Today on Real Life Radio. He says right here, you gotta get along with each other. You gotta forbear each other.
Well, how do you do that? You know what? Are you always lowly? Are you always gentle? Are you always exercising long-suffering in your life?
Are you always perfectly in Christ putting up with people? If you do, then you're hired. 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.
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 reallifeenetwork.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues his series called 1 Samuel and a message titled Church Growth 101, Part 5. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel, and he was the first of its prophets.
So here in chapter 16, we'll continue to see that just as the Spirit of the Lord came upon King David, God wants to do the same thing for us. You see, for the church to grow in a healthy way, there's got to be a dependency upon the Holy Spirit's anointing rather than simply human effort.
So when a church aligns itself with the Holy Spirit, the growth that follows is both productive and meaningful.
So today, Pastor Jack teaches that God wants us to be involved in a healthy church that's filled with the Holy Spirit, loving one another with each person using their gifts according to his will and according to his word.
Now with his message called Church Growth 101, Part 5, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. It says there in First Samuel 16, 13, then Samuel. Took the horn of oil and anointed him, that is David, in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord, that is the Holy Spirit, came upon David from that day forward. And so Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
And so we've been talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. and how powerful God wants to work and move in His church. and the person of the work of the Holy Spirit In the lives of the believer is really a theme that should not only have started in the book of Acts, but it should be continuing today. You know, the book of Acts, technically, there should be a 29th, 30th, 31st, 32nd. 195th chapter, if you were thinking about it, the book of Acts has never really come to an end.
But if you were to correctly entitle the book of Acts, it would be something like the Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Lives of the Believers. Because God the Holy Spirit wants to move in His church, and He does that by imparting to the church gifts that edify the body of Christ. Very important. And so In Acts chapter 1, I'll read it, or you can turn there, follow along with me if you'd like, take notes if you'd like. In Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, there's a wonderful portion.
that Luke, the author of the book of Acts, introduces to us. And he says there in verse 1, Acts chapter 1, the former account. I made Otheophilus. Two things about that. The former account.
Is referring to the Gospel of Luke. Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, and Luke wrote the book of Acts. He says the former account, or the Gospel of Luke, which I wrote. He says, O Theophilus.
Now, Theophilus, we honestly don't know who Theophilus is. Most scholars believe that Theophilus is a man. The reason why we have questions about it is because the name Theophilus in Greek is lover of God. One who loves God. And so we don't know if he's, if Luke as a slave, remember, Luke was a physician, he was a doctor.
In those days, doctors were slaves. Wouldn't it be great if your doctor was your slave tonight? Hey Doc, I got a headache. Yeah. But rich people owned doctors back then rather than doctors owning rich people.
Today and everybody else. If you were rich, you had a doctor and he lived in servants' quarters and Well It's believed that in church history that Luke was a physician and his Master was saved. And Having fallen in love with Jesus, his master set Luke go as a slave, giving him to Paul. And he traveled with Paul because Paul needed a doctor everywhere Paul went. He was either getting stoned, and that's not with drugs, that was with rocks, as his opponents and protesters came against him.
And Paul was often sick. He battled malaria, he battled eye trouble. Paul had a lot of things that ailed him. And so Luke traveled with him. But a beautiful portion of scripture here in Acts chapter 1, verse 1, he says, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day in which he, Jesus, was taken up.
After he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs. Being seen by them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them. Jesus commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you have heard from me. And that promise of the Father is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 14.
Ephesians 4:1 through 14 says, I, therefore, Paul is speaking, the prisoner of the Lord Jesus, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling. with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.
Now, this he ascended. What does it mean? But that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. That's a reference to. Um Sheol or Abraham's bosom.
Prior, I don't want to go off into that, that's a wonderful, fun study. But when Old Testament believers died, they didn't go directly to heaven, they went to Abraham's bosom, also called paradise. until Jesus rose from the dead. You can study that later on your own. But it's a neat thing.
Um Verse 10, he who descended also is the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastor-teachers. For the equipping of the saints. For the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come together in the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect or complete man. to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. Real quickly, this portion of scripture is where we'll find our teaching for tonight. And we're going to end this mini-series. It was not exhaustive, but it was a mini-series on the gifts. And we're going to be focusing on this one that I just made mention here in the reading, and that is that of evangelism or witnessing.
