Today, Pastor Jack teaches that who and what we are is often decided in our youth. Influences through the years have created certain disciplines. But for the Christian, our lives are being recreated where dependability begins in the heart.
But when you’re young, you need to be focused more on God than ever before, because what you’re sowing to in your youth will matter later on in life.
SPEAKER 04 :
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. What do you do when heaven feels silent? When you’ve prayed, believed, even begged, and still nothing changes? When the person you love isn’t healed? When the worst actually happens? When it feels like evil is winning? Where is God in all of that? This May, Pastor Jack Hibbs’ featured resource is Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers by Erwin Lutzer. It’s an honest biblical look at the questions most of us are afraid to say out loud. Not shallow answers, but real hope, real truth. The kind that meets you right in the middle of disappointment and points you back to God’s greater purpose, even when you can’t see it. If you’ve ever wrestled with doubt, confusion, or silence from God, this book is for you. Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers? It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. Get your own copy of the Book of the Month, Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers? by Dr. Erwin Lutzer at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called Disciplines of Life with a message titled Disciplines of Dependability. As Christians, we really have to strive towards dependability. It’s a spiritual discipline that helps believers to grow into something that others can depend upon. You see, this discipline is all about being consistent, to trust and obey God even when it’s difficult. Dependability together with patience and humility is what you gotta have to face life’s obstacles with faith rather than giving up when things get tough. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that who and what we are is often decided in our youth. Influences through the years have created certain disciplines, but for Christians, our lives are being recreated where dependability begins in the heart. Now with his message called Disciplines of Dependability, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs. And so as we continue our series called The Disciplines of Life, we’re talking about the disciplines of dependability. That’s a great topic. You mentioned that dependability often gets proven during difficult seasons, right? I mean, it makes sense. But why do hard times, you think, reveal so much about… a person’s spiritual foundation.
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Well, honestly, when things are easy, when the road’s smooth, there’s no need to even bring up dependability, faithfulness, loyalty, commitment, endurance, right? But life is not like that. The road’s bumpy, and it’s got its dangers. When we talk about the disciplines of dependability, we’re talking about developing a practice in our life For example, in Lamentations, the scriptures tell us that a good man will learn, really, to bear the yoke of his youth. How to be a young man. Boy, that’s missing today in America. It is, yeah. It’s missing in the world, for that matter. How to be a young man. If a young man today is suffering, he thinks the world’s come to an end. No, the exact opposite’s going on. The suffering you’re going through is actually to be managed because it’s making you into a man. This is what people need to realize. We think, well, if we just protect our kids from all things difficult, they’re going to be just fine. No, listen, they’ll never learn dependability, both themselves and God, without difficulties and hardships. And so, quite frankly, it’s something that we need to really stop panicking as parents, including for ourselves, when there’s a challenge because dependability is made in the fire.
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Dependability isn’t usually the first trait that people think about when it comes to spiritual growth. I mean, really.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, you’re right. And yet that’s exactly what we must have. And we may not even know it, but it’s what we’re longing for. And what I mean by that is I’m sure I speak for all of us when – When I say, Lord, please make sure, please make sure you get me to the end. I want to finish well. Don’t let me end my Christian witness on earth and discredit your name. I mean, our minds go off on the proverbial rabbit trail because we know so many names that have crashed and burned right when they got near the finish line. Well, we don’t want to be like that. So Lord, cause me to exercise the discipline of dependability that no matter what, I’m not going to take my eyes off of you.
