Today on Real Life Radio. If there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Why? Because what you meditate on becomes part of your very being. 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. This Independence Day season, don't just celebrate America's 250th birthday. Stand for what it was built upon. Faith, freedom, truth.
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Pastor Jack continues with his series called Disciplines of Life and a message titled The Discipline of Domination. The Christian walk is full of disciplines, the trials, the setbacks, the hard seasons that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out. And here it will discover that every one of us is being controlled by something. And the question is, what is that something? You see, whether we believe it or not, someone or something is governing our lives right now.
It might be a job, maybe a relationship, a habit, or our own emotions, but God wants us to be the one who dominates our hearts because He is good, and following Him is the best thing that can happen to us.
So today Pastor Jack teaches us that we need the Holy Spirit more than ever in these last days. When we ask God to fill us and lead us, He answers, and the real us comes under His loving control.
Now, with his message called The Discipline of Domination, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. I have never heard someone ever say, You know what I did? Yeah. I obeyed the word of God and look what happened. Have you ever heard that?
I've never heard that. I've heard people say, you know what? I knew down deep inside the Lord was saying no. And I married her anyway, or I married him anyway, or I bought it anyway, or I didn't go where I should have gone. Fill in the blank.
But I have never heard someone say, Well, there you go, I followed God and. Whole thing blew up. Never happened. We have to be careful because our emotions. will seek to override the will of God.
Our flesh will begin to dominate our lives, and we will shop or customize. The situation? To meet what we want emotionally. We'll be making emotionally based decisions. Proverbs 14:12 says: There's a way that seems right to a man, but that way ends in death.
Boy, is that not true? Romans chapter 8, verse 5. You'll hear a lot from the book of Romans tonight because it deals with this very thing. Romans 8:5 says, For those who live according to the flesh, Set their minds on the things of the flesh. They're always thinking just fleshly things.
But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind, that is the mind of this world, the unregenerate mind, is enmity. That word means is at warfare against God.
For it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You say, well, I'm a Christian, I'm living in the flesh, and deal with it, Pastor. No. I don't have to deal with it. It's your life that you're messing up.
It's your life you're destroying. and the people who live in your immediate vicinity. But if you're gonna say, no, I'm gonna live as I please. And I'm going to call myself a Christian. The Bible says that you're deceiving yourself.
And the truth is not in you. I know that's a strong word, but listen. You're dominating yourself. And your passions of the flesh. That lust And then, number two, look at this: refusing what we see with our eyes.
In 1 John 2:16, he goes on and says that it's the lust of the eyes. It's the lust. Of the eyes. Notice the Progression of that. He says it's the lust of the flesh, what we feel.
If it feels good, do it, says the world. And then number two, it is the lust of the eyes. Ooh. It's funny when we see stuff. It comes into our eyes and then it goes out of our mouth.
Look. Ugh. Right? Yeah, I guess. You all know that your eyes And your ears.
Our gateways What we hear is so powerful. I can totally derail you right now from what you're paying attention to right now. I could say right now, the music you listen to today, instantly something will come to your mind about what it will. You'll hear one of the songs out of the entire day that was in your head. Boom, right there.
Or what did you What did you see today that was awesome? Oh What did you see today you shouldn't have seen? Oh. They're gateways. Into the soul.
What we hear, what we see. And The warning that John gives is: we've got a situation when we have to battle what is dominating in our flesh, and one of those things is. The I-gate. What we see. Job 31.1.
Job 31.1. This is the oldest book in the Bible, Job 31.1. Listen to this. He said, man, what can we learn from an old guy that old?
Well, I tell you what, let me read verse 31:1. He says, I've made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman? Smart guy, huh? Wouldn't that be great?
Now, I'm not saying do this, you'll get arrested. I just made it up in my mind just now what I'm about to say. That's pretty scary. But imagine if you had a bunch of stickers like that and you just walked around liquor stores and slapped those things on those porno magazines that are at liquor stores right on the cover. Boom!
I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a young woman. Imagine that. Imagine if Christian men Begin to take that verse seriously and say, Lord. I am consecrated to you. And I'm making a covenant tonight.
With my eyes. Between you And my eyes, God, not to look upon, you know, the implication is to look upon a woman with a lust. Not going to do it. Going to turn my eyes away. I gotta tell you this.
At the car wash over here. And There was a young lady sitting there. And she was all wrapped up in her Uh hijab. All you could see is her face. This young Muslim girl and I've been challenging my wife and encouraging my wife for a long time.
