We Are Blessed in God - 1C

Jack Hibbs: It is God. Why settle for a fallen, burned-out, goofball earth that is passing away? It’s God. The peace that comes to our lives is based upon our relationship with God.
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 friends, come with me on our Bold Faith Hawaii cruise, June 12th to the 19th, 2027. We’re going to set sail for seven unforgettable days with myself, Dr. Frank Turek, and special worship with Gia Lucid. It’s going to be a breathtaking trip. This is more than a vacation; it’s a time of rest, renewal, fellowship, and spiritual strength in the Word of God, all centered around the Bible. You can reserve your spot by going to jackhibbs.com.
David J: On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called The Book of Ephesians in a message titled, "We Are Blessed in God, Part 1." Ephesians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote from prison to the church in Ephesus, showing every believer who they really are in Christ. Right from the start, Paul reminds us that we are a blessed people. He says God has already given us riches in Christ that no one can ever take away. Ephesus may have been known for their achievements and wealth, but they were a pagan city filled with violence and immorality, and a place where everything you have can be gone in an instant. Today, Pastor Jack teaches that God has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Why should we worry when everything we need has already been provided by the Lord who loves us and gave His life for our salvation? Now, with his message called, "We Are Blessed in God, Part 1," here is pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
Jack Hibbs: I have to tell you something right now. That day we were on the metro and we were going from one place to another, and we were sitting there. There were about five of us. One of the girls that was with us, one of the Russian girls, I leaned over to her and I said, "Let’s pray." I tell you guys, I didn’t see a vision, I didn’t have a little angel go, "Do it, man. Say this." It was nothing spiritual or supernatural about it, I thought. We’re just standing there, and the thing is going like this. I leaned over and I said, "Let’s pray for your dad’s salvation right now." She goes, "Sure." I said, "Lord, in Jesus' name, if You want her dad to get saved, I just ask You to open the door. We’re not going to push on any doors. I just ask You to open the door. Amen." That was it. She said, "I don’t think he’s going to get saved. He wonders why I even go to church and I don’t know if it’s going to happen." We wound up getting to their place that night for dinner and we’re sitting there. It was fantastic. We were the first Westerners to ever visit their home. The translator that was with me told me, "I’ve never seen a spread like this in my life." It was very humbling but very precious. The mom and the dad were just putting out all these things and we were eating and just having a great time. It came time for the dishes to be picked up from the table, and I had totally forgotten that I had prayed that prayer. The father says, "How many times have you been here?" I told him, and he said, "Wow." In Russian, he said, "Wow-sky" or something. I was at one end of the table, he was at the other end of the table, and the other people were on the side of the table. Pastor Paul was sitting next to him, and Olinka was on my left side. He said, "What are you guys doing? What message are you doing? What is this? There are a lot of messages that have been coming to our city and I’ve heard a lot of them." I just went, "Wow," and her eyes got this big. Immediately, if you could have a little faith meter, you could see the faith meter in her heart go up 25 notches just then, instantly. I looked at her and said, because he couldn't understand me, "Why don't you leave? Why don't you just go?" She goes, "No, I want to stay." I go, "No, I think you should go." "No, I want to stay." "No, you go." So she stepped out and it was just Paul and I and him. I said, "Do you really want to know what it is that we told your daughter a couple of years ago and what we're telling the people when we come here?" He said, "I'd like to hear this." For an hour and twenty minutes, the gospel was shared with him. I can't give you the details, obviously, in 10 minutes, but I can tell you this: every question he asked, I was able to say, "Paul, turn to Romans 12 and read him verses six and eight." Paul read it. Then he would say something else, "Paul, turn in your Russian Bible to First Corinthians four." Over and over and over again. Somewhere along the line, because I knew this guy was getting close, I told him, "Our lives are like a cup. It’s like a glass. Imagine it being filled with pure water. Someone takes a droplet of cyanide and puts one drop in that water. Would you drink that water?" He said, "I would not drink that water." "So what happens if we put two, three, ten drops in that water? Would you drink it?" "No, of course not." "Why?" "Because if there's one drop, I wouldn't drink it at all because it's not pure water anymore." I said, "You're right." He said, "If there's one drop in that vessel of water, then the entire vessel is defiled." The Russian people speak true English. We have butchered our language. When he said that vessel is now defiled, Paul looked over at me and he got goosebumps. It was like, "Oh Lord, we're going in for the touchdown." You could feel it. I said, "Then would you agree with me that you're a sinner? That you've broken the Ten Commandments?" He said, "I'm not sure about the Ten Commandments. What do you mean Ten Commandments?" I gave him the first commandment and he said, "I've broken that one." I said, "Then we don't need to go any further, do we? Because it’s one drop. Remember the one drop defiles the whole vessel?" He says, "Yes, of course." I said, "Then you are a sinner." He says, "I'm a sinner." "Do you realize this evening that you need a