Who Do You Think You Are? Part 3 (Romans 2:1-11)

hey shalom everyone it's amir salfati in just a few days behold he comes bible prophecy conference is going to take place here at calvary chapel of chino hills i can't wait to see all of you there if you want to have an online access to the behind the scenes of this conference as well as to the actual teachings please swipe up or click on the link in the comments below and you won't regret it we can't wait to see you there god bless you romans chapter 2 and we are making our way through this today we're going to read because context is all important we're going to read verses 1 through 11 and we've made our way down to verse 4 today and that's okay verse 4 is pregnant with truth pregnant with conviction uh it is a powerful stuff great instruction for us in verse four of chapter two and um i know some of you are new from other churches and you're saying when are we gonna have a series on how to get rich never um when are we going to have a five-step series on a on i don't know listen this is a church that teaches expositional teaching which is which is through the bible through the books of the bible so why do we do that because that's the way the ancients have always taught that's why your bible has the book of genesis and exodus romans acts john revelation first john listen god started something when he gave his word and he started in a book and he finished with that book and it's called like the book of ephesians or the book of colossians are you with me that's how god taught his people and so that's how we'll do the same i'm not knocking topical studies but the best way to know the book of the bible books of the bible and to know the god of the bible is verse by verse teaching okay so we just want you to know that this may or may not be the church for you you may not like that it's like ah i get it i mean i don't get it i'm just saying i get it i was being nice i'm this is the way that god wants us to learn and so chapter 2 words are on the screen i'll read verse 1. therefore you are inexcusable o man whoever you are who judge for in whatever judge or judgment you condemn yourself for you who judge practice the same things and do you think this o man you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same that you will escape the judgment of god wow verse five but in accordance with your hardness and your impotent heart you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of god eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory honor and immortality tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil of the jew first and also of the gentile or greek for there is no partiality or favorites with god father we pray that you would be our instructor today we give you our lives and father we ask you lord in this world where there is just spin and the battle for knowledge and information god that you'd give us incredible discernment the gift of discernment needed now more than ever in our lifetime anyway may it begin father with us knowing what your bible tells us instead of us pointing fingers at anyone else we'd be very very very quick and diligent to search our own hearts to determine if in fact we are true followers of jesus for you alone lord god know us inside and out so we give you our lives we pray in jesus name and all god's people said amen you can be seated church and we are looking we're marching through this chapter 2 entitled this challenge of who do you think you are that's what paul is saying to the roman believe believers of chapter two he pointed out to us in chapter one you can study it or look at it later you can read it later where he starts out with his beautiful salutations his greetings to the believers in rome remember this is a huge treaty on christian theology but it's not written to a specific geographical church it's written to the believers in rome and when you say rome you're talking about those who are in italy from the epicenter of the roman forum that we may be familiar with maybe many of you have visited that incredibly beautiful spot that emanate outward where god's people were coming to christ and being born again as jesus said and they had home groups and small study groups and there were a few uh churches that met in a larger scale but not large at all many of the churches in those days were extremely small according to our standards uh a site like you see right now here this is the kind of stuff that by the way happened on the day of pentecost or when peter preached his first sermon there would be 3 000 people gathered together that's that was unique and then the gospel went out from jerusalem and yes all the way to rome and beyond and he was speaking in chapter one regarding those who dabble in sexual immorality they just continue dabbling into it and playing with it and as the bible warns can a man take fire and hold it to his bosom without being burned well they tampered and played with immorality to the point where the bible says they were set in it they got locked in it and they began to not only become bored with sex that they began to depart from the sex that god had sanctioned between a male and a female in romans one said that the men begin to venture out and voyeur out with other men and women with other women and all of these various worship systems were embraced by these deities of the grecian roman empire that allowed such things and so you adopted gods that approved of your conduct and by the way remember that's always the the convenience of idols idols are fantastic because idols approve of what you want to do and so you gather to yourself the idol because the idol fits your your practice and paul was warning that if you stay in that lifestyle three times the bible says that god will give you up to a debased mind