Real Life Radio

David J: Today, on Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: I'll say it again. Jesus receives sinners. We're all sinners. The Bible says we've all sinned. And listen, it's that qualification that we are lost in our sins that qualifies us to be saved.

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. You ever feel like your Christian values are under constant assault? In a world where biblical truth is often labeled hateful or backward, how do we stand firm without becoming combative or isolated? Pastor Jack Hibbs wants to help you find answers with this month's featured resource When Culture Hates You. It's written by Natasha Crane. And in this straight-talking book, you'll discover how to tackle tough conversations, maintain biblical convictions, and respond to cultural hostility with both grace and truth.

Now, think of it as your essential guide for navigating a world that often views faith as the enemy. You'll learn how to speak confidently on issues of morality, identity, and belief without losing sight of God's love because sometimes the strongest stance is one that balances conviction with compassion. Now, if you're ready to stand strong in an ever-shifting culture, look no further. When Culture Hates You, it's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com/realradio. One more time, jackhibbs.com/realradio. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Lost Sheep Part One.

You know, whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke using relatable stories with common everyday themes that the Bible calls parables. Now, in this particular parable, Jesus is teaching about his father's concern for us. Now, this parable is one of the most beloved of all the parables, how there'll be more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents than over those who need no repentance. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that just as a shepherd would care for each one of his sheep individually, God sees us as lost sheep and his compassion over each and every one of us is personal to him.

Now, in his message called Parable of the Lost Sheep Part One, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Grab your Bibles tonight and turn if you would to Luke chapter 15. This is a precious parable tonight, The Parable of the Lost Sheep. We've all read about it and and we've heard about it. It's one of the most beloved parables that Jesus spoke. And it's recorded in two gospels, Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel. Tonight, we'll look at Luke 15 and his account of the parable of the lost sheep. And um look at verse one. We'll set it up there. It's it's technically verses one through seven, but um we'll look at the setup is in verses one to three.

Now, put on as before I read this, I want you to put on your sandals. Put on your robe, go back 2,000 years ago, and there's a large crowd and um it's it it looks like um a a montage of people. Uh there are there are people there that are um notorious sinners, famous sinners in the region. Uh the hookers would have been there perhaps, prostitutes, tax collectors. I should have said those guys first maybe, tax collectors first and All these people. And then there's a group and they're all in black. And they look awesome.

Uh and they're away from everybody else, but they're trying to get as close as possible to hear Jesus. And those are the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious professional rulers of the religion in Israel of the day. They had commandeered the Bible, the Old Testament, and they had formed this thing of a Judaism where they had begun to taught or to teach the traditions of men greater than the revealed word of God. And they had lined their pockets with prosperity by ripping off people. And they were notorious religionists. So the whole crowd is messed up.

But no doubt in the midst of it all, there's people there that have come with great intentions. They've heard about Jesus. They want to learn from him. They want to catch the one they've heard so much. They want to see the miracle worker. He's fed thousands in one given moment. He's walked on the water. This is Jesus and he's in your region. And thousands have come out. Verse one, then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to hear him. The word implies that Jesus began to speak. And watch this, everybody leaned in to hear him speak.

Wouldn't you? Oh my goodness. Verse two, and the Pharisees and scribes complained. You can always count on them. And this is what they said. This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he, Jesus, spoke this parable to them saying, What man of you having 100 sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing, verse six. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, Rejoice with me for I found my lost sheep which was lost.

And I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. I want to give you the setting now, what's going on here. The crowd is there of all sorts. Maybe there's a crowd here tonight of all sorts. Jesus loves this. He loves this crowd. He loves the crowd that he's talking to 2,000 years ago and he loves you. And you've come here and maybe you're a tax collector, maybe you're sinner or in this word a notorious sinner. And you're you're listening.

You've come to hear what Jesus has to say. And you've heard about him. And you're interested in him. And uh so you're leaning in. You are leaning in to hear. And while you're leaning in to hear, there's a bunch of nincompoops nearby that are complaining about everything that Jesus is doing. And you can almost imagine that those that are trying to hear Jesus we've Look, this is a human setting. They're leaning leaning in to hear him and you hear these people grumbling and and maybe they're saying, You know what, I bet maybe kind of under their breath but not really because these kind of religious love this so confusion and discord among people, right?

