The Christmas season often inspires feelings of warmth, joy, and reflection. But for many, it’s also a time to ponder the deeper meanings behind those feelings. In this special Christmas message, Pastor Jack Hibbs takes listeners on a journey to explore the essence of surrender, as illustrated by the life of Jesus Christ. From His humble birth in Bethlehem to His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus’s life epitomizes the wonder that surrender to God’s will can bring.
Pastor Jack explains how Jesus’s presence on earth disrupted the old order of things—healing diseases, casting out demons, and even raising the dead. These acts of compassion and love were more than miracles; they were expressions of God’s grace, inviting people to experience a transformed life with Him. This grace, he explains, isn’t something we earn, but a divine gift that singles us out for good.
In a particularly poignant segment, Pastor Jack discusses how Jesus never healed leprosy but cleansed individuals, drawing a parallel to our need for spiritual cleansing in today’s chaotic world. This analogy beautifully captures the essence of the Christmas message: a call to yield to divine grace and experience a life renewed by God’s presence.
The focal point of the episode is surrender—the very concept that Jesus embodied through his life and mission. By surrendering to the Father’s will, Jesus opened a gateway for humanity’s salvation. His life offers a powerful lesson on the importance of yielding to God, which means trusting Him through the difficult times. It’s a timeless message that resonates deeply during the Christmas season when spiritual contemplation is more prevalent.
In a world fraught with challenges and distractions, surrendering can often be misconstrued as losing. But Pastor Jack makes it clear that in Jesus’s context, surrender is profoundly empowering. Through obedience and trust, one can experience unimaginable peace and fulfillment. This surrender doesn’t weaken but enriches and strengthens, paving the way for a life that reflects God’s love and grace.
The episode also delves into the significance of Jesus’s words on the cross, “It is finished.” This declaration marks the completion of the salvation mission, illuminating the path of righteousness and reconciliation with God. It’s a powerful reminder that Jesus’s life and sacrifice were deliberate acts of love, aimed at securing eternal life for those who believe.
As we celebrate Christmas, Pastor Jack Hibbs invites us to share the story of Jesus with others. In a world brimming with lights and festive cheer, we are called to remember the true reason for the season and share the transformative love of Christ with everyone we meet. The episode serves as both an uplifting reminder and a call to action, urging listeners to embrace the wonder of surrender this Christmas and beyond.
Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he leads us on a spiritual journey to uncover the true wonder of surrender demonstrated by Jesus. Rich in biblical wisdom, this episode highlights how Jesus's birth heralds a new beginning for humanity, one marked by salvation through surrender. By reflecting on the teachings of Christ, we explore how yielding to God can transform our lives and bring about a profound inner peace during this festive season.
Right on time. He surrendered to the will of the Father, and His surrendering brought us great victory. His surrendering to the Father brought Him fellowship with you and I forever.
SPEAKER 01 :
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. Did you know there's an easy way to stay informed on the latest biblical events shaping our world today? Check out the Happening Now section at jackhibbs.com. Now, these live events feature Pastor Jack Hibbs alongside special guests diving into current events, cultural shifts, and how they align with biblical prophecy. It's a unique blend of Bible teaching and real-time analysis that helps you make sense of today's headlines through the lens of Scripture. Happening Now is not just about information. It's about equipping you with the truth and encouraging you to stand firm in your faith, no matter what's happening around you. These discussions are eye-opening, they're thought-provoking, and they're a great way to stay spiritually grounded in a rapidly changing world. Whether you watch live or catch up on past events, Happening Now will help keep you connected to God's Word and what's going on in the world today. Visit jackhibbs.com and click on Happening Now. Don't just watch the news, understand it from a biblical perspective. on today's very special edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack now brings to us his Christmas series with a message simply titled, Wonder, a celebration of Jesus, the Son of God, and the Christmas Messiah. You see, the wonder of Christmas is Jesus, God's gift to all mankind who was seen by the angels and who preached among the people the wonder of his salvation, love, and sacrifice. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that the wonder of true surrender is yielding to everything God has for us. There's joy in obedience when we answer the call to come to Him. Now, with his special Christmas message called Wonder, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Jesus went into places and disrupted. He disrupted things like disease and sickness and death. Every funeral Jesus went to, he ruined it by raising the dead. Lepers who were condemned came running to him and he cleansed them. of their leprosy. It's interesting. He never healed anybody of leprosy. Did you know that? The Bible says he healed people of blindness. He healed people of diseases. He healed people of demonic possession. There's only one thing. He did not, interesting statement. He never healed anybody of leprosy. It says he cleansed them from leprosy, which is a very interesting statement. He cleansed them. It's like he wiped through them some stringent that purified their immune system and their blood. We need that today, by the way. We need him to go through our world and to cleanse our system of stupidity and fear and violence and hatred