give you up uh the danger of that and yet you think what could be worse than that romans chapter 2 is worse than that because romans 2 is a group of people with their arms folded and they might have their across around their neck or a white collar or a title they might be a pastor or a christian worker or a priest and they might say oh what a horrible group of people there in chapter one i'm i thank you god i'm not like them and uh paul says no actually you're you're worse because god can't stand religious pride and who can honestly except the person who is religiously proud uh but you can see it a mile away stinks if we can detect it can't god see this of course he does so the holy spirit speaks to the apostle paul and gives us romans chapter two and it's very strong language and you know that he he's announcing as we've studied that you're inexcusable if you think those people are bad the professional religionists you're worse you have no excuse but now he comes down to verse four and we look at the second argument in our study regarding who do you think you are and i mentioned to you last week that this is going to make its way into the positive it's obvious what we're reading is strong and convicting and we read it and we don't like to spend much time on it we'd rather just move on but i want to take the opportunity to take what's written here and apply it to our own lives as believers so in this case we might be our own modern day romans as we look to the word of god today and verses three and four technically is that which is comparing we look at the the the compared goodness of god how do we compare ourselves when we think about ourselves to the goodness of god we saw in the opening verses one and two of the righteousness of god but now we see the goodness of god and mainly of course verse four but if we look at it together look at uh back in verse three who do you uh who do you think or and do you think this o man you who judge those practicing such things remember chapter one and you do the same now we've got to remember what god thinks about this she said wow you mean they were actually pointing fingers at the people in chapter one but they were doing the same thing uh yes uh and yes this way they were doing the same things probably cloaked in secrecy or they were thinking and approving the same things so wait a minute can't we look and it's okay as long as we don't touch god says nope if you think you're guilty now that shouldn't depress you it should lead you to the understanding that you need to listen to what paul is saying to us in the book of romans that there's only one who can save you and that's the lord jesus christ okay you know that right all the penance you you went through all of the labor and the the spiritual work to get your car into the parking lot you don't get any points i'm sorry you get no points for that yeah but we parked the mile away and we walked no points for that i'm so sorry that's not how it works i'm a good person it's not how it works jesus christ alone died on the cross for our sins all of us we've all sinned and come short of the glory of god christ died on the cross for our sins and he rose again from the dead and hallelujah the bible's message to us is that god did it and he not only did it at the cross but he left us an empty tomb in jerusalem it's still empty today the christ is coming back as well and all the indicators regarding of what's going on in the world is pointing to that tremendously and so as we consider this let's look now at the goodness of god verse 4 so he says in that fourth verse or do you you ought to circle those three words or do you despise the riches of his goodness forbearance and long-suffering those are three attributes of god and then there's a comma right there and then there's a strong statement not knowing that the goodness of god leads you to repentance this is a remarkable statement boy we could have a tremendous time with this just on the goodness of god alone god is good the bible says and because god is good his goodness demands some things of us uh i think you know this jesus was ministering it's in the gospels and as jesus is ministering um what is known as the rich young ruler you ever heard of him before the rich young ruler now you have to read all of the gospels to get the understanding that he's rich he's young and he has authority there's not one gospel that says he's a rich young ruler you got to read them all about the same guy this guy appears in three of the gospels he's wealthy listen girls he's wealthy he's young and he has authority oh if i could just find one of those well this guy had no room in his heart for anyone else except what he wanted and that was his wealth his youth and his power and he comes running to jesus and he says good master good master what must i do to inherit eternal life and jesus gives him elements of the law remember that you need to do this you need to do this you need to do this and jesus has said him not setting the guy up completely because the guy counters jesus and says all these things you speak of i've done since my youth so clearly ladies this is not the guy you want to meet he's an idol in his own mind he's a legend in his own mind he's quite impressed with himself jesus then turns him and says and he goes after his idols but jesus qualifies and he says why do you come to me and call me good jesus says there's only one good and that is god jesus was actually trying to provoke the man to confession what would have been awesome is for the young man to say i i called you good master because it's obvious that you alone are god in skin it's clear who you are you're the manifest word of god but he didn't do that the bible says he wound up leaving and walking away from jesus because he loved what he had