Oh, you know, I bet you he didn't even wash his hands today. You know, this Galilean and you know you remember about his scandalous coming into the world, this one. Remember, I remember my dad told me when he was supposedly conceived of God, right? And all this stuff is going on. They're throwing stuff. That's just human nature. They're throwing words. They're throwing attitude out and they're grumbling and complaining. And they set themselves up and Jesus both for Jesus to give a parable and for them to once again miss it. It's absolutely amazing. Two words we need to understand here as we get into this study tonight.

The one word is receives. He receives sinners. Can you mark that word down? He receives sinners in verse two. The word means this, to admit in, to permit in, to intercourse or dialogue with another or to allow. Jesus is allowing notorious sinners in his presence. You have a problem with that? I know people have a problem with that. I know Christian leaders have a problem with that. You should have a problem with the Bible and their Christian leader. Well, they don't have a problem with the Bible and their Christian leader. They have a problem with anyone else reaching out to notorious sinners like Jesus did because Christianity and maybe in their opinion is so frail and fragile that you can't reach out to somebody and plead with them and give them the gospel because you could be somehow labeled as being one of them.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think a man should go to a strip joint to witness to strippers. That's a great great job for the women's ministry. Okay, but listen, if you're standing in the line at Albertsons and and and there's a man or there's a woman standing in line and God tells you to share with them and you say, God, uh no one clean thing has come near me like Peter, right? You better check your heart. Jesus cannot be threatened. Aren't you glad about that? Jesus does not say, Gosh, I'd love to save you by talking to you and giving you the gospel, but I don't want to be, you know, kind of You're quite a tainted person.

And if I if I save you, then what are people going to say about my kingdom? I'm so glad that Jesus receives sinners. He received me. And he's still receiving me. And he received you and he's still receiving you. He receives sinners. Christ receives sinners. Are you a sinner tonight? Listen, if Jesus receives sinners, sign me up. I can't believe he said sinners to me already seven times. I'll say it again. Jesus receives sinners. We're all sinners. The Bible says we've all sinned. And listen, it's that qualification that we are lost in our sins that qualifies us to be saved.

Jesus saved sinners. And he receives them. What a powerful word that is. And then the second word is he eats with them. He eats with these tainted people. The word eat here actually means to take in food. And you go, well, duh. Of course it does. No, no. To you and I, it's no big deal. In this culture, big deal. You do not eat with anybody in that culture even to this day except for your friends. Did you know that? You only eat in the Middle East with your friends at table. You want to know why?

It's very romantic. If you tear meat off the bone or bread from the loaf as as it's at table, you're becoming one with someone. That You know how we have communion by the way like that? We're becoming one with one another. We all break from the same loaf. That's how they think. Jesus is eating with them, sending the message that number one, I received them. And number two, I'm becoming one with them. Now, this is unthinkable that Jesus Christ with all of his preaching and all of his teaching and all of the glorious things surrounding his prophetic revelation to the world of who he is would receive sinners and eat with them.

Here's the great thing about Jesus eating with us or eating with them. He's not tainted when he pulls off meat or bread from the loaf or from the bone. He's not tainted in that cultural worldview by consuming the same thing you're consuming because he's God. He cannot be polluted. He's not a good man. He's the God man. And he sits down and he lets eat. He's eating with sinners and all the Listen, it's kind of funny. This Imagine being at the table with Jesus. Would you be having fun? Excuse me, hello. You'd be having a blast.

You'd be poking your friend. Can you believe this? You know the guy we've been hearing about Look. We are eating with him. Can you imagine what they I'm I don't think it's a stretch to to go like this. Right? Think about it. He's the one. And then there's that group over there grumbling, complaining. This man receives sinners. And every sinner at the table or in the room went, Uh-huh. Oh yeah. And he eats with them. He sure does. Isn't he good? See, Jesus is not tainted when he comes into the presence of sinners because he doesn't leave us like that.