and all the stuff that's going on that's now native to the human heart. We need to be cleansed of stupidity our soul's leprosy in the world and we saw his grace. How does he do that? He does that by the wonder of his grace. Remember church, it means that God does to you what you can never earn. That he singles you out. As though he were to walk through this congregation this morning and just tap on your head. And if he were to tap on your head, everything that he knows that would bless and fulfill your entire life. Think about what do you want in life? That which is from him he would do. By the way, what you and I want in life may be very at odds with what he wants for us in life. And there is the danger of living life. If I live my life for what I want, I wind up getting hurt and hurting others. If I wind up finding out what it is he wants me to live my life for, I wind up having an awesome life that turns out to bless other people. My goodness, I can admit this because it's such a great film. We saw last night the movie about Kurt Warner's life. The... The Ram, what's it called? It's called the American underdog. And about his faith in Christ, I was impressed. And still to this day, I didn't know this, but still to this day, his life is considered the greatest athletic comeback or underdog achievement known in professional sports. And at the end of it all, he gives God the glory. He gives Jesus Christ the glory. When you yield your life to what God wants to do, that's his grace. And then we saw that his grace brings to us salvation. You and I need to be saved from our sins. You have dirty thoughts and God sees them. Arrogant thoughts, pride, hate, violence, evil, envy. Remember, we went down the list of the 10 commandments, went through those, and we all decided we need his salvation. And then we saw the wonder of his love. His love, which led to the wonder of his sacrifice. And that's how we ended last week. Sacrifice. So now we pick it up in our closing message, and that is the wonder of surrender. Can you mark that down? The wonder of surrender. See, what do you mean the wonder of surrender? The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ, when he came into this world physically, you gotta remember now, he's 100% God. He never ceased from being God physically. But God, the Son, came into this world and he relegated himself to the birthing of being a human into this world so that he would feel temperature like you feel temperature. And you might say, well, him being God, doesn't he know everything? Yes, but listen, he became flesh so he could tell you, I know what it feels like. He knows all things, but you and I know nothing. So when we have a question, we can go and ask him and he can say to us, I know exactly what that's like. I wore your skin one day. And I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like when somebody rejects you or spits on you. He knows things that you and I may never suffer in this life. But he knows things that people are suffering as believers in Christ. Vietnam, for example. Or what if you're a believer and you're under persecution in Cambodia today or North Korea, the most dangerous place on earth to be a Christian is North Korea. You think Saudi Arabia is bad or Iran, that's bad. But North Korea, you don't get out alive. And we talked on Friday a little bit about that. I'm tempted to talk about it some more, but I won't. But it's absolutely amazing to realize that when we talk about surrender, we think that the word surrender is like being a loser. But surrender is defined by context. Okay, so for example, Europe very much surrendered to the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler. We grew up learning about this. We saw recently the United States surrender in Afghanistan. Context defines the meaning of surrender. But the Bible tells us that when Jesus came into this world, he surrendered to the will of his Father. He didn't have to do that. This is what's amazing. See, you and I can disobey the will of the Father and not surrender and do great harm to us. What's amazing about Jesus is that though he was God and man at the same time, when it says that he submitted or followed or yielded to the will of the Father, he literally knows what it's like to surrender yourself. his will to the Father. You say, but Jack, wasn't he God? I mean, that's automatic, right? No, no, no, listen. No, it's not automatic. Because even though he didn't have a sinful nature like you and I have, he knew the feeling of pain. He knew that what he was being asked to do would hurt him. or cause rejection and emotions. His emotions were sanctified but they were true emotions. Imagine somebody telling you, you go now and you go over there and they are gonna kick you, they're gonna spit on you, they're gonna throw stuff at you and they're gonna strip your clothes off and they're gonna march you down the middle of the street and then after that they're gonna beat you to a pulp. Now you go. And immediately, you know that feeling you have inside of you, which says, no way. Jesus had that. His emotions said to him, mm-mm. His flesh screamed out. I was reading a book recently, and this man was taken captive in war. And for some of you, this might be too... bring too many memories back, but they systematically pulled his fingernails out with pliers. And if they didn't do that, they hammered bamboo between his finger and his nail. Now that, just that, just think of that for a moment. Jesus had the same cringe that you had on the inside, but he obeyed his father in moving forward on his great mission to go to the cross because Jack's a sinner. That God knew without him going to the cross, Jack would be in hell forever and all of humanity. The Bible says in John 6, 38, for I have come down from heaven, Jesus is speaking, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. By the way, when I grow up, that's what I want to be able to say. Not that I've come down, but that I've been born into this world to do his will. That's why God has me alive. When I grow up as a Christian, that's what I want to be able to say, is I'm doing his will. That's why I have life.
