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Declare Your Dependence Upon God – Jack Hibbs

Our relationship with God should be one of utter and complete dependence, like a child who depends on his father. Are we as Christians leaning into that dependence, or are we fighting against it, trying to do things on our own? Jack Hibbs talks more about this in this episode of Real Life TV.

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Well, we’ve all heard about the declaration of independence as Americans here in the United States.
It’s, uh, like a birth mark for our nation.
And it’s a beautiful thing because as a nation of people, we declared our independence from the realm or the crown of England.
But that’s not what we’re talking about today.
We’re talking about something that is so incredibly needed and necessary and that is understanding that is an understanding that God’s word, God’s existence, your existence, and mine is actually dependent upon our relationship with 1 another.
He gave us his word that we might know him. He wants us to know him.
But in a condition, in a relationship of dependence, we are called his children. He is our father.
When we talk the declaration of dependence, we’re talking about you and I being honestly, truthfully dependent upon God.
And that’s the question that we all need to ask ourselves.
Is our faith truly rooted in a dependency upon God?
We’re gonna be looking today in Romans chapter 8 beginning at verse 1 in a message titled the declaration of dependence.
But what
you and I need to do as we prepare our hearts for this message is to ask ourselves, are we really dependent upon God or our money?
Are we dependent upon God or our status? Are we dependent upon God and our youth? Our vitality?
Is it that we’re dependent upon either God or our, what, influence?
Listen, friends, there can be no rival. There can be no rival to God.
He’s not to be number 1 on a list of 10.
He’s to be 1 on a list of 1. The declaration of dependence.
So let’s grab our Bibles.
Let’s dive in to see what God has in store for us as we look to the Word of God.
Number 1, mark it down if you would you guys, it’s this.
The declaration of dependence is that there’s now this absolute freedom that’s available to us.
Now I’m gonna really lay it down to you guys because I have to, I’m very excited about this portion of scripture because it transformed my life personally.
When he says there is is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, we all start with this right here, right now, it’s because that coming out of this condemnation there’s a great weight that is lifted.
Mark that down, that our declaration is from condemnation and its weight.
Condemnation is, and I’m gonna give you the definition of it here from the Bible in a moment.
Condemnation is this overwhelming sense of hopelessness that there’s no, there’s no hope for you, there’s no hope.
And you can’t find the answer and you’re struggling, and you know what’s wrong, but you can’t fix it.
There’s no place to go, and there’s a big weight.
Condemnation is a great weight that weighs upon so many people today, and people choose how to deal with it.
Listen up everybody. The reason why there’s drug addiction, the reason why there are these personality issues and violence and drunkenness and the pursuit of materialism.
Think of it, all of these pursuits literally come back to 1 single point of the human soul and that is that there’s something wrong.
Somewhere along the route there’s something wrong that somebody realized, I gotta find an answer for my life and they go on the pursuit of money.
They go on the pursuit of power or drugs or sex or violence or whatever it is and they’re empty.
And this is universal. No matter where you’re at, in the nation or in the world.
It’s the language of the soul.
The Bible says our souls are separated from God and we’re wandering without God.
And we know that what we’re doing is wrong. And the condemnation comes.
The word as we’ll see here, condemnation, and I’m gonna ask you a question, so get ready.
It’s gonna be a trick question.
Condemnation, this is the Greek meaning to the word, to be under the sentence of.
I talked to a young man 2 weeks ago and he said, Pastor, I want you to pray for me.
Watch this, want you to pray for me.
I committed some crimes, and I got arrested, and there’s a court hearing, there’s a trial, all this.
Well now I’m gonna go be, my sentencing is coming.
But during that time I realized I’m too young to ruin my life.
And he said, I started watching your messages online, then I started coming to the church, I gave my life to Christ and now I’m ready to face the judgment.
He said, I’m gonna go, I’m guilty.
But now I’m a new creation, but I’m still responsible for the things I did to people.
