Disciplines of Domination - B

Jack Hibbs: If there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Why? Because what you meditate on becomes part of your very being.
Guest (Male): This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J. thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible. This Independence Day season, don't just celebrate America's 250th birthday. Stand for what it was built upon: faith, freedom, truth. These are the values that shaped this nation from its very first days, and our Faith and Freedom Collection was designed to help you carry them boldly wherever you go. This collection is more than patriotic apparel. It's a reminder of the convictions worth passing on. In a culture that's working overtime to silence those convictions, a simple shirt can start a powerful conversation. Right now, when you order from the Faith and Freedom Collection, we'll also send you a free copy of the Happy Birthday America Kids Guide, a faith-centered resource that puts America's founding story in the hands of the next generation. Order soon and be ready to celebrate America's 250th birthday with conviction. Shop today at jackhibbs.com or call 877-777-2346. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series called Disciplines of Life and a message titled The Discipline of Domination. The Christian walk is full of disciplines: the trials, the setbacks, the hard seasons that God uses to shape our faith from the inside out. Here, we'll discover that everyone of us is being controlled by something. The question is, what is that something? Whether we believe it or not, someone or something is governing our lives right now. It might be a job, maybe a relationship, a habit, or our own emotions. But God wants us to be the one who dominates our hearts because He is good, and following Him is the best thing that can happen to us. Today, Pastor Jack teaches us that we need the Holy Spirit more than ever in these last days. When we ask God to fill us and lead us, He answers, and the real us comes under His loving control. Now with his message called The Discipline of Domination, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
Jack Hibbs: I have never heard someone ever say, "You know what I did? I obeyed the word of God and look what happened." Have you ever heard that? I've never heard that. I've heard people say, "You know what? I knew deep down inside the Lord was saying no, and I married her anyway, or I married him anyway, or I bought it anyway, or I didn't go where I should have gone." Fill in the blank. But I have never heard someone say, "Well, there you go. I followed God and the whole thing blew up." Never happened. We have to be careful because our emotions will seek to override the will of God. Our flesh will begin to dominate our lives, and we will shop or customize the situation to meet what we want emotionally. We'll be making emotionally-based decisions. Proverbs 14:12 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but that way ends in death. Isn't that true? Romans chapter 8, verse 5 says, "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh." They're always thinking just fleshly things. "But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind, that is the mind of this world, the unregenerate mind, is enmity." That word means is at warfare against God for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You say, "Well, I'm a Christian, I'm living in the flesh and deal with it, Pastor." No, I don't have to deal with it. It's your life that you're messing up. It's your life you're destroying and the people who live in your immediate vicinity. If you're going to say, "No, I'm going to live as I please, and I'm going to call myself a Christian," the Bible says that you're deceiving yourself and the truth is not in you. I know that's a strong word, but you're dominating yourself and your passions of the flesh, that lust. Number two: refusing what we see with our eyes. In 1 John 2:16, he goes on and says that it's the lust of the eyes. Notice the progression of that. He says it's the lust of the flesh, what we feel. "If it feels good, do it," says the world. Then number two, it is the lust of the eyes. It's funny, when we see stuff, it comes into our eyes and then it goes out of our mouth. You all know that your eyes and your ears are gateways. What we hear is so powerful. I can totally derail you right now from what you're paying attention to. I could say right now the music you listened to today. Instantly something will come to your mind. You'll hear one of the songs out of the entire day that was in your head right there. Or what did you see today that was awesome? What did you see today you shouldn't have seen? They're gateways into the soul. What we hear, what we see. The warning that John gives is we've got a situation where we have to battle what is dominating in our flesh, and one of those things is the eye gate, what we see. Job 31:1, the oldest book in the Bible, says, "I've made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I look upon a young woman?" Smart guy. Wouldn't that be great? Imagine if you had a bunch of stickers like that and you just walked around liquor stores and slapped those things on those porn magazines right on the cover. "I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a young woman." Imagine if Christian men began to take that verse seriously and say, "Lord, I am consecrated to You, and I'm making a covenant tonight between You and my eyes not to look upon..." the implication is to look upon a woman with a lust. "Not going to do it. Going to turn my eyes away." I was at the car wash over here, and there was a young lady sitting there. She was all wrapped up in her hijab. All you could see was her face. This young Muslim girl. I've been challenging my wife and encouraging my wife for a long time, "Lisa, you've got to start talking to those girls and start finding out what's going on inside their head." They're locked inside their world. You've got to reach out to them. That thought came to my mind. Now, I know the rules. They're not supposed to talk to men. But that's their rule and not my rule. So I said, "Excuse me." She said, "Yes." I said, "Can you explain this to me? I want to hear from you what this means." She said, "It's an act of modesty. It's a display of modesty." And I said, "That's cool. That's excellent." Miss, you can go out into the parking lot right now, and we could build or somebody could build a concrete wall around you and just leave enough air in the concrete for you to breathe in. If somebody hung a sign outside that said 'Woman Inside,' a man would go, 'Really? In there?' As you display your modesty by wearing this fashion, I think that's commendable. What effect do you think it has? "Oh, it keeps a man from having lustful thoughts." She said this. It keeps a man from having lustful thoughts. I said, "With all due respect, I'm old enough to be your dad, so with what I'm about to say, just remember that. Modesty doesn't affect a man's imagination. His heart is wicked and his heart needs to be changed." I told her this. She listened to me. She just listened. I said, "What if instead of the burden being on you to drape yourself up, what if the burden was on the man for him to turn his eyes away?" You know what she said? She said, "No man would do that. No man can do that." Think of that for a moment. No man can do that or no woman can do that without the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. To love God more is the point for tonight. It's not, "Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not." It's, "Thou getst to, thou getst to, thou getst to." You get to, not by religion but by your relationship with Christ. The Bible says in Philippians 4:8, "Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely... whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things." What you meditate on becomes part of your very being. You young people, right now you're going through this experiment with life. The more that you are immersed in something, it begins to come out of you even if you don't like it and it will still come out. Very important. Because what you meditate on will marinate you. You'll be pickled. In whatever you're soaked in, you'll be pickled in that thing. Watch out what you see is what he's talking about. The domination of the flesh, we have to watch our eyes. Birds of a feather flock together. The reason why we say that and we know that is because that's a common thing. You don't see seagulls with robins and storks and eagles. They're not sitting there on the wire talking. They don't do that. It's all seagulls, or they're all pigeons, or they're all pelicans. Whoever you hang out with, that sense of meditation gets into you and it's going to come out of you.
Guest (Male): 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.
Jack Hibbs: Thirdly under this point, it's this: we want to be refusing what we want for our lives. Can you believe I said that? Refusing what we want for our lives. You say, "What do you mean? Are you trying to make a monk out of me? Are you trying to make me climb some tower and sit in some monastery? What are you talking about, Pastor? Are you crazy? Refuse what we want or what I want for myself?" Well, here's the truth of the matter. If we're just honest, so much of what we thought we really wanted turned out to be a ginormous danger. Especially when you hear things like, "If I don't get that thing, I'm just going to die." Oh dear. Could be an idol, you think? I can't live without that thing, or I can't live without her, I can't live without him. If I don't have a... fill in the blank. It's an idol. We put it up on a pedestal. We would never confess that, but it's true. It's the meaning, the purpose. It governs the decisions of my life. Or maybe it's a person. Refusing what we want. So what's the answer to this then? Taking our lives, and let's be honest, those whose lives are around us, those who we know. This is a great thing about being a Christian. You can go to your prayer closet and talk to God alone and involve your entire family. You can involve your entire company, your entire neighborhood. When you begin to invite God into these things, I tell you what, He begins to calm your heart and He will let you know what you need. It's very liberating. The Bible calls this self-denial. To deny yourself. Jesus says, "Deny yourself, pick up your cross," He said, "and follow Me." To deny yourself. It's not a negative. How can something be a negative when it draws you closer to God? You see, I don't know if I like what you're saying right now because something of the flesh is dominating your life in that area. Is there a room in your soul, in the soul of your home, as it were? Is there a room that God's not allowed in? "God, You can have a key, You have a key to the whole house, but You can't go in this room." He's Lord, and He's Lord of your house. He's the Lord. If you tonight say, "Well, I'm a Christian," Jesus says, "Right on, then I have the key to every room in your house." You have to hand Him the key, or else you can't call Him Lord. The domination of the flesh will try to derail us from what God wants to do in our lives. It's human nature to want, for example, satisfaction. That's human nature. Thirst needs to be satisfied, hunger, comfort, warmth, affection. Those are things that God has placed in us. But listen, it's a very different thing to want satisfaction that comes at the expense of other people or satisfaction we think by things. 1 John 2:16 now at the end, number three: it's this. "The pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world." The pride. This pride is the pride of wanting... the word in the Greek means wanting something to brag about. It means to exalt yourself or to boast about yourself. The Bible says, "Let another man's lips praise you." That means if other people want to talk about you favorably, praise God. If you want to talk about yourself favorably, weirdo. You know somebody will say, "Well, that's enough about this conversation. Let's talk about me for a while." That is sick, man. You say, "Well, I've never met anybody like that." Well, how about this? Somebody comes walking up into your group and says, "Man, I just found a dollar in the parking lot." And the next thing out of your mouth is, "Oh yeah? I found 50 bucks the other day." What are you saying that for? Number one, we don't care if you found 50 bucks. This guy came, he's all stoked about finding a dollar. Let him enjoy his dollar, will you? But no, the flesh says, "Hey." So the guy, his team wins the softball game. "We won the softball game!" "Yeah, well, you know what? We won three games last week." Everybody in the group goes in their mind... they don't say it out loud... they go, "Weirdo." What is with that pride? Just got to one-up somebody. Pride gets us into trouble, all of us. You know we all battle this. Ever seen a group picture? You know, don't do this, don't do this, but what if we moved the camera like at the hockey game around the sanctuary tonight? The moment you go like this, "Is it coming by me? Is it coming by me? Is it coming? Where's it coming? There it is! There it is!" Right? Have you ever seen that happen? What is that? Pride. We're just so accustomed to it. You get a group shot, and the first person you're looking for is you. "Oh, man. I told them to take another picture." It's weird, man. We have to be careful because we've got to ward off the domination of the flesh. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life." Our hearts need to be guarded and protected. Jesus said in Matthew 6:19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust break in or thieves break in to steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor thieves break in to steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Think about that. What I want, what we want as Christians is to not have our hearts burdened with the things of this world but to be invested in the things of God. And you want your treasure in heaven. And that's vital. Refusing what we want for ourselves very quickly. Galatians 6:7 says, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of his flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." Man, is that true or what? You will someday reap a harvest. Every one of us are reaping today. Think about it. We reaped today dividends, a crop of what we've been invested in six months ago, or six years ago, or six hours ago. Think about that. How will your life look six weeks from now? If that panics you, then change your course right now. Point number two tonight, it's this. The discipline of domination is, number two: receiving the domination of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Receiving the rule, the jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is who we need in this world. Church, more than ever, these are the last days. The world's gone nuts. World's crazy. The Bible warns about us living in these days. Hear me out. The scripture says that one of the great dangers of the last days, Jesus said, that while the virgins waited for the bridegroom to come, some of those who were waiting their oil ran out. Remember? The Bible says, teaches us from Old Testament to New, that oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit in these last days more than ever.
Guest (Male): Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called The Discipline of Domination. Thanks for being with us today. You know this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called The Disciplines of Life. It's a series on the disciplines that God builds into the Christian life: the trials, those setbacks, and the hard seasons that He uses to shape us as believers and to deepen our faith. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Truth doesn't need permission, and it doesn't need a filter. The Real Life Network delivers bold biblical content that addresses today's toughest issues with clarity and conviction. Watch teachings and interviews and the special programs that equip you with God's truth for the world that we live in today. Sign up for free at realifenetwork.com. Stay grounded in scripture, gain perspective, and remain confident in Christ no matter what's happening around you. Stream for free today at realifenetwork.com. 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. 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.