Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he leads us through an enlightening discussion on the Book of James, focusing on the message Considering the Goodness of God. Understand the profound impact that true, actionable faith can hold over deceptive emotions and learn how to anchor your beliefs in the steadfast word of God. Through historical examples and personal reflections, this episode invites you to examine your relationship with God and challenge yourself to live in a way that reflects His goodness to those around you.
Very important. We are prone to deception. Every one of us, it’s in us. And James is saying the Christian can stop being deceived. Why? Because God’s on the throne and the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts.
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. Looking for real answers in real time? JackHibbs.com is your go-to destination for resources on faith, world events, and everything in between. Explore Happening Now, where Pastor Jack Hibbs takes a timely, no-nonsense look at today’s biggest issues, blending biblical insight with the latest headlines. Now, whether you’re curious about the world around you or you want guidance on a personal level, Pastor Jack has you covered. And, by the way, don’t miss the Real Life Network. It’s packed with relatable, family-friendly content that really speaks to everyday challenges and triumphs, offering something really valuable for every member of your family. Now, if you’re new to the faith, you want to refresh your perspective, start with that tab that says Know God, an accessible, welcoming space to learn and reflect and find your footing. Now, whatever your path, jackhibbs.com has the tools and the insights and the encouragement that you need. Tune in, log on, find something real. Once again, the website jackhibbs.com. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Book of James with a message titled, Considering the Goodness of God. Now, before it became one of the books of the New Testament, James was simply a letter sent to those Jews who chose to follow Christ. And as new believers, James is direct in telling them the true character of God. You see, we really need to understand that God is good. At this very moment, we are receiving his benefits. Every good and perfect thing, as we know, comes from Him. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that we may already understand that God is good, but do we really believe that He is good all the time? Our emotions, if we lean on them, they really can lead us in the wrong direction. But as Christians, we’re not led by our feelings, but by our faith in God. Now with his message called, Considering the Goodness of God, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Read in our Bibles that God is good. Psalm 73.1, which is a great verse to teach children, their first verse. Psalm 73.1, truly God is good. Why start there? Because you know what? Many of us, being adults, we still haven’t caught on to the reality of the fact that God is good. We can mouth it, we can say it all we want, and the fact of the matter is we need to consider God’s goodness. That God is in fact good. And we’re going to look very, very closely into the fact of why do I, as a Christian, really argue with God and really confront Him about Him being good or not? We actually challenge God regarding this issue. Is He good? Now, in a gathering like this, I mean, we all want a safe face, right? And we all want to be scripturally accurate and say, oh, God is good. But is He really, in our logic and in our thinking? By nature he is, but do we know his nature? What this morning can the world, the flesh, and Satan do to you, do to me, that can cause you and I to say, you know what, God, what are you doing? God, what’s up? God, I don’t agree. What is it that this world can do to us that can get us to cave in and then begin to accuse God that he is in fact not good? And all of us are prone to this. And it is a very, very dangerous thing because Satan, the world, the flesh will pick up on it. And so the title of the message is Considering the Goodness of God. Verse 16. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. And of his own will… He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures, our creation, considering the goodness of God. In Matthew’s gospel, chapter 19, you know the story. Jesus was there ministering and on his way to minister again. And one came to him running up and said, good teacher. What good thing shall I do that I might inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to this man who you know as the rich young ruler, remember him? Jesus turned to him and said, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, and that is God. But if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, keep the commandments. And the man said to Jesus, Which ones? Which ones? Isn’t that funny? Which ones? Jesus says, You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus listed six of the lower portion of the ten. He didn’t start with the first six. He started with the last six, leaving out the first four. Now look what the man’s response was. He says, Lord, our master, our teacher, Jesus, I’ve done all these things from my youth. What lack I yet? You see, he’s still aware of the fact that he lacks something to go to heaven. And Jesus said, go sell everything that you have and come and follow me. Now, do you have to sell everything you have to follow Jesus? No. But if you’re this rich young ruler, you do. Why? Because Jesus did not mention the first four of the Ten Commandments. He mentioned the last six. Because the last six have to