Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he delves into the story of David and Goliath, offering profound insights into how we can confront the giants in our lives. Drawing parallels between the biblical account and the challenges we face today, Pastor Jack encourages listeners to awaken to the spiritual battles that surround us and embrace faith over fear.
00:25:38 Conclusion and Invitation to Listen Again
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Today on Real Life Radio.
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Many, many times when God is in something so much, the opposition of the enemy world is so great, but yet because we’re not walking by faith, we’re not walking in the spirit, we will give up on the vision, on the task because we hit some hardship.
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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 continues now with his series called First Samuel and a message titled Winning the Battles of Life Part One. Samuel of the Old Testament was the last judge of Israel, and he was the first of its prophets. So here in Chapter 17, we’ll rediscover that well-known story of David and Goliath. You see, the event before us was a true battle. young david facing the giant goliath israel’s now being threatened as goliath mocks god’s people fear is everywhere and when it comes to goliath well we have giants in our lives as well so today pastor jack teaches that our giants may not look like goliath A giant may be fear or insecurity. It may be past failures or sickness under overwhelming odds. But God will not fail us. He gives us the victory even when we see our problems as way too big and our faith is way too small. Now, in his message called Winning the Battles of Life, Part 1, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
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1 Samuel 17, and we are considering the series that’s before us. And of course, this is a great and famous chapter of David killing the great giant, Goliath. But we’re going to take a very, very slow, and we trust a very good look at winning the battles of life as we consider this chapter. 1 Samuel 17, we’ll look at the first seven verses this evening in our study together. It says here before us, now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and were gathered at Sukkot, which belongs to Judah. And they encamped between Sukkot and Azekah in Ephes Damim. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and they encamped in the Valley of Elah. And they drew up in battle array against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with a valley between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail.” And the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam and his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels and an armor bearer went before him. Tonight we’re considering our first study in what is entitled Winning the Battles of Life. And there’s a lot here, and I am convinced after studying for this, that if we spent perhaps the remainder of the year upon this chapter, we will not fathom all that God has for us here. You might say, Jack, you are exaggerating. You are no way serious. I’m dead serious. I am sure of it. You say, well, come on, are you sure? Because I’ve heard this story all my life. I remember this story when I was a kid. Well, you know what? It’s an actual event. We’ve heard it so much that we consider it maybe just a story. But yet what is behind the scene in the writing, in the wording, and in the subsequent events aspects of us live in our lives the story before us the event before us is far deeper than what we give it credit for this may be a story where we sit down and read a child to at night about the great exploits of god that a young boy cuts off the head of a great giant who is challenging the nation of israel to destroy it and we might say what a story junior isn’t it great well you know what i’m convinced now that yeah it not only happened But there are giants in our lives right now today. Oh, they may not be nine feet, six inches tall. They might be taller. There’s a lot going on. And so as we look at this this evening, it is my prayer and my hope that it’s just a power to our walk. And so as we look to winning the battles of life, tonight we consider this first point, and that is awakening to the conflict. As Christians, we need to wake up to the truth that we are actually in a battle. We hear about it, we read about it, but I wonder if we often really consider what’s going on around us as being a true battle. The things that are going on in our lives, do we write them off as just bad luck? You know, Christians don’t experience bad luck. Did you know that? There’s no such thing as bad luck to a Christian. There’s no such thing as good luck. There’s a good God in a bad world. And if somebody says, well, and I know they mean well, I think maybe they’re new to the faith or whatever, but people will leave here on Sunday mornings after the services and they’ll say, good luck at second service, Pastor Jack. Good luck at third service. Good luck. Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s a good God, I hope, that has everything to do with it. But I know what they mean, kind of, I hope, maybe. Luck? No. But in this life, we have giants. David had his giant, but God had a plan about that because God was advancing David. God had a plan for David to take kingdoms and realms for the glory of God. But you might be thinking, now wait a minute, Jack, if God anointed and called David, seeing how David is God’s man, wouldn’t his life be smooth? I mean, when you came to Jesus, did you maybe think everything was gonna smooth out? Yes. Hey, I’m God’s man, David might have yelled. He could have said, I’m the guy that Samuel anointed. I’m David. And you would think maybe because he’s the star of the show that there’d be no trouble. Sometimes I wonder if Christians don’t have it more difficult in this life than the non-believer. Isn’t that what David cried out in the Psalms? Didn’t David cry out and say, man, what’s the deal? The non-believer who hates God seems to be blessed, prosperous, he’s healthy, while the righteous scarcely get by. Isn’t that how it is in life so many times? It is. The Bible tells us these things. We have a tendency to lean upon the idea that if I’m favored by God as David was favored, then perhaps maybe all will be well. Things will go smooth. After all, Lord, aren’t I your servant? What’s going on? Do pastors get flat tires? Yeah. Do Christians experience sickness? Mm-hmm. Why is it where you’ve got a man who’s favored by God like Paul the Apostle? He went through so many physical ailments. And if that weren’t enough, the poor man was stoned and left for dead. The Bible tells us that when Paul, I believe, in that portion of the book of Acts, when he got up after being stoned, I believe that he was killed. I believe Paul died. I believe the Lord brought him back. And the Bible says that Paul got up and he dusted himself off and he went right back into the same city. Wouldn’t you have caught, like, the Metrolink out of here? There is this sense, this calling. Paul knew, David knew, Moses knew. I’m God’s man for the hour. But they didn’t look at the bruises. Oh, they had bruises. But they didn’t look to the sickness. They had sickness. They didn’t look to the setback as though God must not be in it. I hope we learn in these studies that, listen, we need to be more resilient as Christians. Consider this. When we want to do something, we’ll do it and we’ll press on through it. You know what I’m talking about? Oh, I drug my family through this years ago. I wanted to go skiing in Utah. I’ve got family that lives in Utah. I can ski for free. That’s a deal. So we pack up here and away we go. Now my wife is sick. Rebecca was sick. And I’m telling her, it’s okay, the Lord’s in this, you’ll see. The Lord was not in the whole trip at all. We got snowed in in Cedar City the first time they’d closed I-15 in 18 years, the guy told us. We had to spend Christmas morning in a little tiny motel. Then we got behind a semi and for six and a half hours stayed on that semi as people were stranded along the road looking out of windows and stranded cars. The blizzard was so bad. Then we get to Utah and my wife and my kid get sicker while I’m skiing. Somebody had to do it. But the whole thing was I was pushing and pushing and pushing. I learned a big lesson, man. I learned a big lesson. But you see, I wanted to do it. Come on, we can do it. Oh, come on, you’re not that sick. Come on, come on, you can go. Oh, look, you can be sick at home sitting on the couch, or you can be sick in the car sitting in the car. It’s sitting. Let’s go, let’s go, we can do this. You see, I wanted to, so I was willing to not only go through all of this blizzard, but to put people through it because it was something I wanted to do. But boy, as Christians, if we embark upon something and there’s a little bit of an obstacle, maybe we should back off. Maybe God’s not in it. And many times the reverse is true. Many, many times when God is in something so much, the opposition of the enemy world is so great, but yet because we’re not walking by faith, we’re not walking in the spirit, we will give up on the vision, on the task because we hit some hardship. That’s a terrible way to live. Oh, let me tell you what I’m gonna do. The Lord is gonna lead me and guide me. And here’s the deal. And boy, you got your friends, you got people all pumped up about it and off you go. And you hit the first bump in the road and you think the end of the world is coming and maybe God’s not in. Obstacles are often, often, not always, but often the thumbs up of God’s blessing. It’s tremendous. Difficult, no doubt. Winning the battles of life and how we keep going.
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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.