And specifically, though, the gift of evangelism and what that might mean. But notice with me as we've looked in verses 1 through 14 in Ephesians 4. Paul said this. that we would walk worthy. How many of you feel worthy right now?
You're just worthy. You know, if you have a healthy Control on control. If you have a healthy handle on your position in Christ, you may not feel worthy, but you know that you are worthy in Christ. But I don't know about you, but I don't feel worthy. But Paul says here that were to walk worthy of the calling.
So right there from the get-go, I feel a little deficient. Then he says, with lowliness and gentleness and long-suffering, listen, bearing one another in love. You know what that word means in the Greek? Putting up with one another. See, we're really brothers and sisters.
We have to put up with one another. You ever wonder why we don't always get along? Because we're related. He says right here, you got to get along with each other, you got to forbear each other.
Well, how do you do that? You know what? Are you always lowly? Are you always gentle? Are you always exercising long-suffering in your life?
Are you always perfectly in Christ putting up with people? Uh if you do, then You're hired. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, endeavoring, do you, in every way, shape, or form? Strive And endeavor to keep the unity that in no way, listen, that is, in all of our lives, this should be our conduct, by the way, in all of our lives, we conduct ourselves in such a way that we're not really so much concerned about the other person because we've elevated them even higher than who they really are. We see them as their Jesus themselves and we treat them like that.
Well, I feel like that. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry. Are you, am I equipping the saints? Are we doing the work of the ministry? I hope so.
And does it result in the edifying of the body of Christ? When people are with you, do they walk away from you saying, Man, you know what? I can't wait to be with them again. I just felt so encouraged being around them. I want to be with them.
Or do people They can't wait to get away from you. Because all they heard while you were in their presence, you were hearing them tear down somebody. And, oh, that guy's a bum, and oh, look at her, you know. Ugh. No, an edified church is a healthy church.
And God has given us the gifts of the Holy Spirit. that the church might be edified. Why? That the church might be healthy. that the church might be productive.
Pastor Chuck has taught for years, and he still says it to this day, and it's a wonderful thing: that all you have to do is feed the sheep the Word of God. Feed the people the Word of God, feed the sheep. Because the key to the growth at Calvary Chapel should be this, that healthy sheep reproduce sheep. When people Are healthy, when sheep are healthy, when animals are healthy, when fish are healthy, they reproduce. And when you're healthy spiritually, you're going to be reproducing other believers.
You're going to be telling people about Christ. You're going to be excited. You're going to be sharing the love of the Lord. And even if you don't say a word to anybody, you're going to be glowing for God and how you conduct your life. It's very important.
The exercising of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Listen, in my opinion. The exercising of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the church. is a test of that church. of the pastor and of the congregation itself.
I had somebody tell me. a couple Wednesday nights ago. And it really stuck with me. This young lady said, you know? The church that I was attending, they always talked about the Holy Spirit.
We recognize him as the Uh oh. Lord God that he is in the Trinity and Have no problem with that. We talked about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but we never. Ever stepped out to exercise those gifts as a church. Just never Did it?
Place was never given for it.
Well, okay. But listen. To exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit, both in a congregational setting. or outside these walls. Be it preaching or evangelism or teaching or whatever it might be.
It's a test. I believe it's a test from God. If you were to take lithmus paper and test the church that you attend, I'm assuming maybe you all attend here, or maybe you're visiting, I don't know. But either at this church or some church that you attend, If you were to test that church according to the word of God, one of the things, first of all, that you're concerned about is. Is our church following or doing the utmost to follow what is written in the Word of God, the Bible?
Number two, is our pastor promoting what the Bible has to say concerning the Word of God? Or does he offer up excuses? Oh, well that was done 2,000 years ago. It's not done now.
Well why is that the case? Or is the congregation Not receiving what the Word of God clearly teaches, that the congregation picks and chooses what. It's comfortable for them. These are all dangers if we're not applying the Word of God to our lives. as a church, as a pastor, as a congregation.
