blessing is going to be as diverse as the situation that you encounter. I think it was yesterday, I'm not sure if it was yesterday, but a man came into the church. He's a homeless guy. And the church was closed. The door happened to have been unlocked, and yet he came in. It was late and he needed help.

Well, everything's locked up and I didn't even have access at that time of the day even to money if my life depended on it for this man. There was just, I had nothing in my wallet financially. Zero. Not a penny. And while the guy, I go, "What do you want? What are you saying? What's going on?" And he was very cool. He said, "Well, first of all, I'm a brother in the Lord." And you know, you hear that all the time.

And especially as I'm listening to him, I could smell something funny coming from him. And I said, "Let's step outside, okay?" So we stepped outside and I got him away from the other people who were there. And I said, "Do you smoke pot? Because you smell funny."

And he just goes, "No man, I just ate a grapefruit." And I said, "What?" He said, "I just ate a grapefruit." I said, "You smell like you're smoking pot." And he goes, "Smell my hands, I just ate a grapefruit." And I thought, "Oh, you're right, it's a grapefruit. I'm sorry, come on in." So I brought him back in because I didn't want to ask him in front of people.

But I was going to bust him out there if he was doing drugs and wanting a handout. But he wasn't. And so I just said, "Listen, we have access to no cash, but we don't want you to be without. And so listen, go down to this hotel and that's going to be your place for the night." And he was just so sweet. "Oh man, thank you so much," and "Praise the Lord." And you know, I may never see that guy again.

Was he an angel? I hope not. Jack, remember that day that you insulted that angel? He was sent from my throne room directly. But the scripture says we need to be careful, you know, we could be entertaining angels without knowledge. You know, they appear as men at times. That's pretty wild, you know. So much so that Peter would write about it. Be careful, you know, how you treat a stranger because you could be entertaining an angel unaware to you. Wow.

So I don't know who this guy was, but the thing is he went away blessed eventually. Well, God has called us in this world to bless other people. And that's kind of a fun thing. That's a great calling. Point number five verses 10 through 12, getting the victory in life, and that is creating a life of worship. Oh, this is so vital. You guys, this is essential, creating a life of worship.

And I really don't want what Samuel is trying to teach us here to fall upon deaf ears. This is so critical. "Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering." That's a total commitment, you guys. He said, "Well yeah, it was total commitment for the animal, but you know, Samuel's going to live another day." No, no, no. To offer a burnt offering, yes it was costly, but listen to the thing is, their hearts were not callous like our hearts are today about blood and about animal and about death. They were very earthy people. Can I put it that way? They were in touch.

Look, can I offend somebody in here right now? They were more in touch with nature than the most devoted tree hugger who has ever lived. There's nothing profound about sitting on a rock in the middle of a forest meditating on your navel about being one with the universe. Okay, God's people love his creation. You don't have to be an environmental person to love his or to want the creation to be protected. I think Christians should be the best custodians of what he has made.

Here's the problem where you and I live and here comes the offense. We're a culture that worships the creation more than the Creator. It's terrible. We would rather have babies die and people perish to save a burrowing owl or a spotted owl or a gnat. This area is protected. Why? You can't walk over here. Why? There is a rare gnat that breeds in this area. How do you know? Because there's everything in the area that tells us that this is where they live. I've been told that before.

You can't go here, you can't build here, because the area historically could, could breed this little bird that lives in the Prado Basin, this region. It's migratory. Have you seen one? No, but they could live in this area. I'm serious. I had to spend 8,000 bucks to find that out. So then okay, now that you're telling me this, can I have the money back? Oh no, no. But buddy, you better hope that there's no kangaroo rat on your land.

This is crazy. It's worshiping the creation more than God. We have to be careful. Samuel takes this little lamb, and he loved the little life of that thing. He knew how precious it was in the sight of God, the life of that little lamb and its blood. He makes a burnt offering, knowing what it cost. They were much more in tune than we are today. He knew what he was doing. It was costly. But it was a sign of worship to God. "Lord, I'm giving this life for you. And Lord, in a real way, there's a transference that's taking place that what I'm offering to you right now is on not only behalf of me but this entire nation, this whole group of people. This is being conveyed through this little lamb."

He makes an offering of worship. And so the Bible says the Philistines drew near to the battle against Israel. Can you see it happening in your mind's eye? This is kind of weird, Israel standing there like a deer in the headlights. The enemies are rattling their swords and chariots. They're massive and they're big. Samuel has got an altar and he takes this animal and there's smoke ascending as the people are looking on defenseless. Now someone who didn't know anything about God would say, "They're going to get creamed. They're going to get slaughtered." Someone who's not aware of God would say, "Run for your life."