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By the way, you know, we are in a battle. The Bible talks about a battle. The Bible talks about war. and in the spirit realm, and the Bible talks about victories, and what’s amazing to me about victories imply battles, and battles imply war, and war implies warfare, and as Christians, if you’re a Christian tonight, no need to raise your hand, but if you’re a Christian tonight, then you will experience warfare. And that is one of the areas that if I would really go deep into this study, you might find yourself kind of whistling in the dark to keep yourself company kind of a thing. You know what I’m talking about? I don’t wanna hear anything like that, Pastor. Just go on to the next topic. I don’t wanna hear about things that go bump in the night. I don’t wanna hear about anything that could be listening in. I don’t wanna hear about anything that’s invisible. And yet the Bible tells us that there’s an invisible world. In the book of Daniel, Daniel was praying for 21 days, and he was wondering, where’s the answer? Where’s the answer to my prayer? And then an angel shows up. Wouldn’t you love to have been there? Daniel’s praying, oh, Lord, speak to me. What’s the deal? And all of a sudden, there’s an angel. Hi, Daniel. The day that you started praying, I was dispatched by God to come and speak to you. But for 21 days, I was held up in a spiritual battle with the Prince of Persia in the atmosphere. Can you imagine? You were what? Can you imagine? Kind of like Don Knotts, huh? Hey, Abby, you know? You were what? Demonic activity, fighting in the atmosphere. The Bible warns us to be careful that when we’re living our lives as Christians and ministering and just day-to-day life, the Bible says be careful how you treat strangers because you could be entertaining an angel without knowing. Are you sure that’s in the Bible? Buddy, that’s in the Bible. Can you imagine? Isn’t it wild but right here? Look at all the heirs of salvation that are here. The Bible talks about in the book of Matthew and the book of Hebrews that there are angelic custodians to the heirs of salvation. That’s us. Hopefully it’s all of us in here tonight. They’re with you. You know this talk about a guardian angel? You know that’s true. It’s true. And as you’re gathered here tonight, can you imagine if we could see into the spirit realm? I’m glad we can’t, by the way. We’d be so wigged out, perhaps. But there’s angels around here tonight. Could be an angel sitting right here. Imagine. Could be. We know from portions of the Bible where When Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, God set an angel, two angels with flaming swords to protect them from the tree of life. Amazing. Principalities and powers. We’re going to hear about those things in this study, and not only that, but our own flesh, how our flesh teams up against this and this world system. But we have a tendency to shy away from battles, and we ought not to do that. So it’s a very important thing. that we consider that God has got a plan for us in this area. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes perhaps you might feel that, you know, this Christian endeavor sometimes is just so difficult. A brother was praying before service tonight, and I loved his prayer. He just said, Lord, can you please hurry up and get us out of here? You ever feel like that? And it seems to me that the moment you were born again, it would be a great time to get raptured right then and there. But that doesn’t work that way. Why does God want you and I to go through battles in this life? After all, we’re only going to heaven. It’s going to be perfect there. Why do we need to have this kind of work experience? Then someone will come back and say, because he’s building character in us. But why do we need character if when we get to heaven we’re going to be like Jesus? What’s the deal? You ever wonder about that? I do. Lord, why can’t we just accept you and go straight home to be with you? Well, that’s the easy way out. But perchance there are some of you sitting here tonight who you’ve had the opportunity, and maybe you’re not aware of it, but you have been leading people to Christ. They’re watching your life. They’re listening to you. You’ve said something to someone about Jesus, and you’re a witness. It’s an amazing thing. Awakening to the conflict. We see, first of all, that the Christian is in an invisible war. The first thing we want to do is awaken to the conflict. Look at verses 1 and 2. It says here in verses 1 and 2, it says, Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle, and they were gathered together at Soco, which belongs to Judah. I’m going to ask you to circle that little statement there, which belongs to Judah. What I want you to realize tonight is that number one thing as a Christian, we need to awaken to the fact that we are involved in an invisible war. And that invisible war we get hints about in verses one and two. Number one is that it’s all about territories. Can you jot that down? It’s about territories and life. The Philistines gathered their armies together to battle. There’s nothing illegal about that. They’re the Philistines. They are a warring tribal group of people. They can do whatever they wanna do, I guess. But notice this, it’s the Philistines that gathered together in a region, Soko, which belongs to Judah. They are in Israeli territory, territory that God had given to Israel. That’s what makes this important to us tonight. The enemy will always invade territories of our lives. Very important. We need to understand that there are territories and strongholds that God has established in your life. Listen carefully. Has God delivered you from anything since you become a Christian? You better have a testimony about that. It could be angry or it could be whatever. Has God delivered you? And has he in turn established a territory or stronghold, as it were, with his banner waving