Join us on a thought-provoking journey as we begin a new series on the parables of Jesus with Pastor Jack Hibbs. This episode unpacks the layers of divine teaching inherent in these stories and their relevance today. We examine the heart’s response to the Gospel message, highlighting the separation of the lost from the found. With personal anecdotes and powerful illustrations, Pastor Jack sheds light on living a cross-centered life and embracing the freedom found in Christ.
You need to tear down your idols. You can’t get into the kingdom because it’s not that you have money or not money. The issue is you worship your stuff. That’s where you have found your identities and your things.
SPEAKER 02 :
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. The cross. For a lot of us, it’s just a symbol that we wear around our necks, right? Display in our homes or maybe hang from the rearview mirror. But what if instead of being a decoration or accessory, the cross motivated and shaped the way we live every single day of our lives? What if it wasn’t about hiding or minimizing our sin, but actually crucifying it in order to move forward in the freedom that Christ offers? Born Crucified. It’s a book by Ellie Maxwell. In this book, you’ll discover what it truly means to live in a cross-centered life. This short but very powerful book is a classic for every Christian’s library. It reminds us that the cross isn’t just a symbol. It’s the key to victory over sin and the power to serve God effectively. Now, if you’re ready to experience the freedom and purpose found in a life centered on the cross, this book is one that you should get. Born Crucified. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack begins a new series today called The Parables of Jesus, starting out with a message called The Technicolor Truth. Now, whenever Jesus spoke to the masses, he often spoke in parables, biblical truths in story form that will either be received or rejected. But either way, it requires a response in the minds and the hearts of the people who hear these parables. You see, this method of teaching was invented by God himself and taught by Jesus when he was on the earth. Parables are a way of giving divine information in sort of a technicolor clarity. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that God’s technicolor truth separates the lost from the found. Parables expose who we really are, how we really feel about Jesus, and even the idols we hold onto in our hearts. Now, with his message called The Technicolor Truth, Here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 03 :
Pastor, I have a question. My son is living a certain lifestyle and he’s doing all this stuff and there’s no sign of him being a Christian. I said, how long has this been going on? For years. But he went forward at a crusade. So I know he’s saved. And I said, based on what? What are you basing his salvation on? She said he went forward at a crusade. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not salvation. You cannot, that cannot save you. Do you understand? Well, I’ve gone to church all my life. So I mean, what does that mean? It means you spent a lot of gas money. Are you born again? And it broke my heart because she asked me what will happen if my son were to die in this condition? And she wants me to answer her. Okay, number one, stop right there. My emotions, like your emotions right now, I can feel the love. Your emotions are like my emotions and you want to say to her, oh, you know, because he went forward, he’ll go to heaven, it’s okay. But you can’t say that. Our emotions are wrong most of the time. My answer was, listen, the Bible says that we need to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. Even the thief on the cross brought forth fruit worthy of repentance by his declaration on the cross. The thief on the cross, in his moment of witnessing, hit a home run. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And I said, I don’t know if your son is saved or not, but I tell you this, if I were deaf and I couldn’t hear what his words were and watched his life, I said, well, what would you conclude? And you could see the terror on her face. The bottom line is this, we don’t know when you see such things going on. When the gospel comes into somebody’s life, it is the power of God and they will be changed. Some faster than others, some deeper than others, but a change happens. Church, you must confirm between you and the Lord has a change happened in your life or have you been just in the vicinity of Christian stuff? Have you just been around Christian things? That’s a sobering thought I know, but God’s truth goes out that way. In Luke 8, verse 10, the