Look what happens. But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day. Isn't that great? Wouldn't you love to have seen that? And so confused them that they were overcome before Israel. And all the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as Beth Car. Then Samuel took a stone and he set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." To worship.

Man, are you troubled? Do you have a tendency to be troubled by the pressures of life? Listen you guys, this is free what I'm going to give you right now, totally free, no charge. Worship. Worship. I'm serious. Listen, test this and see if it's not true. When you get home tomorrow, put a worship CD on. I'm not talking about DC Talk or, you know, none that. Worship. And begin to worship the Lord and watch and feel, literally feel your troubles be lifted.

Okay, having said that, having you hearing that, put it to the test and then you tell me later if I was wrong. It's that powerful, worship is. That's why when we come together, why do we put worship before the word? To strip your life of what's plaguing you, to lift your spirit into the presence of God, to touch his heart, to bless him, and then he responds by giving the word. That's why it's that way, biblically. Very important.

Very quickly, verse 10 says to us really that worship is to be continuous in the life of the believer. Continuous. We also learn that worship is to be powerful. Look how powerful this worship was. You say, "I don't get it." They're worshiping God, God takes care of the problem. That's powerful. I love that. Worship is to be continuous, verses 10, 11 teach us that worship is to be powerful. Verse 12 teaches us that worship is to be memorable.

"Thus far," they say, "the Lord has helped us." And they set up a stone in memory of that. We need to be altar builders in our lives. Seriously, I mean it. You ought to be able to point to something and, you know, this may sound silly to you, but I think you ought to do this, especially if you have young kids, you ought to do something. In our backyard, we have a tree. It's called Zacchaeus. The kids named him Zacchaeus. He was in a five-gallon pot, now the guy's gigantic. But it's cool because they remembered all these years, that's Zacchaeus. It's a sycamore tree, and it fits Zacchaeus and the sycamore tree.

But to them, you know, all their life they've known about this tree. And the week that we moved into our house in Chino Hills, we went up on top of that big hill where the tree there is the logo for the city, that big tree that's on the police cars and all that stuff, that big tree, that big tree's up there on that hill. And we stood there, we didn't even know what we were doing. We stood there and prayed for the area. And I'll never forget it. The four of us were there and we just said, "Lord, deliver this land into your hands for your glory."

And we prayed that prayer in 1986. And we didn't know what we were talking about. We just thought, "You know what, maybe God wants to do something." Set up an altar. That tree can be an altar. It could be that you're somewhere and you say, "You know what, from this point on, we're going to be faithful to each other, husband and wife." Or from this point on, a youth, a teen might say, "You know what, from this point on, I'm going to put these, I'm going to stack these rocks over here in this part of our yard or over there in that area, and this is a dedication. This is a memory between me and God. I'm going to follow him." I think that's a great thing to do.

And then finally, verses 13 to 17, getting the victory in life, and that is maintaining a life with God. So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. Then the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel again, from Ekron to Gath, and Israel recovered its territories. Also there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

And so Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all of those places. But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there, and there he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord. Quickly, verse 13, the flesh must be kept in check. The Philistines are a type of the flesh. As long as Samuel was building altars and making worship unto God, listen, the flesh was held back.

When you and I get sloppy in our worship, the flesh begins to rear its head. You know what I'm saying? The flesh begins to resurrect itself. The old man begins to come back. And then here, verses 16 to 17, the new life must be given air, must be given room. The new life must be given air. It says here in verse 16, "He went from year to year in the circuit." That is, he judged these people in these cities, discerned. But the scripture says that he always returned and that he built that altar.

The new life, he always made room for the new life. You want a victorious Christian life? You must make room for your Christian life. You will not succeed, you will not grow stronger, you will not be dynamic for the kingdom if the things of the world come first. You must discipline your life to put God first. We have to do this.

And here's the deal, we end in this. Well, I need prayer, you say. Well, we all need prayer. No, things, you know, in my life are just falling apart, coming apart at the seams. I'm not walking with God like I once was. Well, what do you want to pray about? Well, I think I need counseling. You don't need any counseling. Jesus says, "Remember where you fell down from, repent, and go do your first works."

What's your first works? Putting God first. Remember when you first fell in love with Jesus? You were whacko for God. We need to be whacko for God again. Samuel, as we'll see next week in chapter eight, he grows old. In fact, too old to perform his office. But he never stopped being an altar builder. Dad, you better have an altar in your house. Your kids better know they're prayed for. Mom, be an altar builder. Let your family know that you love them, that there's something in that house that speaks of your dedication to God and to them. Teens, build an altar. Get radically dedicated to God and watch what happens. It's amazing. He's waiting for us to determine in our hearts, "Lord, we're going to be victorious with you." It's his will. Father, we thank you for your word.