He changes our lives. He comes in and he changes everything. He turns the table on self. He turns the table on our own ambitions. He turns the table on our own self-preservation of a life without God. And he turns the tables right over. And he exposes everything not to our destruction. Has God been speaking to you? Has he been lovingly busting you? What does he do this? Because he wants you with him. You may very well be tonight a very very lost lamb of God. And he's calling out to you. And the way the time is going, we'll have to do this in a two-part thing, but it is not only for the lost sinner to come and be one of his own, but anybody who's a Christian tonight, maybe you're here and you've been away from God.

And this verse, this chapter, this parable speaks strongly to that about coming back. Well, listen, in Philippians chapter two verse six, the Bible tells us that he who, Jesus, being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of man. Jesus he comes to save.

David J: You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.

Jack Hibbs: And Jesus sees us for who we really are. Isn't that comforting? So I don't know. Is that com Should it be comforting? Oh no, it's very comforting. You know, we're we're kind of a very complicated thing we are as humans. There's the person that we think we are. There's the person that we portray before others who we want them to think we are. Uh there's the person that we'd like to be. And then there's the person who God knows we are. And God knows us, everything about us. He knows every motive, you know. Listen, the Bible says that we can't even know our own hearts.

Isn't that wild? Think of that. Well, my heart, in my heart If you ever heard In my heart, I just know it was the right thing to do. Really? Because God said in your heart is desperately wicked and no man can know it. Right? That's what the Bible says. I mean, honestly so look, I mean really? Yeah, God knows. Look, I know how convincing that is where we really feel right about that thing. But what does the Bible say? Paul the apostle was awesome at this. Paul said, I have learned this in my life. I don't even judge myself.

He said my judgment on myself wouldn't be accurate. Charles Spurgeon put it this way. I love this. Charles Spurgeon said, He's talking to preachers by the way. He wrote this to one of in in one of his classes. Charles Spurgeon said, Listen, at the end of the day, you're not as bad as your people said you were today and you're not as good as your people said you were today. Isn't that a great word? Oh pastor, you stunk. And you know, that's suicidal for a pastor teacher to hear. You know, you feel like after giving a message and it stunk, you feel like you worked for Satan that day.

And then if And then if somebody says, Oh, that message changed my life and you go, Oh wow. Spurgeon's words come ringing true. Hey hey hey, calm down. You're not as bad as people say you are and you're not as good as people say you are. Isn't that great? Isn't that a great healthy thing? And listen, your mind will say, Aren't aren't I fantastic? Well, you're not as good as you think you are. And then you're I'm just so terrible. Well, you're not as bad as you think you are. What what do I do with this?

You don't do anything with it. You give it to God and let him be the judge. You live under the Lord. And the Bible tells us in Matthew 9:35 that Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. Point number one in our study tonight about the parable of the lost shepherd is is lost sheep is this.

Number one, we are God's concern. Will you write that down, my dear friend? You We are God's concern. How so? Number one, mark it. His concern for us is assumed. I love this. Look at just four little words in verse four. What man of you? Jesus's words is to Listen, it's not to the crowd. It's to the Pharisees. Jesus turns to these pride puffed sin sniffing, fault-finding Pharisees. In the in the in the face of the crowd, Jesus turns to them when they make that statement. He receives sinners and eats with them. Jesus says, Which man of you?

Which one of you guys? Stop right there. Immediately there's a grand assumption that Jesus is building a parable on top of Everybody knows this. Which one of you? The answer is everyone of you guys know that if you have a lamb and it's lost, you do everything to go and get it. Jesus would be saying this today in our modern ear. Come on. Give me a break. Don't tell me that if your What? If your dog was lost, you would stop everything to go look for it. Of course you would. Everybody would go, Yeah yeah, that's true.

That's true. This is a common thing. It is absolutely out there and obvious. And Jesus lays it down. I love this. His audience is Jewish. They would have known the Hebrew scriptures. That means they would have known Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34:5 says, So they were scattered because there was no shepherd and they became food for all beasts of the field. He's talking about his nation Israel. And they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill. Yes, my flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth. And no one was seeking or searching for them.