We could be in big trouble. As a people, we can Appear to have the power thereof, but deny that power. We can look just like a church. But I'm wondering if it would be a church that the Lord would want to work in. That he would wanna move in.
I don't know. Let me lay this out before you. If God is gonna go heal tonight, let's say He's, let's, can you imagine? Let's say Jesus. Was to somehow speak tonight and say, you know what?
He shows up, and that would be pretty wild, wouldn't it? He shows up and he says, Hey, Calvary Chapel, come on, get in the bus. We're gonna go out to Loma Linda. And we're going to walk through the hallways of that hospital, and I'm going to be healing everybody. In fact, I want you to go down that hallway.
Can you imagine? I want you guys to go down that hallway, and in my name, I want you to go and just. Pray for those people. They're gonna be healed. Can you imagine?
Don't wanna. There'll be something. Yeah, it'd be something. But you know what? I want to be the kind of church that, if God's going to say that, I want him to say it here.
I want him to see it.
Well, Pastor, watch out now. You know, watch out now. If you expect something really big and it doesn't happen, you're going to get discouraged. I'm discouraged most of the time anyway. It doesn't matter.
Mm-hmm. 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.
So here's the cool thing. If Jesus says it, just imagine for a moment, Jesus says it, let's go do it. God forbid that he would show up here and you'd pull up in the parking lot, you know. Yeah. Pull out his Palm pilot, he wouldn't have a palm pilot.
But he pulls up and he checks our address, shakes his head, and drives away. He goes down the street to some other church. Oh, I can use them because they're open to me. Look, I want to be open to the Holy Spirit, and I can rest at ease with that because the Bible is my guideline for what happens concerning the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Well, Pastor Jack, what if somebody jumps out of the walls and swings around and says, This is a message from God? And well, I'm going to say, wait, time out. Sit down. You don't interrupt the teaching service. The Holy Spirit would never do that.
He never interrupts himself. But if we were waiting upon the Lord and such a thing happened, I'd say, sit down. I'd still say, sit down. Sit down. Now what's your message?
And we would hear that message and judge it according to the Word of God. If it's off the wall from the Bible, And wacky, then we'd either rebuke that person honestly, say, don't ever speak again. until you get your Bible right. Or it's time for you to go.
Now, we had a lady on a third service. I don't know if you know this or not. We had a lady in the third service. She's sitting right about here. Nothing personal, but that's a hot seat right there.
The service was coming to a conclusion, third service, and this. Uh Bruce began to play the music. And this lady, and I saw in her eyes, she stood up.
Well, everybody stood up. As soon as she stood up, though, she started coming toward me right here, and I looked in her eyes and. That concerned me. Instantly. Honestly, I looked and I said to myself, I don't like her eyes.
This is something wrong. And she goes, I have a message. I have a message. And I heard.
Okay. I heard every word she said. And I said, what? And she goes, I have a message. And I'm telling you, her eyes.
Something's wrong. And I said, I'll tell you what, it's loud in here, the music's playing. Step over here, and you can tell me about your message. She was okay.
So as we're walking out, she's talking about, she's trying to talk to me about something. And all I can think about, and I really felt the Lord said, get out of the building. Get out of the building with her. And I went through that door right there. And um She goes, now I have to hurry up and get back in there because I have a message for a young man in there.
And I said, well, tell me the message. She goes, oh, I can't tell you the message. It's not for you. And I said, Well, where's the young man? She goes, Oh, I don't know.
I'm going to get it behind the pulpit, I'm going to announce it. And I said, oh. I can't hear it, but you're going to announce it to the people. I said, Look, I don't know who you are. She said, Doesn't matter, I work for God.
And I said, you do?
Well, I do too. If you work for God and I work for God, then tell me what the message is. She was not going to tell you what the message is. And I said, Lady, If you work for God and I work for God, if you're a prophet and I'm a pastor, Surely we can get along.
Now here's the deal. Tell me the message or you're not going in the building. And she goes, I am not going to tell you the message, and I am going in the building. I said, you know, two things. Number one, You physically won't make it in.
Secondly, it's a federal offense to disrupt a religious service, which we'll have you arrested for.