Savior?" "Yes, I do." I said, "This is the message we’re bringing." He interrupted me and said, "But how do you become a Christian?" I said, "Are you asking for curiosity reasons or do you want to become a Christian?" He said, "I'm just asking how one becomes a Christian." I told him. When I got done telling him, I said, "Would you like to become a Christian?" He said, "I need to make sure I understand this." I said, "Before I tell you any more, let me tell you something right now. I can tell you right now in all honesty that in a moment, if you haven't already, you’re going to start feeling a little anxiety in your chest, in your heart. You might start to get a little sweaty around your hands, and you might feel pressure. The next thing you might experience is that you might feel almost like escaping and giving an excuse. I just want you to know that right now." So Paul tells him that. We go a little bit more about explaining it again. Then I said, "Will you accept Jesus Christ right now? You have admitted that you're a sinner. You know that He's God come in the flesh, rose from the dead, Son of God, and that you need Him as your Savior. Will you accept Him?" He says, "I don't know. I don't know." I go, "Are you feeling uneasy?" "Yes, I am." I said, "Don't you see? This has all been ordained of God. I told you earlier that you would feel uneasy and now you're feeling uneasy. Will you accept the Lord now?" He says, "No, I'll do it some other day." We went right here to this verse, Second Corinthians 6. I had Paul read it to him. Today is the acceptable time. Now is the day. I said, "Today is your day." He says, "But will God pull me away from my daughter? Will God separate us because she goes to church Wednesdays and Sundays and she's around Christian friends and I don't see her as much as I'd like to anymore? And will God separate us?" I said, "You've asked the hard question." I said, "It's freezing outside, but think about Wednesdays and Sundays. She goes down to the bay here, the Finnish Bay. She gets on a boat and she goes to the back of the boat and she waves goodbye every Wednesday and Sunday as that ship sails, let's say, to Hawaii." "For an hour or two or three or four at church, she is refreshed, she's warmed, she's made whole, she feels great, and she comes back home. The message goes out to you: get on the ship, get on board, come on, get on the boat. You run down to the dock and she gets on the boat every Wednesday and every Sunday, and you just wave goodbye as you drop her off in your car at the metro as she goes, and you wave goodbye." "There will come a day when she'll be on the back of that boat and I'll be on the back of that boat and all of us will be on the back of that boat, and we're going to be saying, 'Come on, come on, quick, come.' Because of either pride, because we’re men, I told him, I said, 'Look, we’re men. It’s either because of pride, because of fear, or because of the unknown we won’t get on.' Yet several times during the week, your daughter sets sail for paradise and comes home and her life has been changed completely." He says, "Yes, she even goes when she's sick to church." I go, "Because her life's been changed. My life's been changed. Paul's life has been changed." I said, "Whose fault will it be when that ship someday sets sail, never to come back?" He says, "It will be no one's fault but my own." This guy was a fish looking for a net. When we gave him this verse right here, Second Corinthians 6:1 and 2, that today is the day, not tomorrow, not later, "I'll do it some other time," that moment, he rolled his eyes and he says, "That's it. That's it." I said, "You want to pray right now?" He says, "Yes, I do." So we got together and we prayed. It was so great to walk out of the room. I had to actually shut the door because his daughter kept coming in the room. I open up the door and I went in the hallway and her and her mother were standing there with some other people. I said, "Hey, guess what? Why don't you go in there and meet your dad?" She said, "You’ve got to be kidding me." I said, "I'm not kidding you." The mother goes, "What's going on? I've been listening. I've been coming in and out. What's the deal?" It was so late and we had to get going because we had a plane to catch, but the bottom line was the mother said, "I will pray that prayer tonight, too." It’s incredible. In a moment's time, Christianity, what Jesus has done, immediately places you from a vandalized, victimized person of this world who we all are, and positionally puts us in Christ, saved in Him, cleansed and made pure because God, so to speak, takes a brush, dips it in the blood of Jesus, and just covers you with it, and you are absolutely cleansed. That's when that happens. Why does it happen? John chapter 14. John chapter 14 is the answer to why does this happen. John 14 says Jesus says, "I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot see because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and He shall be in you." Jesus says something so strange in John 14:18. Jesus says, remember He's leaving, "I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to you, so I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you." What a strange statement He makes. Finally this in verse two, He says, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Real quickly, verse two, consider the origin of our blessing. Jot that down. What is the origin of our blessings? From Smith Barney? From the Templeton group? From the company retirement fund? Good luck. Verse two tells us that the origin of our blessings is from God the Father. Amen. If you have any problem with insecurity, it's also from Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. His name isn't Lord Jesus Christ, by the way. Jesus isn't His middle name. Lord is His title. Jesus is His name, and Christ is His mission. The Lord Jesus Christ. What this implies is that grace has come from the Father to us by the Son. This word "grace" is God's unearned