Today on Real Life Radio, the only way that you can commit the unforgivable sin is to die rejecting Jesus Christ, which is the work of the Holy Spirit. Today, the Holy Spirit, Jesus said in John, John's Gospel, has come to tell the world about Him. I'm paraphrasing that. He will not speak of Himself, but He will teach you all things concerning Me. 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. Hey, I'm very excited to promote this new book by Dr. Tim LaHaye.
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That's jackhibs.com. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called "The Book of Ephesians," and a message titled "We Have Been Chosen in Christ," Part One. Ephesians is a letter the apostle Paul wrote from prison to the church in Ephesus, showing every believer who they really are in Christ. And right here, Paul tells us something amazing: that before God ever made the world, He chose us. You see, that's a truth that we can hardly take in.
If you think about it, it means our place with God isn't based on how good we are, how good looking we are, or even how much we've messed up. He chose us out of His own love, and that, well, it's the most secure thing we could ever hold on to.
So today, Pastor Jack reminds us that God sees us as holy and blameless, even when we don't feel that way. The closer we get to His light, the harder it is to see past our own flaws and shortcomings. But God doesn't focus on our mistakes. Instead, He sees something much greater. He sees the work that Christ has done in our lives.
Now, with his message called "We Have Been Chosen in Christ," Part One, here's Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hughes. God knows everything, and man has the choice to decide, and that is a serious thing. It says, "Before the foundation." This word, "before," listen, jot this down. It's a fantastic word in the English. It's the word "before." But listen to this.
In the Greek, in its original writing, it's the word pro, p-r-o. It's pronounced like that too, and it means prior to, or in priority of. It means in front of everything else, above everything else, and before everything else.
Now listen to this. He says, "Just as he chose us in Him, that is in Christ, before." Priority one, he chose us tops before he ever made the world. When God made the world, he had already put you on top of his list. Isn't that a trip? Before I did all these things, I made you priority one on what I was doing, why I was doing.
Man, the next time you think you're just nothing, you need to realize this. You are before everything according to God. He put you in front of everything in His creation. Before all the world's foundations were laid, Charles Spurgeon said, "You've heard this before." He says, "I'm so glad that God chose me before the foundations of the world were ever laid, because He sure wouldn't have chosen me after I was born." And you know, sometimes we feel like that, and that's not theologically correct. But well, you know what he's saying.
But listen, being His child tonight, God's child, is the most secure, precious thing that you can experience. He never unselects you. He never unsaves you. He never unchooses you. You are either chosen in Christ or you're not chosen in Christ.
And if you're chosen in Christ, you're probably saying tonight: number one, oh man, am I glad? Number two, you might be saying, I'm not sure if I am. Number three is, hey, I'd like to accept Christ and be sure about this. Every one of those three hearts, and it may be representative in this room tonight. God has chosen you, or else you wouldn't think those thoughts.
The person that's not chosen could care less and never thinks about it. Maybe argues about it, but won't think about it seriously. Just to bring a little bit more security into our soul, Malachi chapter three, verse six, the Lord says, "For I am the Lord, and I do not change; therefore, you are not consumed." I'm the Lord; I don't change, and for that reason, you're not going to burn. I like that. Thank you, God.
You do not change. Isn't that funny? And then all the wacko theologians running around are trying to change the Bible, trying to massage it and change it, make it say something else. Amen. I'm glad he doesn't change.
God doesn't change. Consider this: we have our free moral agency. That's what it's called within us—that we can choose, and we enjoy it. In Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, Joshua 24:15, Joshua, and that incredible moment there. Standing amongst all the people, he says, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve." What did he say?
Choose. It's a choice. Yes, we do choose. We respond to God's offer, and that's a critical thing because our decisions will always produce a response. Listen.
Jesus says, "If I be lifted up on the cross, I will draw all men to myself." We covered this a couple weeks ago. The world's got to look at the cross. The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Did you hear that? God doesn't want anybody to die and go to hell.
The Bible says that God weeps over the death of the wicked. Why? He loves them.
So why do people go there? They've exercised their choosing, their choice to go against God, and God weeps over that, and that's sad. The third point in verse four is that the creation itself is subject to the Creator. It says here that we should be holy, and I love this. You don't see it on the surface.
But it's that familiar word, holy to us in the English. It's the word "hagios." We've covered it so many times before. It means that he's claimed us, declared us. He set us out to be his saints. He does, not us, not the Calvary Chapel, not the Catholic Church.
God does. He says in his Bible. Because we are declared holy by God, we can walk in His holiness. People, listen. The creation is subject to the Creator.
God creates it; He's controlling over it. Even though it be fallen, and it is on its course of so to speak destruction, God is still watching over it all. But the moment you are born again, born by the Spirit of God, you come into the family of God, or what we call, you become a Christian. If you are ever subject to God's control, you are even more now than ever before. You've come home.