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Discipline of dependability. Let’s jump in.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bless now the going forth of your word to our hearts. And Father, we pray that we would leave this Wednesday night more in love with Jesus, more on fire in an age and in a nation that needs a true witness of Christ. Lord, make us. revolutionaries, as it were, for the kingdom of God. It is time, Lord, that America, Father, be revived. And that’s not going to happen unless your people are revived. And Lord, we know that you’re the God of revival. You love doing it. So Father, we’re asking you right now to do it in our lives. Start right here. As an epicenter of revival. Lord, start in this corner of this continent in Southern California. And Lord, cause an earthquake in the spirit to ripple across this nation. Start with us, Father. We pray in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, amen. Well, church, grab your Bibles this evening and turn, if you would, to two places as we normally do on Wednesday nights. And that is Matthew chapter 28. Matthew chapter 28, and we’ll read it there in a moment, and Lamentations chapter 3. Lamentations, it’s just after the book of Jeremiah and just before the book of Ezekiel. Just after Jeremiah and just before Ezekiel is the book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah the prophet. Lamentations, but first Matthew chapter 28. Tonight we’re looking at the discipline of dependability. What does that mean? As we go through this special series on Wednesday nights about the disciplines of life, what does it mean to be dependable? What is God’s definition of it, and what does it mean, and what does it look like in our lives? We’re going to talk about that tonight, and Lord willing, learn of that tonight. So Matthew chapter 28, regarding the disciplines of life, Jesus said, “…all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you. And behold, and I love this, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Now, Lamentations chapter 3, verse 27, the discipline of dependability. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silent because God has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth to the dust and there may yet be hope. What a strong word. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Who and what you and I are and what we become, listen church, is formed and shaped in our early years. It’s interesting to me that Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, have all announced throughout the careers of their tyranny that if we can just get the youth of a culture, then we’ll get the future. That is the future, is the youth. When you can control the youth, you will control the future. America has a brand new future that’s happening right before our eyes because the youth now are growing up and they’re voters and they’re in the economy and they’re in the neighborhood and they have now… And there’s a whole other generation coming behind them. That’s the way it has always been. That’s the way it shall be until the Lord comes back. But keep this in mind. The person that you are today, the life that you live, is very much formed by your early years. The struggles that you and I go through in our own private life. The things that we need to get victory over. How much of what you and I struggle with as Christians are things that are what we’ll call residuals of our lives? How much of that is something that controls us versus something that through the power of God, is able to be overcome. I would say this, that no matter who we are in Christ, as we’ll see by the end of this message, that no matter what kind of upbringing that you’ve ever had in your life, no matter how dark the painting or picture can be, that the Bible says through Christ we are more than conquerors. And that’s very good news. The Bible says in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, verse 1, it says, Remember now your creator in the days of your youth. Check this out. Before the difficult days come and the years draw near when you say, I have no pleasure in them. Think of that. As you’re young, remember now the days. Remember the creator, your God, in the days of your youth. Listen, church family, as we are young people gathered around here right now, you say, as we as young people, that doesn’t matter what age you are right now. If you’ve got some years to live, you’re younger now than you will be later. Right? And what I’m talking about is we need to remember the Lord our God in the days of our youth. Because there are days coming when the scripture says we will have no pleasure in those days. Now for some that are older and getting on in years or maybe it’s sickness or disease or ailment, life is a burden. Life is difficult. Life gets hard. It’s a struggle to get out of bed for some people when in earlier years it was something that they never thought about. And God says, you remember me in your youth. There is no reason why our young people today in America or for that matter in the world should have some sort of an excuse as to why they can’t follow Jesus because they’re young? Oh no, it’s the other way around. Because they are young, they should be following Jesus absolutely 100%. Crazy for God. This nation, this world needs to see kids crazy for God once again. Kids that are alive for Christ. And there’s certain laws, by the way, in all of nature that you and I obey every day. The laws that take place in nature. Gravity’s working on us all, right? There’s entropy, which is the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy declares that everything in the scientific world and the observable universe is going from an ordered state to a chaotic state. Did you know that? That’s what the Bible says too, by the way. That’s what science says. Everything’s going from a perfect state to a disastrous state. Things are unwinding. We know that the burn rate of the sun, for example, is diminishing. It’s losing