SPEAKER 01 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
Verse 39, this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all he has given me, I should lose nothing or none. I love that. In this world, people will turn you out. God will never turn you out. The father moves by the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual and sends them to his son for safekeeping, for salvation, safekeeping, for eternity, for heaven. Jesus takes you up. We have to break our way of thinking. We get so stuck in our Earthly way of thinking, you've got to understand something. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you are in the arms of God. You're in the hands of the Father and the Son both. Read John 28, or John chapter 10, excuse me, verses 28 and 29. The Bible tells you that you are in the Father's hand and you're in the Son's hand. And the Bible says nobody can take you out of our hands. I mean, you're like a hot dog in a bun. Or you're like a sandwich. A God hand sandwich, and you're in the middle. And sometimes I gotta, this world's so evil and ugly, I'm glad because that grants me protection up north, south, east, and west. In John chapter 12, verse 49, Jesus says, for I have spoken on, I have not spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. Isn't that amazing? Everything Jesus said, he said what the father told him to say. That's why I love, listen, for those of you who don't know who Jesus is, you ought to read the gospels because when you read about what Jesus says and does, you're looking at Who God is. Yeah, but that's what Jesus said. What would the Father say? He said it. Well, what about the Holy Spirit? He said it. As we mentioned on Friday, God who is spirit communicated to us in the flesh through Jesus Christ. Can I use this again? How many of you were here Friday? Maybe none of you were here. A few of you, so I'm gonna do it again. Most of the people won't know, I'm repeating this. So God comes to us in human skin and speaks to us and tells us and shows us the way of eternal life. Remember that, we talked, not angels, not camels, not giraffes, not monkeys. He came as a man to communicate to man. And that should not surprise us because remember I mentioned to you how you and I are prone to that very same thing because when we see something in danger or lost or in harm's way, like I mentioned that dog, when you see a lost dog and you notice, oh, that dog's lost and it's terrified. Oh my goodness, oh, and if it keeps going, it's gonna go to the intersection. Oh my gosh, what do you do? What do you do? Do you roll down the window and say, you stupid dog? No. You don't roll down your window and say, you ought to go home. You should have stayed in the backyard where you belong. What's wrong with you? You don't do that. You know what you do? You get out of the car. You turn into an idiot. You get on your hands and knees. And you change the tone of your voice. And you're faking like you have food. Why are you doing this? There's only one reason why you've come down into his world and you're trying to get low enough because taller scares him down low, try to get eye level. You're trying to tempt him to come because you want to rescue him. You want to save him. And we all do this. If you don't do this, something's wrong with you. Okay, but we all do this. And then we think that God cannot do that for us. And that's exactly what he did with Jesus. Jesus came down to us and he's saying, come to me, come to me, come, come, come, come here, come, come. I will never cast you out if you come. And I could argue that that rescue part of who we are is an effervescent of God's Creation of who we are. It's just a little luminary of what's left over from Eden when God created us in his image. Jesus came and he surrendered and the invitation is for you and I to surrender to God because there's no greater life. I'm telling you right now, I mean this with all my heart, look. Heaven is watching me. My problem, I've had an awesome life. And the reason why is the more I have surrendered to his will, the more awesome my life has been. The problems that I've had in my life have been when I do not obey or surrender to him. I'm telling you right now. I want you and I want angels and demons to hear that. My problems have been when I did not surrender to his will. I thought I could do it. We can do this. And it never goes well. When Jesus surrendered, everything changed. Because he surrendered to the cross. And with his surrender, a new beginning was made for all of us. And I love the fact when Jesus on the cross in John chapter 17, verse four, Jesus said, this is just brilliant, amazing, Logic, listen to this. Jesus said to the Father, I've glorified you on the earth and I have finished the work which you have given me to do. That word finish comes into play powerfully in chapter 19. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he's on the cross. There's only a few moments left. Think of this. The Bible tells us in the book of Habakkuk That God's eyes are too pure to behold evil. God cannot look at evil. Make him sick. Remember, God's not a big human. God is spirit. He's not us. And the scripture says that he cannot look at evil. And so the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 that he, Christ Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us at the cross. Became sin for us that we might receive the righteousness of God which is in him by faith. Think of hell shoveling sin onto Jesus. Like somebody would shovel coal and it's getting heaped on him The book of Isaiah said that when Christ would be crucified like that, he'd bear the sins of the world. And no wonder why Jesus cried out in fulfillment of Psalm 22. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And listen, when the Jews heard that, they knew that was a messianic psalm. A lot of scholars believe that Jesus quoted the entire 22nd Psalm from the cross, if that's true. If that's true, it's both beautiful and terrifying. But he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why? Because God's eyes are too pure to behold evil, that when his son took your sin and mine, the father looked away. And in that moment, the son, for the first time, had separated fellowship from the father. It had never happened before. You know why that happened? He did that so you would never have to know that. You see, that's what hell is. Hell is eternal separation from God. It is real. And it is a realm that exists where God does not. It wasn't created for humans. The Bible says that God created it for Satan and his fallen angels. Never was it created for you. But people try to get into hell every day. They're climbing over one another to get into hell. Isn't that amazing? Don't tell me about God. I'll take care of this myself. I don't need that stupid religion stuff. You have to crawl over the body of Jesus to get there. And you got to crawl over the working of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Always speaking to you, the Holy Spirit is saying, you need my son. You need Jesus. You drive by a hospital, there's a cross on the top and you turn your face away. You see these things and you go, nope, uh-uh. Don't do that. Change your mind. But in John 19, 30, it says, so when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. Okay, that, let me tell you, when you and I die, we're gonna die when we die. Yeah. And the Bible says only God knows when we die. But when Jesus died, Jesus died when he said he was going to die. He dismisses his spirit. He's the one that says, in fact, what's the word? It's finished. Teleo. Teleonomic, the transference of information. We're most familiar with the word telemetry. If Elon Musk launches another Falcon from California here, it's gonna leave Vandenberg Air Force Base and it's gonna go on a certain course headed out past over Hawaii and down towards the South Pacific. What's it doing? It's following a mathematical equation that has been established, and that missile, though it's physical, is riding an information highway. It's invisible to us, but that missile is riding on a road. And it starts at point A, and it terminates at point B, And listen, teleo is the telemetry of the mission of Jesus Christ when he's on the cross and it's all done. All the sins paid for that you can imagine in life. Think of the horror. As soon as it was done, I don't mean this to be disrespectful, but Jesus is hanging on the cross and the moment the price was paid, he didn't hang around a minute longer. He said, , it's finished. Spirit, you're dismissed. And he dies. Right on time, he surrendered to the will of the Father. And his surrendering brought us great victory.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his special Christmas message called Wonder. Thanks for listening today and a Merry Christmas from Pastor Jack and all of us here at Real Life Radio. You know, our prayer for you is that your Christmas will be full of contentment and joy that can only come from knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. And quite frankly, it's given us great joy to share our Real Life Radio program with you over the past year. Thanks for welcoming us into your home and into your life. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, Pastor Jack Hibbs here, and I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and I also want to challenge you. Join me, will you, to share the love of God with everybody we meet at this time of the year. Now listen, the whole world is decorated in colors and in lights, and people are saying Merry Christmas. Let's take advantage of the reality. Let's take advantage of the truth. It's the recognition of the birth that God has sent His Son into the world. So we should tell people, hey friends, hey family, this is about Jesus, the Lord's Savior, mankind's redemption. Remind them that the baby that was born in Bethlehem is the man who died on the cross for our sins. So please, Merry Christmas to you, but let's not keep it to ourselves. Let's tell the world.
SPEAKER 01 :
From Pastor Jack and all of us here at Real Life, we want to wish you and your family a Christmas season filled with the peace, love, and joy of Jesus Christ. God bless you and yours today and in this new year to come. Merry Christmas. 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.