You've come to your God. And the beautiful thing about this, it says right here. In verse four, that we should be holy without blame before Him. And you guys, this is fantastic because it's a done deal. This is not, as you might suppose, a progressional holiness.
Do we grow stronger in the Lord? Yes. Do we? Isn't this funny? Those of you listen, you're going to understand this in a twisted way.
Ah. The closer you get to God, you you you practically you practically you situation situationally is that the is that a right word? Positionally, no. In situation, you sin less. You sin less, but do you stop sinning?
No. But you sin less. But as you get closer to Him and you begin to sin less. You see yourself worse off. It's so strange.
The closer you get to the light, the more you know goobers you see on your face, right? I mean, have you ever been to those places where you turn on the lights and it's like, oh my gosh, and It's something like too with the lighting right overhead. Have you ever seen those? You go to like a restaurant and you you go wash your hands and you turn you turn the light on or the lights on and you go over there and you go, my gosh, and you're like, oh wow, where are these lines coming from? I've never seen these things before.
The lighting is so important. The closer you get to the light, the scary it is. That's why the women they get these lights. And they mount onto the side of the bathroom wall. Have you seen them?
And you press the button, and all the other lights in the house go dim. You know, you they press the button, goes, and they pull this thing. It's got a magnifying glass with lights around it. Have you seen those? You got one, yeah.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. And you look at yourself. It's like, oh my gosh. You know, your nose looks like a—it's like looks like an orange, you know. But you know what they're doing?
They—they—they get themselves done up under such intense light, so perfect with the big light, that when they turn the light off, it's like, wow, she looks great. There's three and a half hours of work on that light with that light. It's incredible. The same thing. When we get close to Jesus, the light is so bright that we just go, "Oh man!" And yet we're the closest we've ever been to Him.
It's a strange thing. And you've got to realize, in the when you're in the Word of God, you've got to just take it for what it says. God says you're holy, and I just go, "Man, I'm sick looking." I had this thought yesterday, and God says, "Hey, knucklehead! Remember, you used to have that thought 500 times in a day.
Now you had that thought the other day. Wow!" But the little bit you see looks horrendous. I'll keep going. I let's just go. We can walk in His holiness because He has declared us holy, and that's a fantastic thing.
And by the way, that's true positionally. Do you guys remember Lion Country Safari? Remember that thing? It's dead and gone now. I don't know what happened to it, but I remember being there one time, and there's a really sad thing, and I haven't forgotten about it.
Obviously, it came to my mind today, and that was there was this fantastic bald eagle in this cage, but he was he was injured. And all he could do down at the bottom, they had these little quail that just kept the floor of the cage clean. Little ugly speckled quail, stupid looking things, stupid bird. And standing almost three feet above all those guys is this massive bald eagle. And you know what?
All he could do was walk. He walked like a turkey, and it was so strange because you always see eagles up on top of the branches. On top, and he just walked with the stupid, ugly quail. He probably spent so much time down there that he thought he was a quail. In a lot of us, man, God has seated us in the heavenly places, and we've been declared holy by God.
And I don't care what you're going through. I don't care what you're thinking, what you're feeling. I don't care. Listen, I don't care what sin you stepped in today. It doesn't matter the magnitude of it.
If you're His, you're grieving over that sin. You feel disjointed and you feel sickened. That's because the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, "Never leave you or forsake you." He's with you. And a lot of Christians we fail to see ourselves in the Lord, and we're like that eagle walking around with the quails and the turkeys, and we should be up on top. Because we're not quails, we're not turkeys, we're not robots, we're not monkeys.
He has so saved us, and he's done such a beautiful thing. You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibs.com. That's jackhibs.com. And now let's get back to today's message.
Once again, here's Pastor Jack. It says here, and we'll wrap this up, that we are without blame. An amazing word. Am almost. In the Greek, it means to be unblemished.
God says this about you: unblemished, without blame, faultless, having no spot, unable to find fault. Wow! God looks at you, God, the guy that you could meet tonight after the service. God Almighty says to you tonight, if you're a Christian, you're blameless. You don't feel blameless.
Your husband or wife reminds you you're not blameless. Your school teachers tell you you're not blame. Listen, and on this side of things, we're not blameless. But God looks at us and says, "They look pretty good to me." God turns on the light, shines it on you, and he sees Jesus all over you. You're in Christ.
You're in Him. We are blameless.
So, what is our responsibility to these things? This is what your responsibility should be. Romans chapter twelve, verses one through two. One and two. You know the verse.