That's God speaking about the nation of Israel and he's saying nobody cares for them. The shepherds that he had sent to be their spiritual leaders had abandoned them. And isn't it interesting that his concern for us is assumed? Friends, write this down. You may not get anything out of this message tonight. Get this. Jesus Christ refers to us humans as sheep. How does that sit with you? How do you like that? Um I know something about sheep. I used to work with sheep, a lot of sheep, 13 years I worked with sheep. I'm not kidding.

She said, I thought you worked for a medical company. I did. We worked in a research lab. Very covert, no signs out in front of the high-rise building. It's all quiet and look like an office complex. Inside it was a farm in there. Why? We had sheep. Tons of sheep. Why? Because we would develop critical care devices for to for people from from babies all the way through to to adults about prolonging your life. We would do studies and we would develop product. And you can't do that on people, not in America you can't. You can't practice development of high-tech medical devices on humans in the United States.

You can't do that. And so if you're going to do that, you have to use an animal that's the closest to human physiology and its cardiac performance. Guess I'll give you one guess. I'll give you one guess what what animal that might be. Sheep. Isn't that something? And you know what was amazing? Uh the characteristics of sheep, not one sheep ever protested going in for surgery. Not one of them. Uh they loved being together by the way. They all loved hanging out together. Not Not once did a sheep ever jump over the fence and catch a cab and try to head to the airport.

They never ran away. Even when it was their day, they just walked right on in. Sheep never leave. Listen, they never run away. They never run away. I want you to mark that. Sheep never run away. They'll wander away. It's a big difference. You know a goat a goat will run away. Did you know that? You know a sheep will never run away. Now, a sheep could be scared and then run a lightning clap or something like that. They They can run that way. But a sheep with a shepherd in the fold, in the flock will never just run away.

They won't do it. Um how about this? A sheep is never No one ever expects anything smart to come out of sheep. Sheep are not smart. They have no defense mechanisms or no defense attributes. Did you know that? Sheep don't have fangs. You don't see a sheep with fangs. They don't have a bite. Oh my gosh, I got bit by this lamb. You ever heard that? What brought you to this hospital? I got attacked by a lamb. Not going to happen. They have no claws. They're sheep. In the old and New Testament like refers to us humans as sheep.

Listen to this. Did you know that a lamb In fact, this is cool. Mark this down. This guy This ought to freak somebody out here tonight. There's a scientist I read about years ago. It was written in one of the books by Richard Wurmbrand. When he was in Russia, he was speaking to a scientist and the scientist asked this question in the gathering of the Supreme Soviet at the Academy of Science. Are you ready for it? The scientist who was a communist said, As we propagate evolution, I have a problem. And they said, What's your problem?

And he said, With all my research, my my background is in this particular area and in this area, I have to I have to consider sheep. And he said, For the life of me, I've done all I've worked it all out. I know everything about these guys and I have a problem. And the problem is this. We We talk about the evolutionary process. The only problem is sheep cannot survive or live without human beings. And according to our timeline, we've got sheep long before human beings ever being here. He said, So I can't reconcile that.

Within 24 hours, that man was arrested and sent to a prison in Siberia where he met up with Richard Wurmbrand, a famous Christian pastor. I want you to think about that for a moment. Sheep need constant human care and protection. They have to be watched over.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Parable of the Lost Sheep Part One. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Parables of Jesus. It's a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was ministering right here on this earth. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Jack Hibbs: Well friends, listen, it's been two years here at the Real Life Network and God has been so good to us. God put it on our hearts to create a network that would be cancel-free, censorship-free, uncompromising so that we could bring the truth to anyone anywhere. God has been so good to us these last two years, everybody. And we want to thank all of you. So today, we are amazed that over 70 million minutes of biblical worldview truth has been on our programming and viewed by you, the audience, on the Real Life Network. Every piece of our content on the Real Life Network is rooted in God's word so that it's safe, it's secure.

So listen, spread the word with us, will you? Encourage friends and family to join the Real Life Network and that we might grow together this community of believers all around the world.

David J: So if you haven't checked it out already, that's the Real Life Network streaming the best in Christian and conservative content. Sign up and start streaming today for free at reallifenetwork.com. That's reallifenetwork.com. 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.