Lisa, you've got to start talking to those girls and start finding out what's going on inside their head. They're locked inside their world. You got to reach out to them.
So that thought came to my mind.
Now, I know the rules, they're not supposed to talk to men. But that's their role and not my role.
So I said, excuse me. She said yes. I said Can you explain this to me? I want to hear from you what this means. And she said, it's an act of modesty.
It's a display of modesty. And I said, that's cool. That's excellent. Um So As you display your modesty by wearing this fashion, I think that's commendable. What effect do you think it has?
Oh, it keeps a man from having lustful thoughts. She said this. It keeps a man from having lustful thoughts. And I said, with all due respect, I'm old enough to be your dad.
So with what I'm about to say, just remember that. Miss, you can go out into the parking lot right now, and we could build, or somebody could build, a concrete wall around you. and just leave enough air in the concrete for you to breathe in. And if somebody hung a sign outside that said, woman inside. A man would go, really?
In there? I told her this. And I said the reason why is because I really respect your display of modesty, but that doesn't affect a man's imagination. His heart is wicked, and his heart needs to be changed. And she listened to me.
She just listened. And I said, what if? Instead of the burden being on you, to drape yourself up What if the burden was on the man for him to turn his eyes away? And you know what she said? She said.
No man would do that. No man can can do that. Think of that for a moment. No man can do that, or no woman can do that. Without the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
To love God more. is the point for tonight. It's not thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. It's thou getst to's. Thou to getst to, thou getst two, thou gets to.
You get to. Not by religion, but by your relationship with Christ. The Bible says in Philippians 4:8, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure. Whatever things are lovely. This should be on daytime TV.
Whatever things are, good report. Ha ha ha. If there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Why? Because what you meditate on becomes part of your very being.
Listen, you young people, right now you're going through this experiment with life. The more that you are immersed in something, it begins to come out of you, even if you don't like it. it and it will still come out. We have this uh what is this uh Sane, um It's biblically based, but it's an earthly proverb. Bad company.
Corrupts. How's it work?
Something like that you don't know either? In other words, don't hang out with weirdos and goofballs. Why? Because you will become a weirdo and a goofball. Very important.
Because what you meditate on will marinate you. You'll be pickled. And whatever you're soaked in, you'll be pickled in that thing. Birds of a feather?
Okay. Listen. The reason why we say that and we know that is because it's a common... thing. Oh look.
There goes some seagulls. You don't see seagulls with robins and storks and eagles. They're not sitting there on the wire. You ever see them on the wire talking to you? Hey.
They don't do that. It's all seagulls or they're all pigeons or they're all pelicans. Whatever you hang out with, whoever you hang out with, that sense of. Meditation gets into you, and it's going to come out of you.
So watch out what you see. Is what he's talking about. The domination of the flesh. We have to watch your eyes. 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. Thirdly, under this point, it's this.
We want to be refusing what we want for our lives. Can you believe I said that? Refusing what we want for our lives. You say, what do you mean? Are you trying to make like a monk out of me?
Are you trying to m b make me climb some tower and sit in some monastery? What are you talking about, Pastor? Are you crazy? Refuse what we want or what I want for myself?
Well, here's the truth of the matter. If we're just honest, so much of what we thought we really wanted... Turned out to be a ginormous danger. Especially when you hear things like, if I don't get that thing, I'm just going to die. Oh dear.
Could be an idol, you think? I can't live without that thing. Or I can't live without her. I can't live without him. If I don't have a, what?
Fill in the blank. It's an idol. We put it up on a pedestal. We would never confess that, but it's true. It's the meaning, the purpose.
It governs the decisions of my life. Or maybe it's a person. Refusing what we want.
So what's the answer to this then? Taking our lives And let's be honest, those whose lives are around us, those who we know, This is the great thing about being a Christian. You can go to your prayer closet and talk to God alone and involve your entire family. You can involve your entire company, your entire neighborhood. When you go to pray, you can involve your entire school.
And when you begin to invite God into these things, I tell you what, He begins to calm your heart and He will let you know. What you need. It's very liberating. The Bible calls this self-denial, to deny yourself. Jesus says, deny yourself, pick up your cross.
He said, and follow me. To deny yourself. It's not a negative. How can something be a negative when it draws you closer to God? You see, well, I don't know if I like what you're saying right now.
Because.
Something of the flesh is dominating your life in that area. Is there a room in your soul, in the soul of your home, as it were, is there a room that God's not allowed in? God, you can have a key. You have a key to the whole house. But you can't go in this room.
He's Lord. And he's lord of your house. He's the Lord. If you tonight say, Well, I'm a Christian, Jesus says, Right on. Then I have the key to every room in your house.