Paul says, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, your bod." A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Your reasonable decision tonight. Your reasonable response is to give yourself to Christ. Secondly, Isaiah one eighteen, one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
Isaiah one eighteen says, "Come now, God says, let us reason together," says the Lord. Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, crimson, they shall be white as wool. Listen. He says, "Come, let us reason together." The word in the Greek or Hebrew, excuse me, is "come on, let's argue." Don't you like that?
Yeah.
Well, I got some questions to ask God. God says, "Bring them on." Want to argue? Come on, step up here. I love the Book of Job. Read the Book of Job.
God says, "Stand up here like a man. Quit your whining. Think you're so hot? You let me question you for a while. Where were you when I made Leviathan?" Where were you when I made Behemoth?
When he swings his tails, he knocks down trees. Talking about a dinosaur, I think. Who breathes out fire from his mouth? Where were you, Job? It's neat.
There's a neat verse in the Book of Job where he says, "I've reserved the frost and the snow and the hail for the day of war." I like that because man's going to have all of his nukes lined up, and everyone's going to be sticking out their chest and threatening each other, and God's going to say, "Watch this," and He's going to send a cloud over the whole thing and just cause it to storm like He can't believe and mess up everything. I love it. God says, "You want to? You want to discuss? Want to make a decision?
Let's reason together, you and I. Let's let's get in an argument here. Let's argue. God wins every time." God has chosen us. A couple more verses, or you guys want to quit right now?
A couple, two, maybe two more minutes. Acts chapter thirteen, verses forty-seven and forty-eight. This drives people up the wall. This verse. Acts thirteen forty-seven and forty-eight says, "For so the Lord has commanded us." I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth, missionary.
Now, when the Gentiles heard that, they were glad, and they glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as been appointed to eternal life believed. You go, man. That's it. God sends certain people to heaven, certain people to hell.
Says right there that as many as believed, He's appointed them. No, that's not what it says. God knew in the crowd those who would choose Him, so they heard the word. And God also knew in the crowd those who would reject Him, but they heard the word. Interesting.
Man is responsible for his outcome is the bottom line, because God has given us the ability to choose, and ultimately, listen. Ultimately, every human being on the face of the earth will have at least one prayer answered. Every one of them, Adolf Hitler included, will have one prayer answered at least once in this life. And it will be the prayer that someone says, "God, get out of my face! I don't want anything to do with you," and God will answer their prayer.
And he'll quietly leave them away. He'll walk away from them and leave them alone. It is God's sovereign choice to give you life. It is God's sovereign choice to walk away, but He will not do that until you command Him for that final time to be gone. And I'll end with this: to reject him is the unforgivable sin, committing the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
And we'll end right here with this: when Jesus was speaking to the crowd, Jesus challenged the Pharisees to believe in his message based upon the miracles that he was doing, and the Pharisees said, "We know." How you do those miracles? You don't do them by the power of God. They said you do them by the power of Belzebub, the Lord of the Flies, Satan. They committed, if you keep reading, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said every manner of sin will be forgiven men.
If you speak against the Father, you speak against the Son. It's gonna it'll be forgiven. It'll be forgiven you. But nobody committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will ever receive forgiveness in this life, and in the life to come, he said.
Now, the reason why the Pharisees were able to commit blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in that moment was because Jesus, God Himself, was present before them, and they attributed His works to Satan. How can you, if you're not a Christian tonight, commit the unforgivable sin, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? How can you commit it now? The only way that you can commit the unforgivable sin is to die rejecting Jesus Christ, which is the work of the Holy Spirit today. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said in John.
John's gospel has come to tell the world about Him. I'm paraphrasing that. He will not speak of Himself, but He will, He will teach you all things concerning Me. If you die tonight, not receiving Jesus Christ, you would have committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and it will not be forgiven in the in the life to come, in the world to come. Serious, heavy stuff.
Let's pray. Father, we understand that left to ourselves, Lord, we would be a people selfish and self-centered and self-seeking. Left to ourselves, Lord, your word declares to us that we would also be lost sinners. Father, you have chosen us before the foundations of the world were ever laid, and in your incredible wisdom and in your all-seeing eye. You knew those who would reject, and life since has been prepared accordingly, based upon your foreknowledge.
And Lord, I pray that you'd open up our understandings, that we could grasp these things. And Lord, as we look into them, even next week, I pray, Lord, that we would do justice to this deep truth. God, we pray that you would, in the next several weeks, speak to this body, that no one needs to suffer doubts regarding these things anymore. In Jesus' name, Amen. Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibs here on Real Life Radio, and his message called "We Have Been Chosen in Christ, Part One." Thanks for being with us today.
You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series 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. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
So, as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com/knowgod. That's K-N-O-W God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God.
Don't miss out. That's the No God tab at JackHibs.com. 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.
