Join Pastor Jack as he unfolds the profound teaching of Jesus through the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Explore the powerful truth that God’s love for us is immeasurable and constant, extending beyond our sins. This episode not only examines God’s nature but also calls believers to redefine their understanding of love, aligning it with the sacrificial and unwavering love God has for his creations.
There are people lost, there are people saved. God loves equally the two camps. One’s going to heaven, one’s going to hell. Why? All because, listen, of us not returning that love that he has extended toward us. That’s it.
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. Are you looking for some solid biblical teaching that speaks to the world today? At JackHibbs.com, you have access to Pastor Jack’s entire library of sermons on demand, anytime, anywhere. Whether you’re commuting, you’re at the gym, or you need a moment of encouragement, you can dive right into some powerful verse-by-verse teachings that make God’s Word really come alive. From deep dives into scripture to practical messages on everyday issues, Pastor Jack’s teachings help you understand the Bible in a way that’s clear, it’s relevant, and it’s easy to apply. You’re going to find sermons that address today’s toughest questions with biblical insight and hope in the midst of life’s challenges. Now, whether you’re new to the faith or you’ve been around for a long time, these messages are designed to meet you right where you’re at and inspire you to grow deeper in your walk with God. So don’t miss out. Visit jackhibbs.com. Why don’t you start exploring the sermon library today? You’re going to like it. That’s jackhibbs.com, where powerful teaching is always just a click away. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Prodigal Part One. Now, whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke using relatable stories with common everyday themes the Bible calls parables. Now, you see, this parable is one that’s very familiar to a lot of us. But what we may not know is that it’s not just about the sins of the son and his unlimited extravagance, but about God and his immeasurable love that he has for his people. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that real love, the kind of love that God has for us, it’s not a feeling, it’s a choice. An eternal love, regardless of emotions and fading physical beauty or sickness. It’s not based on happiness, but to make us holy through service and adoration. Now with his message called, Parable of the Prodigal, Part 1, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s all about the love of God. As we get into this parable, you’re going to be learning, I hope, more about the love of God than you’ve ever known before. We need to know this. And by the way, is it not time in our culture that we understand and be refreshed about what real love truly is? We do not know, especially the young generation today. They don’t know, they haven’t heard what real love is all about. Real love, did you know real love’s not a feeling? Real love’s a choice. Did you know that? What? What’s what? I thought it was like, oh, this thing, this feeling, this, oh, I’ve got goosebumps when she looks my way or when he looks my way, I get goosebumps. That’s not love. That’s infatuation. It’s probably connected with some form of lust or excitement. It could be connected to hormones. It could be a tremendous dynamic. It could be the temperature, the breeze, the music playing at the moment. The ambiance. That stuff fades. That stuff evaporates. And then you get down to love. Love. And love is deciding. Love is saying, I am going to decide now to live the rest of my life with this woman or with this man in this marriage, this is my choice, this is what I’m gonna choose. Listen, young people today, if you set yourself or if you begin to understand in your mind a redefinition of love and it’s all about the hype, I can tell you right now that a really, really excitable relationship is estimated to last anywhere from 12 to 18 months based on emotional highs. What happens after the 18th month? You see, it comes down to decision, because listen, everybody in life will disappoint you and tick you off. It’s gonna happen. And marriage, no matter what people are trying to do to it across this nation, by the way, let me just say this, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to say this, that all across this nation, There are these judges who are actually buffoons and the great thing is they’re gonna stand before God in the end. There are people and politicians defining this word called marriage and listen, no human on earth has the right or the ability to redefine marriage. It wasn’t invented by humans. It didn’t come out of humanity. The Bible says that God gave marriage to man as an institution. It is something he invented and that he defined. And so no matter what your view is or your feelings are, we can’t change it. Because it’s not ours to change. It’s God’s. And when it comes to love, we cannot redefine what love means. Love is me being committed to that person as long as