scripture says, and he said, to you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But to the rest it is given in parables that seeing they may not see. Isn’t that wild? And hearing they may not understand. He doesn’t blind them. The Bible says the God of this world has blinded them. Satan. Listen to what G. Campbell Morgan writes, and we’re almost done. We have one more point and we’ll be done. G. Campbell Morgan writes this. This is a remarkable act of mercy on God’s part because they love their sin and the darkness that it gave them. The parable is employed both to expose their sinfulness while at the same time shielding them from, listen to this, from any further damnation by preventing greater responsibility to what they already knew about God and the way of salvation. G. Campbell Morgan says this. What did he just say? When the parable goes out, when someone has rejected in the mercy of God, this is amazing. A person that is gonna reject the gospel and wind up in hell By their own choosing, the parable that exposes their darkness and themselves to the darkness then shields them from knowing any more of the gospel truth because if they knew more, their punishment would be the greater. Is that amazing? Even in judgment, he’s merciful to them. He owes them nothing. He owes us nothing. I don’t want anything to do with God. I don’t want God. I hate God. I don’t want. I hate Jesus. I don’t want anything. Leave me alone. I don’t want. And that person, listen, there comes a point when people share and share and God prevents them from hearing anymore because it would only make hell worse for them because the responsibility would have been greater for what they rejected. Jesus said to whom much is given, much is required. In his mercy, he shields them once they have shut the gospel down. Isn’t that amazing? That is an amazing thing. And so, listen, fifth and final thing, we’ll end with this. God’s technicolor truth separates lost from the found. It separates the lost from the found. In what is known as the doctrine of kenosis, we’ve talked about this some time ago, kenosis is a remarkable thing that only God, of course, can operate in. When Jesus Christ was here on earth in the flesh, he operated this attribute of God called kenosis. You see, what is that? It is a self-determined, self-willed, self-governed power that the Son of God used while on earth In obedience to his father, it’s this. Do you remember when Peter cut off Malchus’ ear in the garden when they came to arrest Jesus? Peter takes out the sword, jumps in front of Jesus, goes to strike the guy’s head, misses and cuts off his ear. Remember that? And Jesus said, what are you doing? Put away your sword. By the way, while he’s saying that, he’s reaching down, grabbing the guy’s ear. Wouldn’t you love to have seen that? Grabs the guy’s ear, puts it back on his head. Screws it back on there. and then turns to the disciples, mainly Peter, and says, don’t you know that I could have called down 12 legions of angels to deliver me? Did you know that was true? Did you guys know that? Jesus could have snapped his finger and called down the angelic host to protect them. Why didn’t he? Kenosis, that’s the doctrine, kenosis. He could have, he didn’t. Do you remember when there’s times when Jesus knew what people were thinking? And then he said, Simon, answer me this. And Simon was shocked because how did he know? Then there’s other times when Jesus did not know. The Bible says in Luke’s gospel that Jesus Christ grew in the grace and knowledge and had favor with both God and man. How does that happen? He’s God in human skin. Kenosis, he willed out of his own self-determination to not know certain things at certain times. Do you remember when Jesus said, I don’t know when I’m coming back. The angels don’t know? Only my Father in heaven. Do you know why he didn’t know? He chose not to know. Let me tell you. I don’t know what you think about that, but that’s impressive. Would you ever choose to not know? Inquiring minds gotta know. You wanna know. Jesus, in his obedience to the Father… Trust in the Father. Imagine in the wilderness, Satan’s tempting them with, turn these stones to bread. Takes them to the temple, jump off. Watch, the angels will help you. If Jesus wasn’t operating in kenosis, he could have just obliterated the whole scene. But he showed us how we, dependent upon the word of God, can even defeat Satan by the word of God. Remember that. He used the word of God. You might say, well, yeah, but he was God himself. He was 100% man and 100% God. And in the temptation, he didn’t lean on his divine power to say, Satan, you know what? You smell. He could have done it. He could have done it like that.