So I’m gonna go to jail and I’m gonna find out for how long, but I’m new.
God has forgiven me, I’m going in there, I pray God uses me. You know what’s happened?
He was condemned, but Christ set him free.
You and I were condemned in our sins but Christ has, uh, listen, I trust Christ has set you free.
Watch this, this man, this young man, every unbeliever and I, you certainly once had this issue to be under the sentence of, to be pronounced guilty, to be worthy of all penalties, all judgments, all liens, all warrants, all ordinances against you resulting in condemnation to bring you what?
To the place where there’s no hope of being delivered.
Now this guy in a sense it doesn’t exactly apply because he’s been forgiven in heaven this young man is free, are you with me?
And inside he’s free, but he’s going or he’s in jail and into prison.
His body will not be walking the streets of LA anymore, but he’s free.
Sounds like a contradiction. But listen, you can be walking the streets of LA and think you’re completely free, but inside you’re completely imprisoned by guilt and by condemnation and by shame.
But the grand declaration is this, there is therefore now.
These are emphatics in the Greek language, it’s an announcement.
Paul the Apostle is, you can almost see him jumping with glee, There is therefore now.
He’s so excited about the announcement.
Listen, this is a message of hope today, but I wanna make sure you have it, that you have hope.
Don’t say you’re a good person, you’re not gonna have it.
Listen, I’m gonna tell you a little story here real quick.
Condemnation, the world, when it’s condemned, when that when an individual is experiencing the condemnation and they don’t respond to it, they harden their heart against it until they don’t feel it anymore, And then they live life thinking, watch this, they live life thinking they’re okay, but you’re the problem.
You know what? You know what’s happened to them?
In fact, if you know somebody who’s very religious, but they’re good, you’re the problem.
You’re talking about a person who does not understand any longer the sense of condemnation that this world heaps upon them.
They’ve hardened their heart. You say, Jack, are you saying you can be a religious person with a hardened heart?
Yeah, totally, completely. But as we’ve mentioned in previous studies, when you look into the word of God, that word of God looks inside of you and reveals who you are.
And it causes you to either harden your heart or to melt your heart.
So I’m gonna ask you this question. It’s a trick question.
Tell me the difference of feelings between condemnation and conviction.
I’ve studied this for 46 years in my own life.
Number 1, condemnation is this sense of heaviness, guilt, and busted, condemnation.
Conviction is heavy guilt. Conviction, condemnation, I’m in trouble.
I’m convicted, what I did was wrong and it needs to be reckoned with.
What I’m submitting to you is this, the feelings are exactly the same.
Condemnation, conviction. You say, Wait a minute, Pastor Jack, they have different Wait a minute, wait.
No, no, no, watch, watch. When a believer is convicted, that sense of heaviness is weighing upon the believer.
I’m talking to you, don’t look at me like that, I’m talking to you.
When you and I sin, we displease God as a child of God.
Our names are written down in heaven, we’re going to heaven. He’s our God, we’re his child.
But when we sin, we break fellowship with God and there’s a sense of big heaviness, guilt, shame.
I just want you to know, it’s the will of God that you experience that literally for the duration of seconds.
Did you know that? Say what do you mean by that?
If you have a bad thought, look at me right now.
I could be, look at me.
Look, you would never think look at him, he’s having a bad thought.
You’re judging me from the outside.
Look, I look so angelic, my hands lifted, praying.
Doesn’t that look holy?
My mind could be a 1, 000 miles away from my outward appearance.
If I’m a Christian, God will say, what are you doing?’ Jack, knock it off.
Bad thought, that is not approved. And then I say, Lord, you are so right. I’m busted.
God, please forgive me. That’s exactly what put you on the cross. I’m so sorry Jesus.
And the Bible says in 1st John 19, If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
All right? So that’s what the believer does.
So when you sin, Christian, you don’t plan on it, but when you do, that’s how you deal with it.
And so look, that weight should only be on you for seconds. Don’t let it sit there.