they’re cute. Love is me being committed to that person as long as they can buy me what I want. Love is as long as that person gratifies me. The moment, listen, the moment, boy, this study’s going in a direction I had no intention of going. The moment you enter into a love relationship with this as the target, what can that person do for me? You’ve missed it. Well, I want to marry him. I want to marry her so that they’ll make me the happiest person in the world. Doesn’t God want me happy? No. No. Happiness is a byproduct of your efforts. It’s not the goal. God invented, I’m sure of it now, almost 35 years of marriage this summer, I’m convinced of this. God invented marriage not to make us happy, but to make us holy servants like Jesus is to us, to mankind. Marriage is an act of service. Well, are you kidding me? Because I’m thinking I’m going to marry her. She’ll make me the happiest person on earth. Listen, no, no, no, no. God brings people together to make you a holy person. Happiness will come as you focus on, listen, serving that other person. That’s marriage. It’s a choice. Love is a choice. And God, listen to this. This is kind of fun, and I think it’s kind of deep, personally. God, God doesn’t go like this. He does not go like this. You know, I’m going to decide today to love these human beings. I think I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna commit. No matter how I feel, I’m gonna love them. He doesn’t do that. You say, well, doesn’t God make a choice? Nope, not like that. Not like the way you and I think. Why? Fill in the blank. The Bible says, for example, that God is light. The Bible says that God is holy. And the Bible says that God is love. It is his nature, and we don’t get that. We don’t understand that. It is God’s nature, love is love. Church, the Bible says that God is eternal. And his nature is love. So how long has God been loving? Eternally. There was never a day when God did not love. Think of it. Now listen. God does not choose tonight to love you. Oh, pastor, I was hoping to come for some good news tonight. God is not choosing tonight to love you. By his nature, God loves you. Listen, are you like a sinning machine? Are you an absolute hell bound, flaming, sinning maniac? Listen, God loves you. We don’t love you. The person with you, they don’t love you. We don’t have that kind of love. God’s agape love. We often say, well, you know, God loves the sinner but hates the sin. We don’t even know what we’re talking about. Honestly, we don’t know what we’re talking about. It is true, but we don’t know why it’s true. We can’t, our brains can’t wrap around this truth. It is true that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. Only God can parse The individual away from the sin. God in his love for the lost and for us who are saved. Think of the difference. There are people lost, there are people saved. God loves equally the two camps. One’s going to heaven, one’s going to hell. Why? All because, listen, of us not returning that love that he has extended toward us. That’s it. That’s it. If we love our sin more than God, then we’re not believers. We don’t understand him, we haven’t fallen in love with him. We so often say, look, I’m guilty of it too. Many of us as Christians are guilty of this as well. It’s this, God doesn’t want your religion, he wants a relationship with you. It’s true, is it not? It’s true, but what are we talking about? He wants an actual living, breathing, love relationship with you. He is love. Any love that we have in our lives, in our hearts, is from him. We have been created in his image. Church, nowhere in the Bible does it say that angels love God. We don’t know much about their nature other than they were created, they were holy, they have a choice of actual worship or not. For example, Lucifer chose no longer to worship God. So they have choice, which means because they have choice, they can produce true worship. But nowhere does it say the heavenly host loves God. Only you and I. Listen, God does not invite you to bring to him all of your possessions, your money, your oxen, your doves, your children. He doesn’t ask for any of that. He doesn’t ask for any of that stuff. He asks you to bring to him your heart. Your very affection. Now, right now, some of you listening are saying, wait, you just lost me, dude. Are you nuts? How can we love a God that we cannot see? And that’s a good question. But it presupposes something. You presuppose that you cannot see the manifestations or the evidence of this God who says, I love you. There are people who fall in love with other people via what? What are those things? Like eHarmony, is that stuff? What is that? Christian Mingle, whatever. Conversations, before all that junk, there were things called phones, and the people actually, they listen, they get to know somebody, and you start to develop an affection for someone that you may not have met, but you’ve been talking to on the phone. There’s something that generates a connection. If that can happen on the human level, and if God is real and true and exists, why can’t it happen between his creation, you, and him? Of course it does.