deal with man and our dealings with one another. And so this rich young ruler said, I do all these things. I honor my mom and dad. I bless everybody around me. I’m a good guy. I’m a very good guy. And Jesus says, that’s great. But go and sell all that you have. Immediately, Jesus’ challenge took him right to the very first commandment. That shall not have any other God before me. You see, this man had all kinds of gods before Jesus. He was rich. He was young. He was a ruler. He was a yuppie. But you know what? He lacked the things… in his heart to be committed to God because he loved things. He loved things of this world. And so the Bible says that that man went away sad. Now, Jesus is not against you having things. Jesus is dead set against you loving them. Why? Because it breaks your heart. It leads you to ruin. It destroys your life. Jesus is to be number one. But this young man said, good master. And Jesus says, why do you call me good? Here’s what he’s doing. Why do you call me good? There’s only one good and that’s God. And I must be? See, he wanted to hear the man confess, you must be God. But this man recognized that Jesus was good. You know, in our day, we say good morning, good afternoon. We say good night. And you know that has been shortened. It originally, the whole concept was that good, in all ancient languages, good referred to God. God does good. The Bible says that God is good. Good is a nature of God. That’s why the Bible says that no human being does good. Sounds kind of offensive, doesn’t it? But even at our best attempts, God knows our motive, and even our great outward exhibition of benevolence might have a very rotten motive behind it, you know? And God says in the Bible, no man does good, but God does good. And when he called Jesus good, just like in our culture, we say the word good, we’re meaning that there is something better. And so when we say good morning, it used to be in all of the known world, God’s morning to you. God’s morning to you, brother. When we said good afternoon, what we really are doing, we’ve changed the words to say good afternoon to God’s afternoon to you or good. Good evening was God’s evening to you. In fact, you know the word goodbye? You know how it’s spelled B-Y-E? Because it is an alteration from the original foundation of what it meant. It was God be with ye. That’s when you said goodbye to somebody. It was God be with you. God be with you. But what do we do? We change it to goodbye. Goodbye. God be with you is what it means, but is that what we mean when we say it? No, we don’t. When somebody says God is good, what do you mean when you say it? God is good, let’s be honest. Are we thinking God is good sometimes? Let’s be honest. Are we saying that God is good most of the time? Are we saying that God is good nine-tenths out of the time? The fact of the matter is God is good all the time. But do we believe it? Do we hold to it? Do we understand that? This morning we’ll see in our message that we really need to cling to the fact that God is in fact not only good, he’s very good. Very, very good. And so right now in your mind, let it register. When I ask you this question, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you inside? Just hold it in your head. What’s wrong in your life right now? I’m bored. Okay, put that right there. I’m broke. Put that there. I’m whatever. Put it right there. And consider the goodness of God in light of it. Okay, now let’s watch this. James 1, verse 16. We need to consider the goodness of God and we need to think with intelligence. Verse 16, he says, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Let’s look at it this way. My beloved brethren, first of all, beloved is a term that God uses, beloved. It means this, that we are brothers and sisters in the faith. We’re Christians. James is talking to the Christian this morning and he is saying, you’re beloved by God. God loves you much. Now, you may feel like it or you may not feel like it. That’s not the issue. It doesn’t matter. You may have come to faith in Jesus Christ, but this morning you don’t feel saved. You feel something other. I don’t care what you feel. The Bible doesn’t care what you feel. The Bible says you are or you are not. You are trusting the Lord and you’re his child or you’re not. It’s not prone to feelings. That’s why the Bible says that we are to come to God in what? Feelings? No, in faith. Faith is void of feelings. Why? Listen, faith is founded upon the facts revealed in the Bible. That’s our faith. Our faith is not some blind faith. Don’t ever let somebody tell you, oh, you stupid Christians. You go to church, you’re blind. Oh, I’m not about to have blind faith and believe in God. Hey, none of us have blind faith. The only way that you can have blind faith is if you are ignorant concerning that which you’re trusting in. Are you trusting in something outside of God? Then you do have blind faith. But if you’re trusting in God, your faith is founded upon the facts of God. Do you know this? You need to know this and I need to know it because our emotions, our feelings will lead us astray. That’s why he uses the word, do not be deceived. Those of us who are loved by God, those of us who are Christians, who have come to faith in Christ, he says, don’t be deceived. Now listen to this. This is rather alarming. The word do not be is the word may in the Greek, and it’s a negative statement. And by the way, it’s in the continuous sense. He says here, stop being deceived. Stop it. It’s a command by James. And you know, we’re not shy in our understanding of James, are we? He’s a hard-hitting guy. James says… you know, hard. He says, be