the word good is reserved for god alone now you and i live in a culture we can't even relate to that we say our tacos were good uh you know that's good the other thing's good the old english by the way remember how the the old english used to spell like goodbye uh g-o-o-d-b-y-e right things like that spelling old english listen when we say good morning did anybody say good morning to you this morning did you say good morning to anybody you know what you were saying according to the ancients god be with you this morning that's what good morning means good afternoon good afternoon means god be with or god be in your afternoon tonight when you lay down and you say good night to somebody god be in your night that's what it means but we've lost touch with that right so when we say good morning good night good master god is good technically god is good because good is the manifestation of god's nature and the bible says just to make it clear there is none good no not one that's why we need them so as we look to this church mark it down if you would verse 4 we learn this that we as believers how are we to be regarding the goodness of god we're to be the opposite of the world and that means we are to be thankful believers can you write that down thankful believers christians thankful believers now the opportunity is increasing every day for you and i to be thankful believers please hear me you've been tempted this week i know we have been bombarded with people telling us their story and what's happening with their schools with their employment in the military medicine union and you you're being told if you don't take the shot you're going to be fired and so we're talking to attorneys and we have an exemption form if you know that or not but we have a religious exempt exemption a religious exemption form on our website that you can download and print out and people are doing that and we have two different uh versions of that and i don't know call me dumb but i thought religious exemption you should be able to get from a church but some churches don't think that they should issue religious exemptions so what it is our first amendment right as americans you should know that and paul the apostle if he lived today he would exercise his first amendment right how do we know because he exercised his roman rights to advance the gospel but in this case your livelihood is at stake i had somebody to tell me this weekend two days ago that 33 years of working for a certain global corporation they were threatened by that corporation that they were going to lose so much percentage in pay and that their pension was going to be reduced their retirement was going to be punished if they didn't comply now that is against the law in anybody's book so i reached out to an attorney and i said hey this guy i know is being attacked what do you say about this and he said you know where we're at this is where we're at he said in any other world this would be completely illegal but now it appears we have no rights any longer as we once enjoyed you say how does that relate to this message this way we need to be thankful believers the reason listen the bible tells us to be thankful why because there's the temptation to be unthankful it listen to be a thankful believer is to look around at the world that's imploding in every direction which way you look around it doesn't matter and we need to choose to be thankful the moment you and i start to grumble and gripe and complain we are literally grumbling and griping and complaining against god and you're not going to want to do that you'll see in why in a moment thankful thankful to be thankful is a choice you have to choose to do that god is good when is god good all the time then when should i be thankful always the bible says that we're to be thankful in every situation but my mother died or my son died or my dog died we understand this this is life and it hurts but because god is on his throne and he knows what he's doing we don't we lean on him and we give him thanks because he knows and he cares he's the one that is unpacking all of this in life and let me tell you something you're not going to get this on media you're not going to get this on wikipedia and you're not going to get this on uh uh what are those silly things they're all rigged yeah yeah snopes are fact checkers listen there's people i watched it i i watched it there's people the christians are being exterminated in afghanistan and they're going to their death the reporter i believe the reporter was from india reading the subtitles video going these christians this week in afghanistan these are not americans these are afghan born-again believers who are quietly with grandma grandpa child mom and dad quietly walking to their slaughter no crime they're not screaming freaking out and running around and the the woman reporter in the subtitles and she says and they're singing they're singing songs to their death and you look and you look up in american media they're saying it's not true it's not true of course it's not true to make it make certain political leaders empower and not look good my point is this if they can be singing songs as families marching to their death like it's auschwitz 21st century then the loudest praise and worship ought to be coming from a free people who sit in comfort in southern california we have no excuse god is so good to us with all that's going on in this state and all the things that are happening and the incredible homelessness and all the filth and the ugliness we should be thankful because i'll tell you what be thankful heaven doesn't look like the 405 freeway heaven doesn't look like south central heaven doesn't look like downtown l.a or san francisco you got to be thankful for that thank god this world is not our home but