strength. You and I as humans are losing strength. We know from philosophy and also from science that the moment a child is born, a child begins to die even at its young age. Why? Because it started that downward progression of life. It’s going against the clock. The clock is, as it were, against life. And it doesn’t matter what you and I do in all of this life. There’s not enough Botox or saline or corrective surgery or whatever that is going to make that change. There are laws that God has established. And one of those things is how you and I, listen, are disciplining our lives as believers. And I’m going to say some things tonight that need to be said. Things that parents need to be listening to. And if they’re not gonna listen to it, then you young people tonight, you tune in and listen and be better off for it. Remember, listen, I’m not your parent. I’m not your dad. So I get to tell you stuff that I really, really value. And you can choose to take it and live it out or not. It’s your choice, but I hope you do take it. Before we get into this, jot down 2 Corinthians 4.16. 2 Corinthians 4.16 says, “‘Therefore, we do not lose heart, “‘even though our outward man is perishing.'” Yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. And that’s the last thing in a young person’s mind this evening is my outward man’s perishing. Because when you’re young, you’re deceived by how you feel. You feel so good. And I want to challenge you because listen, us old people now, we would say, man. I remember I was reading Benjamin Franklin and he was talking to Thomas Jefferson. And the conversation went this way, that somebody’s age was stated and the guy was 70 years old. I’m 70 years old today. And Benjamin Franklin, who was well into his 80s, turned to Jefferson and said, oh, to be 70 again. Well, think about that for a moment. I’m 52. Oh, to be 32 again. Why? Because I know more now than I did then. But now I don’t have the energy to pull off what I know which is the right thing to do. If I had life, you’ve heard this before, if I had life to live all over again, I would do it this way or I’d do it that way. Where does that come from? Based upon life’s experience lived in light of God. And then to look back and say, you see young people, you go, oh, don’t do that. And they think, what do you know, you old timer? You know, and then their car blows up or they run into the glass wall and you say, I told you. And there’s some bit of pleasure, by the way, for us old people watching you do that, but But when you’re young, you need to be focused more on God than ever before. Because what you’re sowing to in your youth will matter later on in life. The things that you and I are enjoying right now as older believers is because we invested in the things of God early on in life.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. To learn more about this ministry or to catch up on some previous episodes, go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And now let’s get back to today’s message. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m so grateful for my spiritual heritage and that Christ saved me young in life at the age of 19. Now, if I had to do it my way, I guess I would have said, I wish I would have been grown up in a Christian home, but God knows his plan. But these influences that you and I have had in our lives have caused you and I to have certain disciplines in our life. And these disciplines become our lifestyle. So here we go. Number one is this. The discipline of dependability is this. that we are to be training our new heart. We had jot that down as a Christian tonight. You’ve been granted a brand new heart. My friends, listen, do not think for a moment that you can come into religion and just carry your old world into some… preconceived notion that you’ve just added religion onto your life. No, you and I have been given as a believer, Christian, a new heart. That’s one of the great hallmarks of God’s work in our lives. We don’t become religious, we become new people. We’ve been given a new heart and we’ve got to train that new heart instructed in the things of God. It’s been well said that the heart is the great fundamental. Isn’t that a great statement? The heart is the great fundamental. Noah Webster in his 1828 dictionary says that dependability is the act of loyalty, reliability, steadfastness. Webster adds, as in a dependable friend. Isn’t that a beautiful thing? To him, he writes… That dependability is that which is found like it is in a dependable friend. Loyalty. Reliability. Steadfastness. That’s a strong word. Jesus said it this way in Matthew 5, 8 regarding the heart. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Have you ever thought about that for a minute? Think about that. This is not the study I want to give right now, but let me put this in front of you. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. You want to freak out for a moment? God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In eternity… By the way, the pure in heart, there’s not gonna be a section in heaven where the pure in heart sit. Did you know that? Well, I’ll be a peacemaker. I’ll be over here. No, you’re not. No, no. Those in heaven will have all of those things because the true believer in their heart right now, you, right here this evening, you long to be a peacemaker. You long to be pure in heart, don’t you? The four of us do right here. Pure in heart. What does that mean? They shall see God. How? How are we going to see the Holy Spirit in heaven? I don’t know, but we’re going to. It says God. You will see God. How are we going to see God the Father when the Bible tells us that no man can look upon him? Because you will be glorified. You will be in your glorified state. You will be in your absolute, total, redeemed state. Wow. Obviously, we can really relate and associate, and so we should with Jesus Christ. but to see the Holy Spirit, to see the Father, to see the Son. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. That is going to be an awesome moment. And when we talk about the disciplines of dependability, we’re talking about something that is installed in the character of a believer. A brand new heart’s been given to us. Now, why do we need a new heart? Because the Bible says in Jeremiah 17, 9, now watch the doors. This is where people leave. Watch this. Cameras, get ready. Follow them out all the way. Because nobody wants to hear this if they’re deceived. But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll say, wow, the Bible looks down into my soul. Jeremiah 17, nine says, this is God speaking, the heart is deceitful above all things. It’s desperately wicked. Who can know it? If you keep reading verse 10, God says, I know it. God knows. Do you know that? The heart’s wicked, says the Bible. It’s deceitful. It needs to be renewed. It needs to be changed, I should say. A new heart. And that heart needs to be trained in the things of God. It’s being born again, Jesus said. In Psalm 14.1, the Bible says, I love this. Go out tonight. It’s going to be crystal clear. Look at the stars. It’s been beautiful at night for the last 10 months. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Look up at those stars, because the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. You think of that? Boy, this morning I was outside early. It was beautiful and it was dark and the sky was so brilliant. And you think about the heavens declare the glory of God. And sometimes when I’m looking at the heavens and you’re thinking about that, it’s almost as though as the scripture says that day and today, night and tonight and day and today, they utter their speech and there’s no place where their voice is not heard. It means that the heavens are shouting to a world that’s looking on. God is real. But the fool says in his heart, no God, there’s no God, there’s no God, there’s no God. Wow. Well, listen. This is the very reason why, as Jesus said, we must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. We need a brand new heart, and the moment that we come to Christ, that heart needs to be trained in the things of God. Ezekiel 36, 26 says that God speaks to the believer, and he says, I will give you a new heart, and I will put my spirit within you. A brand new life. In 2 Corinthians 5, you’re going to have to write these down fast. I have a lot of verses. In 2 Corinthians 5, 16, the Bible says, I quote this verse often. I love it. Do we believe that tonight? Yes. Listen, have you had a rough life? Has the input into your life been very bad? Have you had horrible parents or horrible grandparents or did somebody raise you? Were you raised by a pack of wolves in the wilderness? Whatever that was, listen, you are not an animal. You have been created in the image of God. You’re not an angel. You’re redeemable. Angels are not… You are God’s treasure, so much so, he says, I’ve sent my son to die on the cross for your sins and to not only pay the price that you and I couldn’t pay for our sin, he did that, washing away the sin of yours and mine, but on top of it, giving us a brand new start in life. All the stuff that, mark it down in your head, just think for a moment, all the stuff that we would say is against us, Is it life? Somebody might say, life’s not fair. Let me tell you something. Absolutely not. Life’s not fair. It’s not supposed to be fair. Where do we get that concept? Well, life’s not fair. For you to say that life’s not fair is for you to immediately admit that there is something better. And to assume that what’s difficult must be bad. Somebody, I was talking to someone yesterday at the hospital and They said, well, the worst thing that can happen is, and they said what they said, and I said, but is that really the worst thing that could happen? Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, that’s what they said. Is it really the worst thing that could happen? That this person, life ends in death? Not for the believer, that’s not the worst thing that can happen. See, we get this concept, and let me tell you something right now. We need to rejoice. God is not fair regarding salvation either. You don’t want God fair regarding salvation. Fair is all the super nice good people get to go to heaven. Where are the rest of us gonna go? Jesus died for the entire world. He died for the sins of all humanity at the cross. And that’s an awesome thing. That’s a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Disciplines of Dependability. Thanks for being with us today. We really appreciate you being here. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Disciplines of Life. It’s a series that highlights the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing our faith with others. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, the Apostle Peter in his letters to the church urged his fellow Christians to keep on learning and growing in the faith, in spite of their suffering and pain. Unlike today, however, resources were scarce. Still, they persevered, and Christ followers were growing in both strength and numbers. Now there’s no limit of ways to access quality materials on Christian living, including Pastor Jack’s website. When you go to jackhibbs.com and click the media icon, you’ll find not only real-life radio episodes, but real-life podcasts, real-life TV, real-life basics for Christian growth, and even news updates. There’s also specific verse-by-verse studies from books of the Bible and so much more. So head on over to our website at jackhibbs.com and click on the media tab. That’s jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you’d like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what’s going on with this ministry. And please, if you’re ever in the Southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We’d love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today, and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.
SPEAKER 04 :
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.