a Christian and walk like one. He’s going to talk to us pretty soon about having faith in God and having works in God. And James is going to say, those of you who claim to be Christians, I don’t want to hear it. That’s what James says. He’ll say it in a few chapters. I don’t want to hear it. That’s what he would say. A little cute little guy would come up, a little Jewish guy. Remember, he’s the half-brother of Jesus Christ. Matthew 13, 55 tells us this. James would have come up and he would have said, I don’t want to hear about you being a Christian. In the grandpa kind of Sergeant Carter format, he would say, I want to see it. And in our culture, we’d go, oh, he’s hurting my feelings. Oh, he’s judging me. That’s exactly what James is doing. He’s judging you not with condemnation, but with or for approval. James says, you call yourself a Christian, you have faith in God, let’s see it. James is saying, I don’t care what you say with your mouth open. James puts his fingers in his ears, and he goes, I don’t want to hear it. I want to see it. James says, I want to spend one month with you, four weeks. I want to spend four weeks with you, and I want to hear a word. I want to be convinced at the end of four weeks that you are following Jesus Christ by how you live. Day in, day out. Over the long haul, James says, I want to be convinced. I don’t care what you say. Don’t put your sticker on your car. A lot of born-again cars driving around town. You notice that? Got the fish on there, got the dove on there just for insurance. And if you’re insecure, you slap a rapture sticker on the bumper. This car will be unmanned in the event of a rapture. I hope so. I hope that you’re not the one standing on the freeway and your car gets raptured because we had a lot of believing cars. Oh, I’m a Christian. I’m a Christian. I go to church once a week or once every Easter. I go to church. God doesn’t care. He wants to know how we are day in, day out, day in, day out. That’s how James is. That’s why he’s going to say, don’t tell me you have faith. I want to see your faith by your works. You see, all of a sudden, this is very convicting. If you’re not convicted, then you have, in fact, while I’ve been speaking, have fallen asleep. This is convicting.
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 :
If somebody lived with you, trafficked with you, commuted with you, worked with you, who was deaf, and the only way that… A message could be preached to them as by how you and I lived. At the end of four weeks, would they say, he knows God? They might say, I hate him. They might say, I hate you. They might say, they disagree with you. They might say, you drive them nuts. But the thing is, they would have to confess, they believe in God. If that is not true regarding your life and my life, then we have in fact deceived ourselves and we’re not Christians at all. We’re pretenders. We have, in fact, become religious, and we don’t have a relationship with God at all. And I pray that that’s not the situation for our hearts this morning. This is serious stuff. Consider the goodness of God. Don’t be deceived. Verse 16 links together verses 1 through 15 and verse 17 to the close of the chapter. James is saying, don’t be deceived about trials. Can you jot that down? Don’t be deceived about trials. Don’t be deceived about the money management. Remember, we studied that a couple weeks ago. Don’t be deceived about that. Don’t be deceived about wisdom. Don’t be deceived about temptation. We covered that last week. He says, stop it. And here’s the amazing part of this passage. The word do not be is the word stop being deceived. And it implies that the human nature, all of us, All of us are prone to being deceived. That’s what this word teaches us right here, verse 16, that you and I are easily deceived. Now, I don’t know about you. I’m a guy, and I find that highly offensive because guys will never admit that we’re being deceived. I mean, we’ll even lie about it. He tricked you. No, he didn’t. I knew what was going on. I just wanted to see where he was. We are something. But this passage tells us that it’s human nature to be deceived. And because we’re Christians, we don’t have to be deceived anymore. You may say, well, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Yes, you do. Example? Somebody knocks on your door and they’re selling super-duper vacuums. And they’re combing the area. And there’s this guy, he’s standing there and his shirt’s unplugged, or unplugged, his shirt’s untucked. And you know, he’s got a booger hanging out of one nose. His hair’s not combed. He’s got bad breath. And he says, I’m representing the greatest vacuum known to man. And you’re going, okay, I need a vacuum. Okay, you have need of a vacuum. There’s a vacuum guy at your door. He’s selling the super duper vacuum. You need what he’s got. But his partner shows up, and he’s got a three-piece suit on. His shoes are so shiny, you can see yourself in them. His breath smells like a forest, evergreen, wonderful. He’s got blue eyes, and his hair is perfect, and he’s just something. And he’s selling super-duper vacuums. Which one will you spend more eye contact with? Which one will you listen to the most? Which one will you probably sign the deal with? Look, if you think you’re going to go with a guy with a booger hanging out of his nose with his clothes unplugged, untucked, untucked, you’re crazy because it’s human nature to gravitate to what looks good. That’s why you’re wearing what you’re wearing right now because you looked in your closet and you said, this looks good. I’m going to put these shoes on because they look good. And, you know, you