we're here for now and we need to be a thankful people you know the world might sit up and ask us what's with you you're thankful you just you bowed your head there and you guys prayed over your meal what are you guys thankful about we're thankful for our meal thankful for our ability to eat it yeah but are you aware of what's going on in the world of course i am that's why we're thankful right think about that if they can be thankful marching into heaven we can be thankful sitting down in comfort but we need to be a thankful group of believers and he warns us here look at verse four you circle the word despise it says in verse four or do you despise the riches of his goodness the word despise means to think little of or lightly of this is a tough one for us to swallow everybody listen carefully this hurts it means to dismiss or be or to be disrespectful regarding something that is that has been bestowed upon us as good it means to take things for granted how many of you have children hang on let me think now we have how many of us have children over 13 over 12 over 13 raise your hand i think that's fair over 12 or 13 maybe over 12 12 by the way mark twain said when you have teenagers when they reach the age of 13 he said put him put your teenager in a 55 gallon barrel and put a lid on it but there's a hole in the barrel and he said feed your teenager through the hole and then he said when that teenager reaches the age of 21 seal up the hole that's mark twain's parental book 101 but there's a kid reaches a certain age when they begin to think that money falls from the sky and they think there's this machine just pull out that piece of placket plastic and stick it in the machine the money comes out why can't i have more money uh and then when you try to tell them about life they don't like you anymore and there's a lot that you can do but there's one thing you cannot do anything about and that is when your child becomes unthankful for what you've poured into them it's the number one pain to a parent is when that child can no longer not even think about saying thank you doesn't even enter their mind what happens they expect it they don't think about it it's automatic and for the christian when we have that kind of an attitude toward god when we are not thankful by actual verb action to go through the movement of thankfulness then what happens is we are actually despising the goodness of god and there's not one of us in this house that would say i don't despise his goodness let me ask you this how thankful are you are you profusely thankful of his goodness i think if we were we'd look like a bunch of crazies for service before service one of the security detail guys it was so sweet he's just so turned on for jesus and he said you know what you know what he's all fired up you know what i've noticed lately the birds are singing louder they're louder why wake up they're louder at my house and he said it just seems to me this summer it seems to me everything's greener do you know what he had no idea it's a hundred degree he wasn't even thinking it's 100 degrees outside you know what's happening to him what's happening to him is what's happening to him the trees aren't greener those birds didn't say hey can you you guys let's turn it up this guy needs a little boost his heart's changing listen that's that's walking with christ you get closer the sky's bluer you get closer the trees are greener the things about god are more wonderful and the things about this world from man against us it doesn't all matter that much it's remarkable thankful believers we need to be careful we do not despise listen to isaiah 51 this is an awesome passage and i'm wondering you know what are those christians in afghanistan reading this today or tonight god says i even i am he who comforts you wow who are you that you are afraid of man who dies is somebody bullying you somebody intimidating you is somebody saying we're going to cut your head off remember this what god says what are you afraid of that's only a man talking man think of the day he said well i don't know that's pretty serious stuff just with the the day that god begins to move his pinky finger on earth the tyrants of this world will fall down and look what else he says and of the son of man who is made like grass people what are you afraid of verse 13 that you have forgotten the lord your maker who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth that you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor god is saying knock it off i'm god you belong to me and you don't need to fear people you and i have been con listen the world out there is trying to get you under its thumb the world wants to snap its finger and you crumble in fear facebook says you say something we're going to yank you off listen i can't believe we're still on don't do so what do you listen what are you saying if you don't act like us we're pulling you well i don't want to act like you think about it amen the bible says the fear of the of man is a snare nowhere to be thankful the apostles were arrested and thrown in jail and in the middle of the night they were singing praises and thanks to god and it drove the roman jailers the philippian jailers crazy the world needs to see some thankfulness whatever you're going to do today after service you're going to go to lunch or whatever you're going to go do whatever you go do be thankful about it and bow your head who's if we go to the restaurant bow our head people are going to see us you're catching on you're catching on if you want to freak them out set your bible right there watch them look at it i tell you what you put your bible on your table they'll take your order they'll get you served and they'll get you out of there like that in record fine [Applause] being thankful