Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: His love, faithfulness, kindness, God's heart toward all of us, no matter who we might be or what kind of sins we've racked up in life, it is the Bible that says that God will forgive you if you come to Him. It's amazing to me, it's awesome to me to think that somebody would look at Jesus with disdain and scorn, and yet people do that today.

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.

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David Jay: On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called "Disciplines of Life" and a message titled "Discipline of Disdain." Now, when we're treated badly for our faith, the Lord wants us to handle it with patience and self-control, not with anger or revenge.

You see, disdain means to be rejected or looked down upon, and we can expect it if we follow Christ. In fact, the more serious we are about our faith, the more pushback we might get. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that our natural reaction is to fight back when we're treated with disdain, but that really can lead to further trouble.

Instead, we're to remain calm, think before we speak, and let God handle it. Now with his message called "Discipline of Disdain," here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.

Jack Hibbs: Lord, we pray that You would give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us, this church, and how we might live a life that is filled with disciplines, that we might be ordered, and that we might be equipped and well able to be servants of Yours. There's no greater joy than to be used by You, Lord. So Lord, use us now in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen.

Church, grab your Bibles tonight as we pick up in our series "The Disciplines of Life." Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28. As it is the theme of our series, Matthew chapter 28. While you're turning there, you're going to want to stop off at Matthew 13. Matthew 28 and Matthew 13.

The theme being found in Matthew chapter 28, verse 18: Jesus said as He spoke to His disciples, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." Make followers of the Lord Jesus to every nation.

Listen to this: "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." A disciple is a disciplined believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Tonight, we look at the discipline of disdain. You say, what is that word? Well, predominantly it's an old English word that we need to be very familiar with: disdain.

But as we get ready for it, the launch point for our study tonight is found in Matthew 13. Look at verse 53: "Now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. And when He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, 'Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?'" (The miracles that Jesus did.)

Verse 55: "'Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?'" (Not the Judas who betrayed Him; this is His stepbrother Judas.) "'And His sisters?'" (Joseph and Mary clearly had at least two girls after the birth of Jesus.) "'Are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?' So they were offended at Him."

And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own home." What an amazing statement. Verse 55 is the launch point for the discipline of disdain. What does it mean to experience disdain? Well, listen, the American dictionary defines disdain as the looking upon or the treating of another with contempt.

The word means disgust or to scorn someone. The word means to think of someone unworthy of notice, or of your response, or your consideration. The word also means a feeling of contempt for anything valued as worthless or unworthy. They looked—that is, those who were in Jesus' neighborhood, I'll put it that way—who, when they saw His ministry begin, they said, "Wait a minute, there's a contradiction here."

He is able to say these tremendous things and do these mighty miracles, but here's the part they tripped over. And I wonder if you trip over this tonight: "Is this not the carpenter's son?" That is a statement of disdain. That's not a compliment. They are mocking Jesus.

And you know that from His Christmas birth, the scandal that surrounded the fact that Mary was found to be pregnant with child. His whole life was surrounded by gossip, innuendo, and attack. I love the fact that the Son of God came into the world in such humble settings and grew up under such a scrutiny of critique and criticism, which is awesome to me.

He is the most cursed name on earth. Think about it: Jesus. He is the most despised name on earth. His name can generate wars: Jesus. And yet at the same time, it is the most worshiped name. He is the most attractive, and His name can spawn great peace in your life and, for that matter, salvation and eternal life.

He is the dividing point for all of mankind. The Bible spoke about His coming, and He came. The Bible speaks about all of His ministry, and He ministered. And what He ministered to us was His love, faithfulness, kindness, God's heart toward all of us, no matter who we might be or what kind of sins we've racked up in life.

It is the Bible that says that God will forgive you if you come to Him. It's amazing to me, it's awesome to me to think that somebody would look at Jesus with disdain and scorn. And yet people do that today. And honestly, I've got to tell you, I am increasingly amazed. This is the fun part about getting older. You young people tonight, listen up.

It seems to me that when I hit 45, things began to settle in. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior on a way to a party when I was 19 years old. That was 1877. And as I was going down to the beach, I pulled into a church service. It happened to have been at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and heard the gospel presented and changed my life that night forever.

From that moment, my walk with God began. And all along the way, I've got to tell you, all along the way, God has never forsaken me. He's never abandoned me. I have forsaken Him. I've abandoned Him. There's times when I wish I would have been more loyal to Him and I wasn't. I wish there were times when I would have been more faithful to His command and I wasn't.

But He's never abandoned me. And Jesus said, "I'll never leave you or forsake you," and that is true. But I've got to tell you that as you grow older with Jesus, when I hit about 45 years of age—and I don't think it's the age that matters, I think it's the experience with Jesus that matters—that there becomes a settling in of what it means to be a Christian.

You can kind of enter into that rest that the book of Hebrews talks about where people are fretting and worrying about things, and you don't. You begin to realize that God's in control for real. You look at these things and there's a temptation to panic, but then Jesus said as the last days approach, there's going to be great lawlessness and great violence in the earth.

And we're seeing that everywhere. But I've got to tell you, when you think about what's happening, there is a settling in of peace in the midst of the storm. What brings me great comfort is to understand that even now today, as a Christian, if you take a stand—listen up, everybody—if you take a stand for what the Bible says, you're going to be marked, labeled, and ridiculed, and disdained by people.

In this culture, that should be a badge of honor to every one of us. We should get in line to get criticized by this cockeyed, goofball culture of ours. We claim to know all the answers, but why are we having so little success? We claim to be so brilliant and enlightened, but we have more disruption and more disconnect than ever. What's going on?

The truth of the matter is that when we reject God, when we disdain God, we suffer for that. The Bible says in Luke chapter 6, verse 26, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you." Listen to this: "For so did their fathers to the false prophets." Every one of us want people to speak well of us. Listen, let's be honest. I'll confess it for you: you want people to speak well of you. Here's the thing: for you to get people to speak well of you is impossible.

Because listen, you can please everybody in this room tonight. Tonight's Wednesday night. My brain's on a fast track, man. So you can have everybody speak well of you tonight, but listen, 24 hours from now, it can be a different story. If you go about in this world trying to please people, you will upset a lot of people.

The truth is, if you go about life trying and willing to please the only one who matters—and in all honesty, I'm not saying this as a fudge factor, but if you live to please God—then you'll probably wind up knowingly or unknowingly blessing a lot of people throughout life as you seek to please God. The very thing that you want to accomplish in the eyes of people to a good degree, you can only do that through the Lord.

But don't ever become someone who is bound by people's opinions because all of our opinions change constantly. The Bible says in Proverbs 29:25, "The fear of man is a snare." Man, is that not true? Can I hear an amen to that? "Oh, what's people going to think?" You ever thought about what people are going to think? "Oh, if I do this, what will they say?" It's called peer pressure.

And it's very destructive. Peer pressure, it's native to our hearts, but the more confident we become in God, the more liberated we become from the opinions of men. And so tonight as we look at the discipline of disdain, we'll give you five things to consider. Number one, jot it down, and that is identifying disdain.

To identify rejection, scorn, and mockery. The Bible says, Jesus said it in John 15:18. Listen to this; some of us really need to hear this. He says, "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world"—that is of its fiber, the word means if you were woven into it—"if you had your tentacles or your claws, in our case our feet, sunk into the earth," He says the world would love its own.

The world would love you because you know what? You're not causing any ripples. You're just a little lemming like everybody else. And you say yes when you're supposed to say yes, and you say no when you're supposed to say no, and you don't ask any questions. Students, I know we have students in here. You want to listen off the record? You want to drive your professors nuts?

Ask questions a lot in class. Remember when you're a little kid growing up, you drove your mom nuts when you'd say, "How come? Why? How come?" When mom would say "because," like that's an answer. "Because. Why are you doing this? Because." Listen, out there in the world, shake it up, man. When somebody says something in class, ask them, "Can you explain what you mean by that?"

Oh man, you'll stump them. It may be above their pay grade, but ask it anyway. Ask it. So Jesus said in John 15:19, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me," Jesus said, "they will also persecute you."

Disdain. Listen, Christian, being disdained by this world is native to Christianity. It's normal. It's normal Christianity. When the world says, "Hey, what are you doing wearing a cross around your neck? You can't do that on the job. And what's that? You own a Bible? Keep it off your desk." We've all heard that stuff. "You can't do this. You can't do that." We've all gone through that.

The world will disdain, reject, or refuse us. Why? Because Jesus is being refused. Jesus is being rejected. And it's absolute enigma to me because why would someone refuse Jesus? Honestly, let's be honest about this. Why would someone today—I don't care if you're an atheist—why would somebody today say, "I can't handle Jesus. I can't mention His name. You can't have His nativity up. Or you can't have His cross on the mountain. And you can't have a Bible." What's the problem?

Here's what I love to ask: what has Jesus ever done to you? Because listen, people have always upset people. It's very normal for somebody to come back and say, "I'm not going to be a Christian because I had a pastor who upset me." Well, get in line. We've all had that happen. "Well, I can't be a Christian because my dad was a Christian and he beat my mom."

He beating your mom has nothing to do with Christianity. He was just shooting his mouth off and living godlessly. Doesn't mean he was a Christian. Remember that. Just because somebody says they're a Christian doesn't make them a Christian. What's that old saying? It was really cute 50 years ago. Going to Winchell's Donuts—okay, scratch that. Going to Krispy Kreme. Going to Krispy Kreme doesn't make you a donut.