divine favor. People, tonight you are so incredibly wealthy. You can't do anything to get God to give you favor. He just gives it. He just kind of, "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you, Joe, need grace," and He gives it. "Oh, but I don't deserve it!" So what? I'm giving it to you. God's blessings, grace, God giving what is not deserved. Then He gives this peace. What's implied here is that the peace comes from Jesus Christ. Isn't that interesting? This word "peace" is an internal quietness of the soul. We talked about this before, a deep and resilient rest. It means to be set at one with, to have peace. A lot of New Agers running around today saying, "You need to be one with nature. Pick up a rock and hug it." Go ahead. Pick up a rock and hug the thing. talk to it. Give it a name. We had a lady tell us in Utah, I told you before, "Oh, you've got to buy this rock." "What for?" "You put it in your bathtub and you really feel good." That depends on where you sit in your bathtub, I guess. "Oh, just get in one." No, man. It's God. It is God. Why settle for a fallen, burned-out, goofball earth that is passing away? It's God. The peace that comes to our lives is based upon our relationship with God. You don't have any peace? The bumper sticker's so true: "No God, No Peace. Know God, Know Peace." It's so true. It's Him being the Lord of our lives, being our precious Provider. Verse two is that our blessings are guaranteed in God because they’re given by Him, yielding to Him as our Ruler, our Governor. Finally, this third point and we'll be all done is in verse three. We need to receive right now what's provided to us in the way of these blessings. Look what it says. Verse three, and we'll pick up in verse three next week, too, and man, does it start an incredible train of thought. Right here at verse three, he says, "Blessed. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Isn't this funny? The word "blessed" means well-off, happy. Happy be God. I like this. God, happy. "Oh look, they're getting saved and they're getting saved. I'm just..." and I'm giving them grace and peace. God's blessed by doing that. Give somebody a gift. Something neat about it. When you're a little kid, you want all the gifts. When you're an older person, you want to give them. You learn that, man, that's neat. God is blessed. Oh, how happy be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who—mark it in your Bible now, people—has (past tense) blessed (past tense) us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, literally, in Christ. Everything. You know what? We ought to just shut our Bibles and just go home, not only because it's time to, but because we really... we could spend the rest of our Christian life just on that verse and we're still going to miss it because I don't know if we're serious about this. Have you ever worried? Then we’re not applying verse three. I have all the wealth like that lady, a hundred million bucks, but she lived like a pauper. So often we do, too. Everything is available to me and you as a believer and we go around worrying if we’re going to make it next week. God's got all of it. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean He's dropping you off. None of us have the answer. What's going to happen? Are we going to get it or not get it? Are we going to lose it or keep it? Is it going to sink or is it going to float? Hey man, I don't know. But He knows. Boy, does He have the resources to do something about it. "But what if I lose this thing?" Hey, maybe God wants it to be lost. "Oh, that can't be, man." Listen, He's the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you a Christian? He's the Lord. What's the problem? Did He buy you? Did He die on the cross for you? Did He put His Holy Spirit in you? You're His. You're not going anywhere without Him. He's blessed us. We'll get into this next week. Let's pray. Lord, we all can confess tonight we are so guilty of not believing You. Lord, I am confident that if we meditated, if we committed to memory verse three alone, we would be a changed people by the end of next month. A storm could come, a storm could go. The sun could rise and the sun could set. Life could come and life could go. Everything already has been provided for us in the heavenlies. Lord, as we turn to what it means in our lives practically as a believer next week, may You excite our hearts with anticipation about all that You have prepared for us. For Your scripture declares that eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, what things await us. So Father, in the name of Your precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, may we enter in—in Him, in Christ, in God, in Himself, as this epistle will take us into the heavenlies. We pray this, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio and his message called, "We Are Blessed in God, Part 1." Thanks for joining us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series now called The Book of Ephesians. It’s a series through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, discovering the riches, the walk, and the warfare of every believer. We’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Are you searching for answers these days in a world where truth is hard to find? Well, my friend, as you heard in our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you’d like to learn more about what that means to you personally, just go to our website, jackhibbs.com, and then click on that tab there that’s labeled "Know God." There, you’ll be guided through what committing to Jesus Christ really means and the freedom that you’ll find in knowing God. That’s the "Know God" tab at our website, jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com.
Jack Hibbs: Hey, thank you again so much for listening. 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. 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.
David J: 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.