the bible says in ephesians 3 8 to me paul says to me whom am let the am least than the less than the least of all the saints this grace was given that i should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of christ you see the word riches here where it says do not despise the riches listen to this listen carefully because boy is this abused in our day and age the word riches here in greek is the word wealth riches extreme excessive wealth wealth as being a description of god's resources that are available to the believer in christ it's god's infinite riches and what's really sad in our day and age it only works in america by the way is people will take that and say see god wants you rich no you know what oh yeah yeah god does want me rich this way rich with grace rich with kindness rich with love rich with mercy god wants me to be exceedingly wealthy with mercy all the things of what christ is you think of all the money jeff bezos i just read the other day it was insane that during covet you know jeff bezos amazon that he himself i forget what that number was it was hard to imagine but because everybody had to order stuff online instead of going to the stores he made something like 135 it was 135 billion i mean it was more than that it was like 135 billion every so many months or well i don't know what it was it was like what so oh i wish i wish i had that kind of money you know what jeff bezos could show up with all of his money and gold and he could not buy salvation he could not buy mercy he could not buy forgiveness he cannot buy grace he couldn't buy listen steve jobs couldn't buy his health cancer swept them away and all of his wealth the goodness of god god is good this planet is wounded and hurting exactly as god said it would go and god extends his goodness by saying look to my son jesus and be saved look to the cross look to my son listen to his words but you want to be careful that you do not despise his riches and the bible says there that the unsearchable riches of christ i love that you cannot fathom the goodness of god that should make you confident excited the goodness of god romans chapter 4 verse 6. this is good listen this is fun romans 4 verse 6 check this out extremely powerful the bible tells us there that we are it's a command by the way be anxious for what nothing it's on the screen eventually it will be there romans 4 verse 6 i mean sorry my fault philippians 4 verse 6 philippians 4 verse 6 look at this be anxious for nothing so what does that mean don't worry don't worry be happy did you know that we're we it's a sin for us to worship did you know i mean worry man i shouldn't have brushed my teeth after second service my it is a sin for us to worry we don't think about that well if i don't worry who's what's who's going to worry for jesus we're not to worry get you all be anxious for nothing that's a command but or instead in everything by prayer i tell you those two things are incompatible you cannot be a praying believer and a worrying believer at the same time it's impossible by prayer and supplication with what there's our word with thanksgiving that's a choice you make right think of it it's not something like an added on it's a module you have to choose to be thankful let your requests be made known to god and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding and that verse i didn't finish that verse off will garrison the word is guard garrison your heart isn't that great being thankful and then there's a verse that i just call it's like a sin guard you know like there's a like you know like those shirts you can wear so you don't get sunburned or something like that rash guard so you don't get messed up there's like under armour right clothes well you know how the christian's supposed to have the armor of god i like that this verse i'm going to give you is like a sin guard so what is that it's colossians 3 17. watch how this works now it works for me i don't know if it works for you but it works for me and whatever you do in word and indeed do it all in the name of the lord jesus so think this through for a minute we want to be thankful believers what goes with being a thankful believer is a believer that's walking with the lord you're walking with them giving thanks to god the father through him through jesus see what do you mean about a sin guard if you memorize colossians 3 17 just embed it in your head write it everywhere put it on your car put it in your mirror when you're shaving whatever you're doing you begin to just have this embedded into you it's kind of hard it's kind of hard to embark upon something that is offensive to god so watch this watch how this here's my notes so it says like this it's pretty hard to rob a bank when you're walking around in life giving thanks to god regarding this verse so yeah these are tough times i'm going to rob a bank i'm a christian bank robber that's what i am if you have this verse memorized it's going to be hard to rob a bank because you're going to go like this and whatever you do i'm going to rub a bank in word indeed i'll say stick them up do all in the name of the lord jesus i'm robbing you in the name of the lord jesus god told me to rob this bank that doesn't work it's absolutely ridiculous and it's true about everything i'm going to do this i'm going to say this run that verse by the thing that's in front of you and see if you should pursue that or do that this is like a gate it's like a guard if we all memorize this verse it would come up in our lives a lot of cool stuff would happen and a lot of bad stuff wouldn't happen that's the power of god's word the more it's in us the more it goes to work and then also this about being thankful the second thing is being grateful thankful grateful thankful believers and thankful followers look at verse 4 says that we're not to despise the riches of his goodness three things church his goodness his forbearance and his lung suffering god's goodness the word goodness here is god's excellence his uprightness don't push it off don't dismiss it don't think light of it and it goes like this sounds like this god is good but when we complain we're saying he's not good well i don't know why god did this watch out we are dismissing we're pushing off his goodness we grumble about it i don't think god's moving in my life so wait do you believe he died on the cross yes of course that he rose again from the dead so apparently you're the first christian all of human history that god is not working in their lives which of course is impossible well i don't like the way it's going he didn't ask you if you like the way it's going or not he's working something out he said i'm gonna do this when it's all done you're going to be very happy about it but we don't like the now and because we don't listen we set up a standard as how we think he should be working then we impose it upon him then when he's not meeting our understanding or standard of how it ought to go we criticize him and we're despising his goodness we're pushing off his riches and we can't do that no we need to remember he is good and he forebears and he's long suffering it's remarkable it's awesome the scripture teaches us regarding being a a grateful follower there's a there's an amazing precious event i'm gonna go for time sake i'm gonna go over it quickly you can mark it down later please and and look at it in your own leisure but it's mark chapter five you guys all know the story remember jesus is ministering it's a very very cool thing jesus is on the other side of the sea of galilee and he's ministering to the people he gets in a boat and he goes to the other side it's about from that from tiberius over to gadara to the gadarenes it's about seven miles at most across the sea of galilee that way and the bible says the moment jesus gets to the shore in mark 5 that this there's a demoniac a man who's demon-possessed who living among the dead in the tombs would cut himself self-mutilation cry and scream in the night he was filled the bible says with many demons but he was controlled by one by the way you read that you read mark five it's very amazing because it says that he's has an unclean spirit singular he's naked out of his mind his people and some tried to bind him with chains and he would break the chains that's demonic power and so jesus gets in the boat leaves tiberius goes over the boat lands in gadara as soon as jesus steps out of the boat the bible says that this demoniac came running can you imagine comes running out of the tombs and running straight to jesus and says jesus thou son of god what would you have to do with us have you come to torment us before the time isn't that weird think about it wait a minute jesus we're a bunch of demons we know who you are uh we still have more time to terrorize people don't we time's up have you come to torment us before the time and jesus said listen jesus said what is your name and he says my name is legion there's many of us and the bible has what's called a parenthetical insert it says and they were dwelling their 2000 swine then they begged jesus do not send us it's tartarus the abuso do not send us to the hell that's reserved for devils don't send us there this is so weird send us into the herd of swine and jesus grants them the request all right and it says that they left the man they entered the pigs and the pigs ran crazy crazy nuts over the cliff and into the galilean drown the man had been completely delivered of the demonic spirit and the bible says he's sitting in his right mind and he says to jesus i will follow you anywhere you go by the way that should be our response and jesus says what jesus always says he always blows your mind he always you never predict jesus is nope not going to happen can you imagine i wanna you just you just saved me from satan i'll follow you anywhere jesus says no no you're not you're gonna go home i want you to go home now isn't that great in the bible we know that he lives in the decapolis the capitalist for those of you who've been with us israel the chief city of decapolis is skitopolis which you know by its roman name betsyan and we've walked those streets it's one of the most beautiful preserved ancient roman cities that's incredible that's where that man lived in in the decapolis it was the chief city it's pagan worshipping the man goes there and the bible says that he went home and all of the decapolis marveled at him the man went home thankful the man went home grateful he told people listen i sure hope you have a testimony about jesus i sure hope you have a story to tell others about who jesus christ is in your life don't tell people who jesus christ is in my life or your neighbor's life you need to have a message if you don't you better figure this out quick can you imagine this guy going home open the door you kind of look like our dad but he's running around in gadara naked cutting himself and screaming like a wild lunatic filled with demons who are you i'm your dad what jesus came into my life he transformed my life who's at the door kids mom it's dad she can you imagine she looks a completely different life jesus does this stuff he did it then he still does it he's still doing this you need to know that he's still doing it and then listen we'll end with this we're out of time we will end with this look at verse four it closes this way that that we're not only thankful believers we're grateful followers man became a grateful follower but it says in verse 4 not knowing that the goodness of god leads you to repentance this is uh a humble witness where to be a humble witness