So tell me the message. And she said, you Blankety, cheek, and goop and Language you could not believe. And I was like this and there was an usher behind her and He was just red. I was red. The cussing.
People were coming out and we got her. Out of the way. And I tell you Thank God she never came back. But God protected this body. And that stuff has happened from time to time.
And You'd say, well, Jack, you know, that's why we don't want to be open to the Holy Spirit. Don't ever think that. Because listen, didn't Jesus, when he was ministering, even when the apostles were ministering, and Jesus had long time ascended back into heaven, didn't they contend with impostors and strange difficulties? They were open to the work of the Holy Spirit, but they knew the word of God to judge things by. And they didn't allow things to go on.
That's very important. And so, as we conclude this mini-series, know this. That the gifts of the Holy Spirit, remember, are not infallible. Did you know that? They're not infallible.
People will make mistakes concerning the use of the gifts of the Spirit. You want to know why? Because God's using imperfect creatures, He's using us. And people will say, you know what, I really felt like I should have spoken out this word. This verse, Pastor Jack, was in my mind, and I couldn't get this verse out of my mind, but I didn't say anything during our afterglow setting on Wednesday nights later on.
I didn't say anything because I didn't want people to think I was crazy. And you know, that's a shame because you know what? You gotta step out in faith. But So many. Within the church are so afraid of making a mistake in the usage of their gift that they don't use it at all.
And uh I think that's a sad thing. Uh It must be by faith.
Well, tonight we look at what is called the Gift of evangelism. And I think it'd be right for me to just tell you from the start. As we've read in Ephesians 4.11, And he himself gave some to be apostles, not all, some to be prophets, not all, some to be evangelists, not all.
Some to be pastor teachers, not all.
So, what we're talking about immediately now is the gift of evangelism. that is not given by the Holy Spirit to everyone. And you might be saying, well, Jack, you know, that makes me feel better. You know, my husband or my wife or my friends or whoever's been pushing me to evangelize, and I don't have to give the Evangelizing like that, or the gift of an evangelist.
Well, first of all, Take a nice soothing breath and relax because Paul here says, some have the gift. of evangelism. An evangelist is one who announces the evangel or the gospel. That act of evangelizing. is called evangelism.
To tell others.
Now, hopefully, this will set a lot of people free and also at the same time encourage a lot of you. If you have the gift of evangelism, reaching souls for Jesus is your main passion in your life. It drives you. You're always thinking. How you can reach somebody for Christ.
If you have that gift. We'll talk in depth about that gift more and more, but not all people, listen carefully, not all people who evangelize. have the gift of evangelism. You can evangelize, and it's right that we do so, but you may not have the gift of evangelism. You might say, well, Jack, does that mean I'm going to fail from the moment I start?
No. It's safe to say that perhaps most of us in this room don't have the gift of. The evangelist? But it's Possible that most of us have evangelized somebody. What does that mean?
Have you told your children about Jesus? You are evangelizing them. Evangel. Giving them the gospel, the good news. Have you told your husband or your wife or your friend or your neighbor about Jesus?
You are evangelizing. But you don't have the gift of evangelism. Very important. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called Church Growth 101 Part 5. Thanks for being with us today.
You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called 1 Samuel. It's a series that highlights the prophet Samuel, who was called by God during one of Israel's darkest times to bring the people back to a heart of true worship. and will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. This December, Pastor Jack Hibbs is doing something a little different and a lot special. All month long, he's offering a double feature Book of the Month.
Two very powerful resources to help you finish the year strong and step into the next year spiritually grounded. First, Pastor Jack's annual favorite, the One Year Bible. Every year, lives are changed as people discover how simple and doable it is to read through the entire Word of God within just a few minutes a day. Also, Pastor Jack's going to include his brand new devotional, Watching Waiting. It's a 40-day journey designed to help you slow down, look up, and recognize what God is doing in your life.
So this December, why would you choose one when you can get both and grow deeper? Visit jackhibbs.com to get your December Book of the Month double feature, the One Year Bible, and Pastor Jack's brand new devotional, Watching Waiting. They're available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. Again, And that's jackhibbs.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.