Don’t let it, don’t Get away, get it done.
The non believer, the condemnation is there and either A, they wind up groping as it were searching for an answer and they find Christ, or they harden their heart against it.
Today you and I live in a world that has hardened their heart against God, hardened their heart against conviction and against condemnation.
And so the world that’s hardened looks and says, You’re the problem, you’re the issue.
It’s that group, it’s this government, it’s that person, it’s that thing.
And they do not see, they cannot see that they themselves are completely without feelings.
And that is manifested by justification, self justification, not biblical justification.
And that weighs on them.
The Bible tells us in Psalm 91, verse 14, because listen to us, this is God speaking to you, I trust as a believer.
In fact, uh, you should mark up your Bibles, always mark up your Bibles, and I’m gonna show you how in a moment.
This is kind of fun. So in your Bible, you should do this, because he, Jack, put in your name, Sue, or whatever your name is, because you you’ve said, because he has set his love upon me, you wanna love God, therefore I will deliver him.
This is God talking. Do you like that kind of talk? I like it.
I will set him on high because he has known my name.
My dear friends, listen, I’m a bumbling nincompoop, but verse 14, that’s me. Is it you?
You should be able to say today, that’s me, I love him.
Only the believer can experience this.
Verse 15, He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble.
Aren’t you glad about that? I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. That’s an awesome verse. That’s my verse.
I’ll let you have it, but it’s my verse.
And you should have in your Bible your name written next to that passage and say, Well, it’s my verse as well.
Condemnation will lift from you.
The Christian should never be walking around in a sense of condemnation.
Oh, I’m never good enough to please God. Oh, I think I’ve upset him.
Oh, I don’t know how you know, I know God is supposed to love me.
You ever feel like that? Well, God has to love me. He’s God.
He said he loves everybody, but basically what you’re saying is God has to love me, but I don’t think he likes me.
Well, guess what? God wants to be with you. God likes you.
God loves you. I don’t know how else to say it. He died for you.
He rose again from the dead for you.
And for any man, woman, boy or girl who puts their trust in him, there should never again be the cloud of condemnation suspended over your life.
Now, if you’re not a Christian, you should be worried sick.
And if you’re worried sick, you should thank God that you care enough about your own soul to cry out to him, because God helped the man or woman who is so callous, who says things like, I’m fine, I don’t need any of this God stuff.
I’m better than most people. Your past feeling, and that’s a tragedy.
In Proverbs chapter 28 verse 13, the Bible says, He who covers his sins will not prosper.
So well, nobody knows. God knows. Yeah, but nothing’s ever happened to me. Just wait.
He loves you. He’s not gonna let you continue like that.
Are you flirting around with the secretary? Are you flirting around with the boss? Is it the neighbor?
Is it the husband’s wife? She’s something or the wife’s neighbor? What what’s going on?
What is God telling you right now? You say, Pastor, who told you? Nope. Nobody told me.
Is it the money? They won’t know. They won’t miss it.
Little decimal point here or there. Listen, God knows.
And listen, if he loves you, and he does, if you can hear him, and I hope that’s the case, you feel a little bit of a sting right now, and I highly recommend you talk to him about it.
Don’t talk to anybody else about it. Talk to him about it.
Go to him about it because here’s what will happen. He will forgive you.
If you bury it, look at this verse, ‘He who covers his sin will not prosper.
But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Happy is the man who is always reverent or mindful of God, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
Listen, the Bible, God is so kind. I’m talking just to the believer right now.
If the believer doesn’t take it to God, if in that 30 seconds you’re convicted, it’s best I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t understand. I live a pretty good life. So get in your car.
If you have any doubts, get in your car.
Go drive go drive right now to, like, LAX or downtown LA. That ought to bring out the flesh.
If you think you’re so saintly, I dare you.
Drive drive to LAX, circle around it and come back and see if your temper is not touched.