christian listen we are very strange people we are very strange people we are humble because we've looked at his incredible greatness and we're so thankful and we've seen the power of god enough in our lives nothing compared to what's coming but we've seen enough to the point where we can't deny him even if we tried we would only be lying because we've been convinced the amazing thing is we are such a strange group of people because we're not arrogant but we're extremely confident right exactly we we are not um we are not bombastic but we're bold because we know him who we believe in we don't have everything that the world says we should have but we lack nothing how is it that it doesn't matter if we live in a mansion or on the side of a hill because we've learned great contentment and just knowing him and we look around the world that's imploding and it's only increasing our strength when i turn on middle eastern tv and i see christians being marched to their death and then singing worship songs i say lord that's not for me today but living for you is for me today so until that happens to me if it does what do you want me to do jesus what are we going to do today jesus a proud christian is an oxy what's known as an oxymoronic statement you cannot be a proud christian nobody likes nobody nobody likes that okay what do you mean if you think you are better than anybody else then you're romans chapter 2 people that's what paul is saying knock it off if we have encountered forgiveness it's going to be pretty easy to issue forgiveness towards other people and the people that we have a hard time with remember this jesus said in luke 6 love your enemies do good to those that drive you nuts listen he said love your enemies he didn't say like him i think that's very key you know like to like when you like somebody you hang out with them you want to go hang out will you like them let's go spend some time together you don't like your enemy and probably walking in wisdom in romans chapter 12 paul said as much as it is possible live at peace with all people you know what that means that means some people you can talk up a storm with them some people it's all you should say is hello and you leave it it's just like even in the family of god it's like oil and water with some people look from here on out i'm going to say hi you're going to say hi back that's it because it doesn't go good after that but when you love your enemy this changes everything your enemy knocks on the door and if your enemy says let's go let's go hang out let's go go for something no i'm not interested but if your enemy knocks on the door and says i just cut my finger off i need help you're going to help them in an instant because you love them because jesus loves them and it's a very important thing because our witness should be humble we should never say well yes i'm a christian you shouldn't do that and you see right here in verse four the word knowing agneo say ignato that sounds a lot like ignoramus because it is that's the word it says right here if you don't recognize god's goodness and god's longsuffering and his patience with you then what you're doing is you're being an ignoramus by the way cheer up the word ignoramus is the root word to agnostic the an agnostics who are an agnostic i know agnostics here's the funny thing you know agnostics but the agnostics don't know themselves in agnostic means i believe god exists he just can't be known he's out there somewhere well how do you know i don't i just think he's out there somewhere that's what an agnostic is at least why don't you just be an atheist instead but an agnostic is like i don't know and i'm too lazy to care so i'm going to say i'm an agnostic just know the bible says you're an ignoramus you could know but you choose not to know don't tell me right i don't want to know he's out there but that's it i don't want to talk to him no listen knowing that the goodness of god leads a man to repentance this is this is sweet god's goodness should cause you listen are you an atheist or an agnostic god's goodness should cause you to metanoia meta is to after think noyah think thought after thought metanoia have an afterthought think again it means think again think again about who god is so he is good yeah he is good you're breathing right now that's him giving you breath in a moment you're going to get up and you're going to walk that's him giving you the power to do that we can't even fathom how much grace he gives us in one hour infinite some people think maybe you know if you don't turn and follow christ you're going to burn i mean there is true that's true but you don't say like hey here's what attention everyone so i'll let you know you're all going to burn that doesn't go well and then yeah i know you turn on tv and there's a guy preaching i'm telling you you're gonna have to come to christ you need a jesus now and you don't do you you're gonna go to hell and the flames of fire gonna lick your face off and you're gonna burn and you're ah and it's all of this boom and it's like oh man you're not helping that never does it and you see people i don't know why they always go to the beach you could be having a perfect beach dan there's some guy with a sign saying uh turn or burn you ever seen that guy it's always there it's weird they're like everywhere that doesn't work when you get them to listen the goodness of god leads you to change your mind amen that's there's power in that i'll leave you with this you can stand really i'm going to leave you with this the goodness of god the goodness of god is patient and the goodness of god is available of course to the unbeliever and of course to the believer always so when moses went to the mountain to speak with god god calls him to the mountain mount sinai and he's there the mountain is shrouded in smoke and fire and lightning and thunder and moses is up in and joshua sees him disappear into the mountain talk am amazing and god says moses i want you to go and tell these people that i am that i am and i'm leading them out of egypt they're my people i'm going to take them into the promised land and moses says what if they don't believe me and god says take your staff throw it on the ground and he throws it on the ground it turns into a snake and the bible says read it go read exodus 4. moses is on the mountaintop throws down his staff turns into a snake and the bible says and moses ran wouldn't you i would do that i hate snakes isn't it funny though god says this is how you this i'll tell you how throw it on your your stuff it turns into snake moses runs god calls moses back then he says it's not doesn't get better god says grab it by the tail it does he says take it by the tail now for me that would be torture i hate snakes i don't even like worms moses grabs it turns back into his his staff and god says see i'm with you and then moses you could see moses it's like what if they don't listen to me okay moses take your hand and put your hand inside you're like napoleon right put your hand inside and then pull it out and his hand is completely covered leprosy incurable now moses put it back inside your your your jacket your shirt and pull it out and it's like baby skin moses still not going to do it they i don't what if they don't believe me all right moses take the jug of water you have and pour it on the ground and he pours it out and blood comes out and moses you see moses it's the third thing still not gonna do it isn't god amazing so merciful and then moses says i can't talk i have a speech impediment i stutter and god says who made the mouth clearly moses didn't like snakes clearly nobody wants leprosy listen nobody wants to see blood come out of your your water bottle okay and so moses goes for it here's the here's the here's the show stopper god i stutter i'm slow of speech i can't do it and god says i've showed you all this stuff let me remind you about something i made your mouth he just evaporates every excuse takes them away boom and so moses goes down the mountain and changes the entire world right so i'm blessed by that and encouraged by that because today every every one of us can have an excuse as to why we can't be used by god and i wish i was that person or i wish i was those guys or i wish i was that woman or i wish i was that evangelist or that man over there listen all this stuff that we're not supposed to be doing if you're a believer in the lord jesus christ today you need to be saying lord make me more thankful make me more grateful and use my life so that by everything you do i'm humbled by you more and more and i'll leave you with this um by god's grace i get to do what i do but what you don't know is that when i accepted jesus in 1977 all my life i stuttered severely in fact i got saved in 77 i met my wife in 78 we got married in 79 but for me to even ask her will you m m m m marry me me me me listen it was kind of funny because when i was in high school and junior high girls would say you're so cute well here's what i found out you never say anything you're so quiet so guys listen apparently to getting a date is don't say anything but i didn't talk because i couldn't talk i'm sure well thank you if you know anybody who stutters it hurts it's physically like it's like a knot in your throat and so i just didn't talk but i couldn't let her get away so i had to i had to ask her but it wasn't until 1983. lisa and myself and a team a team of friends they're all sharing the lord evangelizing but i couldn't talk so i would go with them i'd pray so we're in lido island and i saw somebody on a footbridge at lido island and i felt this incredible just go tell them i mean it's like that and i had to obey and i'm thinking oh boy and i got up there and as a young woman i say excuse me would you mind if i tell you about jesus christ no not at all told her about jesus christ got so excited found lisa and the guys i said i'm not stuttering i just shared the lord with that girl over there on the bridge i'm not a stutter and and they go you're not stuttering now and and that's why i i spent 23 years quiet and so that's why these sermons go so long father father we ask you lord thank you for jesus thank you for your goodness thank you for your glory god may we leave this place today humbled because at any moment look you made the mouth and you could also take our mouth away the thought of that terrifies me so lord keep us close may we be very grateful very grateful may we be very thankful so may we follow you may we believe in you and may we be witnesses that bring you and you alone glory we praise you god and all god's people said amen god bless you [Applause] well hey thanks for listening and uh we appreciate you and of course we do in this time and in this age us being together and linking up together to get the word of god out is actually ministry being fulfilled and in fact if you would like to subscribe please do so hit the subscribe button tell your friends about us and listen if you'd like to help us get this out on a broader scale you can support us by hitting on the give now button and look we're going to continue on with or without you we're inviting you to join us no pressure but if you'd like to link arms in this venture you'd be greatly appreciated so listen keep praying for us we're praying for you god bless you and we'll see you back here real soon

Channel: Real Life with Jack Hibbs

Views: 45,022

Rating: 4.9483614 out of 5

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Id: d1ZQo57a5lU

Length: 63min 5sec (3785 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021