And that is an absolute truth. Listen, you can say you're a Christian; it doesn't make you a Christian. Are you following Jesus? That's what makes you a Christian. Big difference. But this was Jesus' experience to be disdained and He's telling us tonight: you can identify disdain. It's going to come to you. If you're going to live godly for the Lord, you will be attacked is what the Bible teaches us.

In 1 Corinthians 4:11, the Bible says, "To the present hour," says Paul the apostle—think of that for a moment, the apostle Paul. "To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless, and we labor working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. Being defamed, we entreat. And we have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now."

This is the apostle Paul. His face and his name adorns churches around the world, and he's saying, "Yes, sign up for the ministry. Be a Christian. You'll be rejected, homeless, beat up, and—next! Sign up. Wow." But disdain is a badge of honor for the believer. And to identify it is to know this: that it will come from the world who does not know God. It will come from the world that doesn't know God.

And here's the truth: don't raise your hand right now, but how many of you are Christians who live with or are married to someone who's not a Christian? And you go home, and you are mocked, you're ridiculed, you're attacked, you're tested. I want to encourage some of you tonight. Because I know that there are, especially women, wives in this church.

There are many wives who go home to unbelieving husbands and they make fun of them, and they mock them, and that's a tremendous thing to go home to. In fact, you come to church for a lot of reasons, but one of them is just to get relief. And that's a tragic thing. But listen, the Bible says that by your godly actions, you may just win your spouse to the Lord.

And the constant probing, you know old J. Vernon McGee? Well, he's not old anymore; he's dead and he went to heaven, so he's very young and doing fine. He said if you take a rock and you throw it into a pack of dogs, the dog that yelps the loudest is the dog that got hit. And when you go home, or when you go to class, or when you go to work and the coworkers or the family say, "Oh, went to church Sunday, honey, did you? Woo woo! Hey, did you worship little Jesus?"

They will mock and ridicule and make fun of you. Understand this: the person that's usually spouting off the loudest is the person who's actually really thinking that what you believe in may actually be worthy of their faith, but they're testing to see if it's worthy of their affection and worthy of their attention. And so you will become the brunt of their criticism and their attack to see if it takes the shot.

This is a good thing. It doesn't feel like a good thing. I know it doesn't feel like a good thing. I'm sure when Jesus was attacked and spit on, mocked and ridiculed, that it didn't feel good. Jesus Christ, though God in human skin, He had our feelings. We forget about that. We think that He snapped His finger and He didn't feel the ridicule, mockery, or the disdain.

No, quite the opposite. He felt everything that you and I feel, hyperso, tremendously. When He was rejected, it hurt Him the most. Why? Imagine, if a stranger rejects you, what do you care? If a friend rejects you, it hurts. If a family member rejects you, it hurts all the more. If a husband or a wife rejects you, it hurts tremendously.

Can you imagine if Your own creation that You understand and love and concluded that it was worth You leaving heaven and coming to earth to die for them, turns and spits in Your face, literally, and mocks You with ultimate disdain? You want to talk about pain and suffering? You and I don't even know what that's like. Is He not love? And love rejected of that magnitude?

I cannot even fathom that. It's beyond my world. Identifying disdain: yes, it comes from the world. It will be absolutely painful, but God uses this. It's not unusual for the believer. In Psalm 2, listen to this: "Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing?" What's a vain thing that the people plot? "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together."

What are they doing? "Against the Lord and against His Anointed," that's Messiah, saying, "Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us." That is amazing to think that they would reject. The world rejects God tonight and Jesus, the one who loves them. How could Jesus suffer under disdain? And the answer is He considered the source of the attack, that it was coming from the spirit of the world.

Identifying disdain is something that you and I need to do. Matthew 27, listen to this. You can just listen as I read this to you. Matthew 27:39 says, "And those who passed by Jesus blaspheming Him, wagging their heads," that is a very naughty thing to do in the Middle East, in Israel, it's a physical gesture. "And saying, 'You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross!'"

Listen: "Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save.'" They're trying to provoke Jesus to do some miracle to get off the cross. And I'm wondering if just for a moment, Satan wasn't catching on that the Son of God was dying on the cross for the sins of the world.

"Come down from there and then we'll believe. He saved others; Himself He cannot save." You know what the truth is? He saved others; Himself He would not save. That's the truth. Mocking. Imagine, hanging there, mocking. Your creation is mocking You, slapping You in the face, spitting on You, and trying to provoke You. And Jesus took the disdain.

Number two, we want to learn about the discipline of disdain and that's: how do we handle disdain? How do we deal with it? Remember disdain is that rejection, mockery. And it most often happens, listen Christian, I want to encourage you, it most often happens to you and I when we are growing the most in our relationship with Jesus.

David Jay: Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "Discipline of Disdain." Thanks for joining us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called "The Disciplines of Life." It's a series that highlights the disciplines of the Christ-follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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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.

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.