came here because you, you know, didn’t want to come here, you know, in what you look bad in. Why? Because it’s important. Appearance is important. How do I look while I’m doing this? Did you get me? Did you get me like this? It’s important to us. And we, because that’s us, we can easily be deceived. And… Something comes on the scene or someone or some program and it looks like this and we go for it. There may be a great presentation on one side of the auditorium or convention center and a great presentation on the other side. And whichever one has done the advertising better usually gets you. Very important. We are prone to deception. Every one of us. It’s in us. And James is saying the Christian can stop being deceived. Why? Because God’s on the throne and the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts. And this is true for every aspect of our lives. What people say, what we see, and what we hear. He says stop being deceived. Now listen. All of us struggle with this. James is saying concerning the things of God, don’t be deceived. He’s telling us to use our heads over our emotions, to be intelligent about what we decide to do. And you might say, well, Jack, what are the… Of course, I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’m going to make the intelligent decision. Are you sure? Am I sure? I will either be led down a path emotionally, which is void often of logic, or with intelligence. I’m not talking about whoever’s got the best IQ in here is going to make the right decisions. What I am saying is whoever runs to the word of God first wins. I know what the Bible says, but I feel… Listen, as a pastor, I die when I hear this. I just cringe. I can’t believe what I’m hearing this. I know I’m a Christian. I know the Bible says this, but I feel… What does this thing feel? Emotions will lead us astray. Intelligent, logic, Bible will keep us from being deceived. Well, I feel like I need, be careful. What does God say you need? You see this? Anybody see this? This strikes home. Watch this. And we almost had a riot last night when I said this, so guard the doors. What did Jesus tell Nicodemus? To get to heaven, he must be what? Can you say it? Born again. Does that mean Nicodemus had to be born again to get to heaven? Are you sure? Yeah, because Jesus said it. That’s Bible. Will you get to heaven not being born again? No. Does everybody who goes to heaven do or did they have the need to be born again? Yes. What about if you’re really good? If you’re really good, do you have to be born again? No. If Mother Teresa was not born again, does she go to heaven? But she was good. She was nice. Now, I’ve read some things about Mother Teresa, and I believe she is in heaven because of what she said about Jesus Christ as being her God, her Lord, her Savior, and that he died on the cross for her sins and rose again for him. Being a Catholic or being a Calvary Chapel person or a Methodist or a Lutheran or whatever doesn’t get you to heaven. Do you understand that? It’s being what? It has nothing to do with being good. Now, that either offended you, scared you, or you said, amen, exactly. You see? Now, right now, you’re dealing with emotions, aren’t you, right now? Some of you are dealing with emotions. Your emotional-ism is vying for control over your biblical knowledge and what the Bible has to say. Be careful. You see how easy we can be led astray? Someone knocks on your door with a briefcase. Nice suit. Smells good. Looks good. Dressed nice. Got a briefcase and got the Awake magazine. 49 cents. No, I’m not going to buy your magazine. You’re nice. You look good. You may be very good. But the Bible says that the Watchtower organization, Jehovah Witnesses, are pushing a false doctrine and its damnable heresy. But they look good. Yeah, I know they look good. Isn’t that sad? Somebody knocks on your door. Looks just as good. Nice suit, nice hair, everything great. And speed parked out front. Very good people. But they don’t believe what the Bible teaches. But they’ll tell you different at the door. We’re very good. I want them to go to heaven. So do I want them to go to heaven. I want them to go too. But what does God say? You see, all of a sudden now our hearts are torn because it is what the Bible says versus what emotions want to dictate. And you see how easily we can be led astray? Don’t be deceived.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Considering the Goodness of God. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Book of James. It’s a series on being doers of the Word of God and not just hearers only. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. What if today was the day that Jesus returned? Pretty good question that changes everything about how we live. In a world filled with distractions and uncertainty, One Day Nearer is the book by Steve Miller. It’s this month’s featured resource from Pastor Jack Hibbs. It invites you to refocus on what truly matters, living with the hope of Christ’s return. Now, this powerful book offers biblical insight and practical encouragement Helping you approach every moment with faith and purpose and joy because each day, no matter how ordinary it seems, brings us closer to the extraordinary reality of eternity with Him.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a 365-day devotion, and all of it is themed around being prepared to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
Don’t just get through your days. Live them. with the anticipation of what’s to come. One Day Nearer, it’s our book of the month. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. 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.