SPEAKER 02 :
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 03 :
So that when Jesus preached the gospel and when Jesus walked the shores of Galilee, for example, and he said, follow me. Notice he walked by the toll gate where Matthew was seated and And see which version is true. Jesus walked by and threw a fishing net on Matthew and drug him behind him until he yelled and said, I give up, I’ll follow you, okay already. No, or Jesus walked by and he said, come and follow me and just kept walking. By the way, did you know that the Greek word implies that Jesus just kept going. He walked by James and John, the sons of Zebedee. He walked by them and said, come and follow me. And he didn’t say, come on. Come and follow me. I mean, I’m trying to start something here. And I got some big plans. It could really go around the world. I think it’s gonna happen. He walked by and they responded. Did Jesus ever say no? And I don’t know the answer. I’m honestly asking you. Did Jesus ever say to Judas, come and follow me? I’m going to guess he did. He was one of the 12. Think about that. People say, man, this church is too big. Hey, listen, Jesus passed through the church of 12 people, and one of them was possessed. Think of that. I want a smaller church. Smaller than 12, I hope. Come and follow me. He didn’t coerce them. When the gospel goes out, listen, we’ll end with this. You’re gonna be blown away with how the parables do not apologize. They don’t apologize. Jesus gives the word and he lets the Holy Spirit use that and the outcome is God’s business and Jesus never worried about that. Neither should we. And that flies in the face, my friends, of a lot of church movement seminars. Come to our seminar and learn how you can get people into your church. Oh yeah, well how do we do that? First of all, take the word church off your church. Because people won’t go to church if it says church. It freaks them out. Next thing is, do this, just like the world does it, but do it this way. And then they’ll come in and they won’t even really know that they’re in a church until it’s too late. You’ll get them to sign up for the baking contest or the hot rod rally thing and they’ll go and hang out with some people and eventually they’ll just kind of blend in and become part of the group. Don’t use the word sin or repent, those are negative terms. And in Matthew’s gospel, we’ll read it later in detail, later some other day. Jesus is ministering. He’s teaching, it says, in parables. He’s healing people. And someone’s watching. Now watch this. Someone’s watching. And the guy comes running up to Jesus. He’s a young guy. In fact, you read all the gospels and you conclude it all comes together. You have to read them all. One of the gospels says he’s rich. One of the gospels says he’s young. And one of the gospels says that he’s an authority. He has power. The rich young ruler. You all know him, right? And he comes running up. Jesus, Jesus. Watch this. Jesus, Jesus. Good master, which is a tremendous term in that culture. Good master, godlike master. What godlike thing must I do to inherit the kingdom of heaven? How do I do what you do so I can be with you? How do I join this club? You know what Jesus said to him? Okay, first of all, I know, you know what Jesus said to him. But if Jesus would have attended these modern day seminars to grow your church, Jesus would have first of all paused and said, hmm, this is a rich young ruler. We can use him in the development of this worldwide thing I want to do. He’s got the energy. He’s got the authority. He’s got the box, right? Whatever we do, Peter, listen, James, treat this guy nice. Give him a seat up front here. Don’t upset him. So imagine in the modern day world, the guy pulls up in his black low ride donkey, pulls up, pulls up there, cuts people off. Hey man, I’m the rich young realtor. Man, Jesus, we’re tight. And everything’s compromised because you don’t want to lose a guy like that. That’s how you build a church. You’ve got to have people like that. No, no. Jesus says, why do you call me good? Listen to what he said. Why do you call me good? There’s only one good, and that’s God. Now, a person who doesn’t understand what Jesus is all about will say, well, there you go. Jesus just said that he wasn’t God. He said the exact opposite. You need to understand the way that they talk. Jesus is saying to this guy to draw faith out of him, you just called me good because you’ve seen me do God-like things. So why are you calling me this? Do you recognize who I am? And so Jesus says, do all these things and you will enter the kingdom of heaven. You’ll have the kingdom. Everything Jesus said to that man, the man thought he had kept. But then when Jesus said, okay, now here’s the thing. Go and sell all, church, is this how you get to heaven? Listen to what Jesus said. Go and sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and then you’ll have eternal life. Is that how you get eternal life? You know what Jesus was doing? Jesus was not tricking him. Jesus was literally speaking to the man’s idols. You need to tear down your idols. You can’t get into the kingdom because it’s not that you have money or not money. The issue is you worship your stuff. That’s where you have found your identities and your things. That’s why you can’t even recognize who I am. And the Bible said that when the man heard that, you can see his head go down, and the Bible says he walked away. The man left because he was sorrowful because he had many things. The word of God went out and it goes out and it separates the lost from the found. Let’s pray together. Father, tonight we pray, Lord, that as we lay down the background to these parables and introduce the concept of these parables, Father, that tonight, right now, in our hearing, Your word may be speaking to us even now. The Holy Spirit may be addressing issues now in our own lives. That we need you personally. That Father, in the name of Jesus, when we hear the name, decisions are made. Only that name causes people to embrace or to push away. Only that name And tonight, Lord, I pray that you would speak to this body, that you would speak to this gathering. We ask it in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, Amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called The Technicolor Truth. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series highlighting the teachings of Jesus while he was here on earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 slash know God. 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 know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Something amazing has been going on as part of this ministry, and that is our Happening Now series. I mean, you look at that series online, and there’s been millions of views. Jump into that for me, would you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it was actually started. I saw all of the rhetoric going on some time ago, some years ago, where, if you remember— Most recently, Jesus would be back on this date. And this is what’s going on regarding Bible prophecy and the other thing. So there’s a lot of people panicking. The end of the world is on such and such a date. The Mayan calendar says so. All of this kind of stuff. So what the Lord put upon my heart to do was to debunk all that stuff and to bring truth, biblical worldview truth, into the momentary dynamic of life. So it has kept true to that vision. But it has been expanding. God has seen fit to expand it. So we’ve had many, many Happening Now guests from Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager to so many others, including Amir Sirfati and Don Stewart and biblical scholars. It’s been amazing. but it has also allowed us to have a good friend of ours, a personal good friend of mine for years, and that is the wonderful young man, Charlie Kirk. So Charlie Kirk, he’s probably been with us more happening now than anybody else, but Charlie Kirk is going to be coming back to be with us in March, March 26th. It’s a Wednesday night, 90 Minutes. of live unscripted dialogue in the main sanctuary here at the church that I pastor in Southern California. And it is, there’s nothing like it. You’ve got to experience it. Yes, it’s going to be, it’d be broadcast on the real life network. By the way, everybody should get that app just by going to the app store, download it. It’s free. And you’ll be able to have the real life network with you 24-7, 365. And on that network, it will be broadcast live and will also be streaming from the church. But it’s going to be epic. And, you know, right now, by the way, ever since about two weeks before the election. Charlie has been side by side with Trump, and he’s been there in Mar-a-Lago, had to move into Mar-a-Lago for a good while, and now up into D.C. There’s so much happening. So Charlie’s a good friend. We’ve done a lot of great stuff together. Of course, he’s the founder and president of Turning Point USA. I think what’s going to shock a lot of people, we’re going to look at the book of Chronicles, specifically the man of Josiah, Josiah’s life, and how Josiah’s life parallels the moments that we’re living right now in America. Is it possible that God is doing something in the United States, quite shockingly, even in the realm of what we would call politics? God put a non-politician back into the realm of politics yet for a second time.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Quite amazing.
SPEAKER 02 :
I pay attention to Charlie Kirk online. And some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth, how does a person put that much into his brain?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, first of all, Charlie will not be offended if I say this. He’s a freak. Yeah, gotta be. Charlie is too smart. He’s, I don’t know, his brain, I’m convinced that there’s a cloud of his own that follows him somewhere where the downloads happen. Charlie’s so quick, so fast, and never more entertaining and thrilling than to watch Charlie Kirk on any university campus here throughout the U.S. where Charlie will set up a table and… and a microphone, and he’ll encourage people to come and debate him. And Charlie usually, not usually, he always defeats them with part of his brain tied behind his back. He’ll still win. And he doesn’t demean the people he’s talking to.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, he’s wonderful.
SPEAKER 03 :
He’s spirit-filled. And Charlie loves the Lord. I’m telling you right now, him and Erica, Christian home, Christian life, spirit-filled family, loving the Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m jealous of him, though. The fact that he was in the jump seat on Air Force One, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER 03 :
Charlie probably gets to go places that we’re not allowed to talk about.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, at this point, it’s kind of good luck getting a seat if you come to the sanctuary for a Happening Now event?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ve got to be honest with you guys. If you come, you’re going to find this out anyway. On a Happening Now night, people start showing up, standing in line at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon.
SPEAKER 02 :
Remember when there were 20 people in line for these? I mean, it wasn’t that small, but…
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I don’t. It’s never been. We have never had. Davey meant to say.
SPEAKER 02 :
I remember you talking about this idea of happening now, and it’s amazing to see how it’s grown over the past few years.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s funny you say grow. I mean, from the very first one, there’s been standing room only, and now it’s gone into the overflow of the courtyards and various external sanctuaries here on campus. I mean, it’s a full house. It’s not uncommon for us to have 5,000 people.
SPEAKER 02 :
people here at a happening now that’s happening now with special guest charlie kirk wednesday night march 26th 7 p.m that’s pacific time if you can’t come in person join us online for more info go to jack hibbs.com that’s jack hibbs.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.