You have to hand him the key, or else you can't call him Lord. The domination of the flesh will try to derail us from what God wants to do in our lives. It's human nature to want, for example, satisfaction. That's human nature. Thirst needs to be satisfied.
Hunger, comfort, warmth. Affection, those are things that God has placed in us. But listen. It's a very different thing. To want satisfaction that comes at the expense of other people.
Our satisfaction. We think by things. And so look. 1 John 2:16, now at the end, number three, it's this: the pride of life. Is not of the Father, but is of the world.
The pride. This pride is the pride of wanting. The word in the Greek means wanting something to brag about. It means to exalt yourself or to boast about yourself. The Bible says, Let another man's lips praise you.
What does that mean? That means if other people want to talk about you favorably, praise God. If you want to talk about yourself favorably, weirdo. You know, somebody will say, well, it's enough about this conversation. Let's talk about me for a while.
That is sick, man. You say, well, I've never met anybody like that.
Well, how about this?
Somebody comes walking up into your group and says, man, I just. I just found a dollar in the in the parking lot. And the next thing out of your mouth is, oh yeah, I found 50 bucks the other day. What are you saying that for? No, no, we don't care if you found 50 bucks.
This guy came, he's all stoked about finding the dollar. Let him enjoy his dollar, will you? But no. The flesh says, hey.
So the guy, you know, his team wins the softball game. We won the softball game. Yeah, well, you know what? We won three games last week. Everybody in the group goes in their mind, they don't say it out loud, they go, weirdo.
What is with that, pride? Just got a One up somebody. Pride. Why would somebody do that? Insecure.
Why would somebody be insecure? Not trusting God. Why would someone not trust God? They're not believing in His Word.
Well, what does his word say? that he loves that man, he loves that woman. If you believe that God loves you, you don't have to go around talking about yourself. You're content. You say, well, I don't like me.
Why don't you like you? I'm so ugly. You don't like you because you're ugly. I make myself sick. I can't stand myself.
Why? I'm so dumb. If you think about the logic of that, you should be very happy then with yourself that you're so ugly because you can't stand yourself. Gosh, I'm so happy. I'm just the dumbest person I've ever met.
And that pleases me because I can't stand myself. It just doesn't work. Pride gets us into trouble, all of us. And you know we all battle this. Have you ever seen a group picture?
You know, we don't, don't do this, don't do this, but what if we move the camera like at the hockey game? and around the sanctuary tonight. And the m you go like this, I'm gonna come in by me. Is it coming by you? Is it coming by me?
Is it coming? Where's it coming? There it is! There it is! Right?
Have you ever seen that happen? What is that? Pride. We're just so accustomed to it. You get a group shot and the first person you're looking for is you.
Yeah. Oh man, I told him to take another picture. It's a weird man. We have to be careful because we've got to Ward off the domination of the flesh. Proverbs 4:23 says, Keep your heart with all diligence.
For out of it springs the issues of life. Our hearts need to be guarded and protected. Jesus said in Matthew 6:19, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust break in, or thieves break into steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Where neither moth nor rust nor thieves break in to steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Think about that. What I want, what we want as Christians, is to not have our hearts. Burdened with the things of this world, but to be Invested in the things of God, and you want your treasure in heaven. And that's vital. Refusing what we want for ourselves very quickly.
Galatians 6, verse 7 says, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of his flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Man, is that not true or what? You will someday reap a harvest. Every one of us are reaping today. Think about it. We reaped today.
Dividends, a crop of what we've been investing in six months ago. or six years ago, or six hours ago.
So think about that. How will your Life, look, six weeks from now.
So I uh uh Well, if that panics you, then change your course right now. Point number two tonight, it's this. The discipline of domination is, number two, receiving the domination of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Receiving the domination, the rule, the. Jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is who we need in this world. Church, more than ever, these are the last days, the world's gone nuts. World's crazy. The Bible warns about us. Listen, the Bible warns about us living in these days.
Hear me out. The scripture says that one of the great dangers of the last days, Jesus said that while the virgins waited for the bridegroom to come, Some of those who were waiting, their oil ran out, remember? The Bible says, teaches us from Old Testament to new, that oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit in these last days more than ever. Uh Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called The Discipline of Domination.
Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Disciplines of Life. It's a series on the disciplines that God builds into the Christian life, the trials, those setbacks, and the hard seasons that he uses to shape us as believers and to deepen our faith. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Truth doesn't need permission and it doesn't need a filter.
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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. 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.