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 :
A.W. Tozer, in his amazing book, The Knowledge of the Holy, I recommend you buy that book. He says, because God is self-existent, his love had no beginning. Because he is immense… His love is incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless like a sea. Now, those are just, honestly, I just read that, all true, just words, unless you really, really begin to go beyond these words. This prodigal parable will just be a reading of scripture unless we eat this up and let it become part of our DNA spiritually. God loves you. And listen, here’s the thing. It’s his nature. But watch, listen. It’s his nature to love you, his creation. But don’t make a mistake in thinking that God’s love is a weak, pathetic, uh… Water down love like we see in the world today, where people say, I love you, so, like this. Listen, this is, listen to this. I love you, so you, you do whatever you want, because I love you. Really? You’re gonna tell that to a three-year-old? Well, you laugh, but why do you laugh? Because listen, you laugh because that’s absurd, right? because a three-year-old has no problem playing marbles on the freeway. It’s what they want to do. And you judge them because you know that, as the Bible says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Little kids don’t know. They’ll get themselves in deep trouble. They’ll get themselves killed. They’ll walk right over the edge of a cliff. They don’t know. But all of a sudden, we think that when we reach a certain age, I got this. How old are you? I’m 13, I got it. Have you noticed when you reach a certain age, it’s somewhere like around 12 or 13, that you are actually the smartest person in the world. And you know things that no one else has ever discovered. And it’s not until, it depends, it’s not until you reach a certain age when you begin to realize, golly, I don’t think I’m as smart as I thought I was. Up until now, I’ve been a legend in my own mind. Why didn’t this work out? I don’t get it. And that’s a tough thing, you know, because here in America today, we raise our children up and they’re somewhat abiding under our roof to some degree, and then it comes time to all of a sudden send them into what I think is the most destructive atmosphere in America today, and that is our America’s colleges and universities. I’m not talking about necessarily the sciences or engineering or mathematics that’s being taught. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about all the stuff that goes on that has nothing to do with why you’re paying 25, 30, $50,000 a year to keep your kid in school. Because listen parents, maybe you haven’t heard this yet. But while you’re paying your kids adventure in college, the professors are turning around and telling your children today in school, your parents, by the way, have been wrong all their lives, all your life. You need to reject their authority. You need to walk away, and you need to embrace this new thinking. Why does this happen? Because it’s in the heart of a person, like this young man in the parable. The story goes like this in our human heart. Dad, I wish you were dead. In that wish, give me the money that’s due to me. I wanna go do my own thing. And the kid goes and does his own thing. There’s no restraint, he doesn’t answer to anybody. He can do whatever he wants. The Bible says a child left to himself brings reproach to his parents. Making all these decisions with the power to do it. And you can go on down that list. What’s going on here? This is in the heart of a human being. And listen, apparently the more money you have, unrestraint, extravagantly so, the greater the trouble you can get in. Interesting, huh? It’s a very scary thing to consider. Where does this come from? Well, the greater thing, as we lay the foundation of this study, is throughout it, we’re gonna be focusing on our prodigal God, our extravagant God, to love you. Tonight, you may be so far from God, you may be so incredibly lost, and he loves you.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called Parable of the Prodigal Part One. Thanks for being here today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was ministering right here on this earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. So, Pastor Jack, this month’s featured resources, they’re both aimed at kids, right? So we put down the device, pick up the book. One of the books is focused on American history. The other is on spiritual growth. So what made you want to spotlight these two books together?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, first of all, obviously being summertime, we’re trying to get people in our lives away from the devices and to actually create— Even if it’s for a few moments, maybe 30 minutes, where parents can sit down with their kids or grandkids. And so we’ve got these two resources. They’re fantastic. Prayers and Promises for Kids. It’s a book that walks kids through how to take the promises of God and pray them into their lives. And I got to tell you, you might read this to your little one or read it together with them. But listen, doesn’t matter what age you are, you’re going to get a lot out of these two featured items. And then, of course, the second one, Davey, you well know, is that the Redcoats are coming. This is written for kids. It’s set back in 1775. And it’s a thrilling, wonderful read for children regarding our nation’s founding.
SPEAKER 01 :
So the Redcoats are coming. It dives into our nation’s early fight for liberty. Why do you believe that it’s important for today’s kids to understand the spiritual and the historical roots of American freedom? Why is that so important to us?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, certainly most kids today do not have a clue how this nation ever came about in the first place.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 02 :
Tragically, especially if they are publicly schooled children, they don’t know what we’re talking about. They need to know. You know, listen… If we do not know where we’ve come from, then we’ll have no idea as to where we should go. And this is a great way for us to introduce our kids to truth because the fact is there’s a lot of arguments out there that are vying for the control of your child’s mind. And truth is what keeps them clean and clear. Let’s get this truth into their hands.
SPEAKER 01 :
So Prayers and Promises for Kids, that’s the other book in the bundle. It’s such a gentle and powerful tool for, you know, helping kids build their prayer life. What role, let me ask you this, what role do you think that prayer plays in, you know, helping kids navigate today’s culture? Is prayer important?
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, prayer is equally important to adults as it is kids because this is what it’s all about. When we pray, Jesus taught us in John 15, verse 7, when we pray, we should pray the Word of God. And so when we have this resource as we do, prayers and promises for kids, these are promises from the Bible. So you’re teaching your child from a young age to pray correctly. to pray biblically, to pray in such a way that they won’t get caught up in strange ideas about prayer, but it should be just like you and I might breathe the promises of God. So prayer is a conversation with God regarding his promises.
SPEAKER 01 :
So you’re a grandfather. I’m a grandfather. You’ve got my grandson standing right there in the studio with you. I do. He wanted to come see what we do. As a pastor, though, what are some practical ways that parents and grandparents can use these two books to disciple the next generation?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, great question. To bring the Word of God alive. Now, don’t get me wrong. The Word of God is alive. It stands alone. It’s living. Right. But for us to bring it to our children, this is a great, great set of resources that can help your child cause their prayer life and their understanding of God to really become very, very clear, very simple. And I think that’s the way the Lord wants it. And so it helps us be very intentional about teaching our kids not only these historical truths, but these biblical truths.
SPEAKER 01 :
So how can these books help lay the foundation of a biblical worldview with kids, lay the foundation in their hearts?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, this is accomplished, honestly, by taking a promise, any promise that’s in the Bible. And when you begin to pray and ask the Lord to fulfill his word in your life, it changes your mind. And when your mind is changed, it changes the way that you see things. And when that happens, it causes you to have a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 01 :
From what I understand, the author actually goes to this church. The author of The Redcoats Are Coming. She actually goes to this church. That’s kind of fun. We don’t have that happen very often, do we?
SPEAKER 02 :
Listen, Nancy Sanders, get any book that she’s written. She’s a prolific author. She has also assisted in the writing of many, many other books for some very prominent names. But Nancy Sander has written this. The redcoats are coming. And listen, trust us, get a copy. You will love it. And you’ll even love the graphics. It’s done in cartoon style. It’s just beautiful.
SPEAKER 01 :
So when a family picks up the resource of the month, two books this month, of course, what is your hope for what happens around the dinner table, the bedtime routine, you know, family devotion time? Do you have any hopes for that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Isn’t this something you might say, well, Jack, you need to raise your level of hope. My hope is this, just to get moms and dads, grandpas and grandpas to sit down with their young one in their life. Can you imagine? Just to sit down with no TV on, with nothing streaming, no devices, and just like the old school, they open up a book and they read it together. That is my hope. If that began to happen, you know what? It could be a great, great awakening to the discovery of books. I mean, that could really be something.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s The Redcoats Are Coming and Prayers and Promises for Kids. A couple of great books. Available as a bundle for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.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.