And when that listen, when you cross the line and God says, Jack, uh-uh, forsake it in that instant, Lord forgive me in Jesus name.
He doesn’t have to go any further, but if you bury it and bury it and bury it, you know what God says in the book of Numbers?
He says, If you don’t forsake it, I’m gonna shout it.
Jesus, by the way, referred to that in the gospels.
He says, If you everything that you do, if it’s not covered by the blood of Christ, he said, I’m gonna someday shout it from the rooftop.
The Bible says, Be sure of this. If you don’t forsake your sin, it will call you out.
You know how people get caught? Exactly what God said would happen. So nobody knows.
Next thing you know, there’s a big red sign with a finger on it and they’re pointing right over your head.
Why would he do that? He loves you.
He wants you to go to heaven and the Christian, he wants you to be forgiven because you are going to heaven.
He wants to have that communication open. And then listen, conviction itself.
We learned that from conviction after it takes hold, conviction is a beautiful thing.
1 of the scariest things ever is if you can commit some crime against God in thought or deed, and have no feelings about it.
Oh my goodness, that would be the worst thing in the world, but the sad thing is, the people who feel that don’t know that it’s the worst thing in the world, because they can’t feel it.
We look at a world right now that we’re coping and trying to do our best with a culture of self mutilation.
Not sure if you’re aware of this, but how many young people today, because of pain and sorrow and abuse are self mutilating?
They’re cutting up their torsos, they’re cutting their inner thighs, they’re cutting their buttocks with razor blades, they’re cutting their arms.
Why? Because they’ll tell you, I had my life taken from me by some way, shape or form, and I lost all contact with myself and this feeling is the only thing I can feel.
It allows me to have some sort of say about my life.
It makes no sense unless you feel so lost.
And that happens because of man’s soul, and God changes our lives, he transforms us, he gets us out of that.
Just that act alone and that burden and that pain and the conviction of it all upon your life should tell you that God is real.
We talked about darkness recently, but we would never know darkness unless we knew what light was.
Run to the hope. Run to him.
Well, what an amazing declaration we hear from the bible that there is therefore now no condemnation.
No. Never ever shall be condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So friends, listen.
Conviction in our world today is something that, uh, legislators are trying to remove from our world.
If somebody feels irritated by some truth that has gone out, people wanna sue someone.
In a sense, the Holy Spirit is on trial today in our world. Isn’t he?
If I were to speak to you direct biblical truth, and you’re convicted, that is that you feel bad about your sin, oh my goodness.
That is like supreme court stuff now. What’s going on?
You and I live in an age that is so darkening toward evil, and so hostile toward the truth.
So listen, when God speaks to us from his word, he loves us enough to convict us.
The word convict is he calls us out regarding something we’re thinking or doing.
And he says it’s not right. He says I went to the cross for that.
He says I died for that sin and I don’t want you to do that. It’s gonna hurt you.
It’s gonna be bad for you.
But you see, you and I live in a world where either the Lord, he is God, or I’m gonna be the God of my life and act like the lord and call my own shots.
No, my friends. Listen. What you and I need more than ever is the liberty and freedom that God gives when we are convicted of our sins.
Because, you know, in fact, psychologists tell us that children that are not disciplined for wrongdoing, they grow up with many, many emotional and psychological problems.
And 1 of those things is rooted in, they have to mitigate and figure out and create how do they handle their shame and guilt that’s internal?
They never get it out. They never get it dealt with.
Listen, God loves you enough today, my friend, to say to you, I’m speaking to you about your lifestyle.
I’m speaking to you about your decision making. I’m speaking to you about your sin.
And I wanna save you. I wanna forgive you. I wanna give you a new life.
And so what I wanna encourage you about is that with you opening up your word and diving in, God, the Holy Spirit, will speak to you.
He’ll help you in your walk.
He’ll lead you along, and he’ll direct you into the presence of his will. There’s nothing greater.
Friends, listen. More than ever, go to jackhips.com. