Today, Pastor Jack teaches that determination means staying faithful. Staying committed to Christ, trusting in His plan, and continuing to obey Him no matter what, is the real discipline of determination.
It’s always too soon to quit. Don’t give up on Jesus. He will not give up on you. Don’t quit. He’ll never quit you.
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. 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 with his series now called Disciplines of Life and a message titled Disciplines of Determination. As the world is becoming more and more difficult, there will always be a reason to quit. But we’ve really got to stand firm in our faith and stay committed to God and His will for our lives. You see, in life and in faith, there will always be troubles, always problems, discouragement, and people telling us to stop and walk away. But determination means choosing not to give up, even when there are reasons that seem convincing enough to do just that, give up. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that determination means staying faithful, staying committed to Christ, trusting in his plan, and continuing to obey him no matter what is the real discipline of determination. Now, with his message called Disciplines of Determination, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 03 :
In 1 Kings 21, the Bible says, And it came to pass after these things that Naboth… Remember this story? Naboth he had a vineyard beautiful thing beautiful vineyard producing great crops and Ahab saw it and he wanted that vineyard he wanted Naboth’s vineyard I want it and he offers Naboth hey I’ll give you I’ll trade you some land I don’t want I don’t want to trade I’ll give you some money I don’t want any money this is this land is inheritance of mine it’s in my family and listen to this It says in verse four of 1 Kings 21, so Ahab went into his house sullen. You know what sullen means? He goes into his house and he’s displeased because of the word of Naboth. And he says, I will not give you the inheritance of my father’s, that’s what he told me. And he laid down on his bed, and he turned away his face, and he would eat no food. This is the king. What’s the matter? He won’t give me his vineyard. He winds up killing the guy to get it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Giving up on following God because you think you see something better. Doesn’t God want me happy? No. Where’d you get that idea from? Follow Jesus and he’ll make you happy. That’s not what it says. God wants you holy. Happy, it says blessed, that’s the word happy, blessed are the, yeah, blessed are the what? Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the fill in the blank. In obedience to him, your life becomes happy. But you don’t sign up for Jesus. Okay, man, yeah, I wanna be happy. What do I sign? Just raise your right hand. You know, Jesus, come into my heart. Why, why are you praying that? I wanna be happy. Hey, that’s a byproduct, man, of coming to Christ and having your sins forgiven. Understanding he died on the cross for your sins. If you were the only human to have ever lived. Theologically correct, absolutely. If you were the only, imagine Adam and Eve got together and they never got together again after that. And you were the only one walking around. He would have died for you. If you were the only one ever born. That’s how valuable you are, but you have to come to him. But we get our eyes off him. We think, oh, that’s better. It’s better if I go over there or do this or whatever. The danger of wanting something that God doesn’t, listen, that God doesn’t want us to have. The danger of wanting something that God doesn’t want us to have. Here’s the scary part. Is there something that you’re hounding God about? I want this thing. I really want it. Man, I really, I gotta have that. and you’ve wrapped it all up, and you’re even praying, dear Lord, if you want me to have that thing, you know, and you know down deep inside it’s like, you better give it to me. I told you that story years ago. Maybe it’s time to retell it. That little kid, he goes up to his mom, and he goes, I want a bicycle for Christmas, please. So he asks his mom every day, mom, can I have a bike for Christmas? And she got so fed up, she goes, go ask your dad. So he goes, dad, can I have a bike for Christmas? He says, no, there’s no money. So mom picks Junior up from school one afternoon and he’s all bummed out and it’s a few days away from Christmas. He’s looked all around the garage. He’s looked everywhere. There’s no box that looks remotely like a bicycle box. So he’s really concerned. He’s really upset. And so mom stops the car, and she goes, I’ll be right back. Stay here. I’m going to go get something. I’ll be gone a minute. And so on the dashboard, there was a little statue of Mary on the dash. And so the little kid looks at Mary on the dash, and he has this incredible idea. He looks to the right. He looks to the left, makes sure mom’s nowhere around. He reaches over and snaps. Mary off at the ankles, off the dash, and puts Mary in a brown, his lunch bag. Rolls it up. Folds his hands and he prays. And he says, dear God, if you ever wanna see your mother again, you’ll get me a bicycle. That’s great. Listen, there will always be days and times when you want to quit because we don’t see any good coming out of what we’re involved in. We don’t see any good coming out of the stuff that we’re involved in. So we’re thinking, I’m just going to quit. Listen, Christian, it could be. J. Hudson Taylor, his ministry was bearing no fruit and he stayed at it. And one convert to his ministry later went on to lead thousands of people to Christ. Hudson Taylor leads one to Christ, his convert leads thousands to Christ. That’s, believe it or not, in heaven, that is ministry to his account. Stay at it. Well, I don’t see any good coming out of this. Stay at it. You’re a Christian. You have no right, no authority to quit. You’re under orders. You have a master. You have a general. You have a king. You can’t quit. Remember when the disciples said, can anything good come out of Nazareth when they’re talking about Jesus? Yes. Can anything good come out of this? How can something good come out of this? I just lost my job or my child is sick. Watch God. And listen, let me be brutally honest. If everything in your evaluation fails, it hasn’t failed from God’s evaluation, from his point of Are we willing to trust him enough? Tears and all, vomiting, gut-wrenching, sick to our stomach over grief for that situation, that sickness, child, marriage, whatever it is, where your guts are coming out in grief. And you say, God, you alone have the words of eternal life. I have nowhere else to go. I cry out with Job, naked I’ve come and naked I go. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Though he slay me, yet shall I trust him. What are you going to do? Listen, can you imagine if Christians that are backslidden tonight woke up and stopped quitting and decided, I’m going back to church to serve the living God. Maybe they’ve been huddling and nursing and burping and Cuddling their little emotions or feelings because somebody hurt them. Hey, we all get hurt. All the time. And the more you’re out there, the more that you’re going to get hurt. Listen. You’re not doing it for anybody else. Everybody else is blessed by what you’re doing for the Lord. But you’re doing it for the Lord. But imagine if, you realize if backslidden Christians decided to come back to church next Sunday, we wouldn’t even be able to have church here. There’s no church, no church, hey, let’s think about that for a second. No church in America would be big enough to receive all of God’s backslidden kids if they decided to come back home next Sunday. We’d have to have a service at the stadium and that wouldn’t be enough. Think about it, we’d have to go to Angel Stadium. And there wouldn’t be enough. There’s enough people in just a couple of cities that are around us that are Christians and because of feelings or whatever, they’ve allowed this to be a governor of their life and they’ve said, hey God, I’m not gonna follow you anymore because I got my feelings hurt. What did he do to you? A friend of mine up in Sacramento said ministry would be awesome if it wasn’t for people. You do it for Jesus. Psalm 106, 13 says this. They soon forgot his works. They did not wait for his counsel but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tested God in the desert and he gave them their request. He sent leanness into their souls. That’s the danger. Oh God, I want this. I want it. I gotta have it. I want it. And God says, okay, you know what? You’re making me sick. You’ve been crying about it, crying about it. You won’t get off of it. You won’t listen to me. You won’t obey me. And God just back, listen, God backs away. He doesn’t give it to you. He backs away and he lets you have it. You want it so bad, it comes in. And you think, oh man, all right. In a week, a month, six months, a year goes by and there’s leanness in your soul now. You’re not quite so hot for Jesus anymore. Oh man, I got to have her. Oh, if I had her, oh, she, whoa, she’s the best. She’s the brightest. She’s the cutest. She’s the sweetest. And it’s not God’s will for you. And then you have her. And six months later and a year later, you’re far from Jesus. This happens every day.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 03 :
There’ll be days when we want to quit because we’ve seen others who have quit. And the argument’s this way. Well, you know what? This walking with Jesus stuff’s tough. Yes, it is tough. Let me tell you, I’d rather have it tough now and easy later than easy now and tough then. Honestly, what do you want? Say, man, I want it easy now. Okay, just don’t come crying to us in the end. What am I doing back here in the back of the line? Everybody here in heaven, way back, I can’t see. Where’s Jesus? I can’t see a thing. You should have thought about that sooner. We’ve seen others quit. David said, you know, why is it? King David, I love it. Man, if you’re excited, read the book of Psalms. If you’re apathetic, read the book of Psalms. And if you’re depressed, read the book of Psalms. Right? David goes, you know what? I’ve looked around and all the heathen, they’re making all the money, he said. They got tons of people in their family. They’re all happy and they’re just doing great. And David was whining and complaining. And then he said, but then I went into the house of the Lord and I was reminded of their end. For some people today, this is heaven for them. It’s the best they’ve ever had. And in hell, they will be crying out to God and he cannot hear. They will be weeping, Jesus said, gnashing and the breaking of teeth in the mouth. Where you’ve had pain that bad, you had to bite a stick, except there’s no stick to bite in hell apparently. They just break their teeth off with pain. And they lament that they didn’t receive him. Notice in scripture, Luke 15, Luke 16, when the scripture shows you a man who refused and he’s in hell and he’s blaming himself and he’s saying, I should not have rejected. He’s not saying, well, you know, nope. final points this point number three it’s it’s always too soon to quit always because it’s not listen it’s not about you getting what you want it’s too soon to quit always and it’s not about you and i getting what we want it’s about doing what’s right we need to do what’s right In 2 Corinthians 4, 7, the Bible says, but we have this treasure, as I mentioned earlier, in earthen vessels, that the excellency and the power may be of God and not of us. Listen to this. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested on our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. He’s talking about the love, the commitment of a bondservant minister like a parent is to a child. Like a Christian is to those around them. This is awesome. It’s too soon to quit. Because listen, it’s not about you. Knowing what you know. It’s not about you and I knowing what we know. Oh, I’m gonna follow my own counsel. I’m gonna do my own thing. Information church is powerful. We’ve all been taught that. You get information, you have power. Well, here’s the cool thing. You have the Lord, don’t you? Let him inform you and that will be the ultimate power. But it’s not about what you and I know. You and I, we don’t know that much. That’s why we are called by the Lord to consult his book and his spirit and pray and seek him. Colossians 1.9 says, Paul says, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing, and watch this, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the lights. Wow. Man, could Paul talk or what? And then finally this, we’ll end here. It’s always too soon to quit because it’s not about you and I having our own way. Years ago, you guys, we went to the ghost town up in Bodie, California. Have you ever been there? You should go. It’s amazing. In Bodie, California. I mean, people just got up and walked away. It was the gold rush days. And when they ran out of gold, people just got up and left. It’s still standing there. It’s awesome. Walk down the streets. You can walk in. They have books from the time, 1849. Ledger, right there. Some guy walks in. The guy’s name’s right there. They waited out, and they made like $800,000 in one day. Then the guy was back like in three days and made $300,000. In fact, Bodie once was the richest city in the world. Bodie, California, produced more millionaires in like a nine month period of time than any other place on earth. And who’s heard of it now? It’s a ghost town. But there’s a story there where this one guy, this one guy’s digging. Ah, this stinks. And he sells his license, his claim to some other guy. And the new guy gets it. Hey, thanks. Okay. Ding, ding, boing. Gold vein. Two more dinks away. And you’re like, what? You’ve got to be kidding. And people in the crowd, when they’re telling you, everybody in the crowd goes, what a fool. What a fool what? The guy stopped two dinks short of being a bazillionaire. But you know what? What if you and I were there? Would we keep dinking along? Huh? Huh? I’m going to quit now. It’s always too soon to quit. You can’t quit. You can’t stop. So here we go. We wrap this up. Listen. Don’t give up on Jesus. He will not give up on you. Don’t quit. He’ll never quit you. Jesus said, when he was in his moment of crushing, in an olive press, Gethsemane. The olive press, the place of crushing Jesus’ father. If it’s possible, remove this cup from me. And the Bible says an angel came and strengthened him. Jesus said, not my will, but your will be done. If the son of God himself said, not my will, but your will be done, who are we? And so I wanna just have you close your Bibles. I want you to close your eyes. I want you to bow your head. I’m gonna ask people not to move right now, please. Have some respect as we invite people to make a decision for Jesus tonight because your life is like a boat at sea without a rudder, without an anchor. Christians, be praying right now. I’m gonna ask you to make this decision. I want you to think for a moment. The ultimate determination is is for you to make this final decision for Jesus tonight. I want you to know tonight, I want you to hear clearly that the biblical Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of the cults. I’m asking you to come. The Bible says that he’s God who came from heaven to earth to die on the cross for you and I. He’s not the Jesus of Buddhism. of Hinduism. He’s not the Jesus of even Judaism. He’s the Son of God. He’s not the Jesus of Islam, Jehovah Witnesses. He’s not the Jesus of Hollywood or the New Age Movement. He’s not the Jesus of the Discovery Channel or the History Channel or the National Geographic. He’s not Time Magazine’s definition of Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. And I’m going to ask you tonight, while your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, if tonight you’re saying, I want Jesus to be my Lord and Savior, I make this determination tonight, I’m going to become a Christian. I’m not joining this church. I’m not joining a club. I want Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I want my sins forgiven. I want to know that I have eternal life. And I determine tonight to walk with him from this moment on. If you’re willing to tell him that, will you raise your hand right now up high wherever you’re at? God bless you on the aisle. Anyone else over there to my right? Anyone else on the back? To my left? God bless you. Over here and you. God bless you. Pray this prayer if you want Jesus tonight. Maybe you didn’t raise your hand, but you want him. Dear Lord, come into my life now and save me from my sins. I have offended you, holy God. And tonight, I receive the offering of Jesus on the cross as my redemption, as my sacrifice. He died in my place. I’m confessing that tonight. And I’m coming to you now. Father, bless them now, we pray. And all God’s people said, amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Disciplines of Determination. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Disciplines of Life. It’s a great series highlighting 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 :
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 03 :
Do you think that your kid has a solid understanding of where America came from and why we’re so blessed? Happy Birthday America, 250 Years of God’s Blessings is a production that we’ve put out that you’re going to want to get your hands on for your kids and your grandkids because it’s all about God’s good hand upon America. Get a copy for yourself and you’ll enjoy it immensely.
SPEAKER 01 :
The Happy Birthday America booklet. Helping the next generation discover the founding truths of our nation. Get your copy for free. Just pay shipping at jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
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.
SPEAKER 02 :
See you on the next episode. 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.