over that territory? The answer is yes. You have been conquered by the Holy Spirit of the glory of God. You are a testimony of the living God. You belong to him. And I tell you, we’ve lost this romance of scripture, but in the ancient days, you look at men like Jacob and Abraham, they walked areas. And when they walked, God would speak to them and he would say, this area that you’ve walked, I’ve given it into your hands. There’s a good thing about thinking like that. I told you before, in 1986, we stood under that huge oak tree that’s now the logo for the city of Chino Hills. We stood under that oak tree and we didn’t know what we were doing. We lifted up our hands and we said, Lord, we’re here. If you want to deliver these hills and this valley into your hands for your glory, use us in Jesus’ name. Amen. We didn’t even know what we were saying. But you know what? Our hearts were right. We were sincere about it. There’s something that we need to walk like that where we go. Where do you work? Do you realize? Oh, I believe what I’m about to say here. If you don’t believe it, don’t tell me. You’ll hurt my feelings. But I believe that a company will be blessed by the Lord because a Christian works there. Hey, if there’s any non-believing company owners here tonight, you ought to hire a Christian. I think God will keep your doors open because he’s got one of his kids working in your company. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve also seen it happen when the Christian or Christians leave, the company shuts down. Isn’t that interesting? Kind of goes along the lines where God speaks regarding Abraham, I’ll bless those who bless and I’ll curse those who curse. Interesting, huh? It’s all about territories. In your life, have you advanced in an area? In God, you’ve gotten success in an area. Maybe it’s been years, and all of a sudden things are slowly now, you’re noticing there’s a creeping back of the world, almost like weeds in a garden. Was there a time in your life where you prayed and you were earnest about prayer? Was there a time in your life when you were so excited to share Jesus with people? Or what about just telling your friend? You love them, you do everything with them, they’re important to you, and you care for them, but there was a time when you would tell them about Jesus, and now you don’t? Are there territories in your life that God has conquered and set up a boundary to, but you and I, we’ve let those fences get torn down? Maybe it’s in the area of your mouth or what you allow your eyes to see or your ears to hear. There was a day maybe when you said, well, I walked a little bit more holy than I do now. Be careful. These are dangerous moves. And the world is against us and Satan’s against us and our flesh is against us to get us out of an advancement with God. Satan’s already lost your soul. He can’t do anything about that. You belong to Christ. But… The danger is he wants to sterilize you so that you don’t influence anyone else for Christ. Like Lazarus. Lazarus knew the Lord Jesus, but Jesus gave him life. He came hopping out of the tomb, but he was still wrapped in his grave clothes. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t walk. He could only hop. And that’s why Jesus said after Jesus had given him life, somebody to loose him and let him go. It’s a great verse, huh? Jesus has given us life, but maybe over the course of time, we’ve let things creep back into our lives.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Winning the Battles of Life, Part One. So glad you’re with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called First Samuel. It’s a series that highlights the prophet Samuel, who was called by God during one of Israel’s darkest times to bring the people back to a heart of true worship. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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Hey friends, first of all, Merry Christmas. And like we do every year, we go through the Bible in a year. That’s how we keep a big church family together, by going through the Word of God together. Well, this year we’re throwing you a curve ball that you can hit. This is a brand new one. This is different. This is the Dr. Charles Stanley Life Principle Daily Bible. This Bible has got not only the daily reading, it’s got insights by none other than Dr. Charles Stanley. We encourage you to get a copy of this for yourself. And listen, we also want you to be aware of the fact that we have a devotion watching, waiting. It’s a 40-day devotion, and it’s all about scripture verses that excite you and encourage you about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you.
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Visit jackhibbs.com to get your December Book of the Month double feature, the One Year Bible, and Pastor Jack’s brand new devotional, Watching Waiting. They’re available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. Again, that’s jackhibbs.com.
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Your week is packed. You’re running on empty, and sometimes Sunday already feels like a distant memory by Wednesday. That’s exactly why real-life devotions exist. Each week, Pastor Jack Hibbs brings you a short but powerful moment in God’s Word designed to encourage, equip, and refocus your heart. It’s not another podcast or a long sermon. It’s a few meaningful minutes that meet you right where you are. Whether you’re on a commute, going for a walk, or you just need a reset in the middle of your day, Real Life Devotions are ready when you are. Fresh encouragement straight from the scripture. And it’s all just one click away. Check out the newest devotion now at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Your place for real faith, real encouragement, and real life. That’s Real Life Devotions at jackhibbs.com.
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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.
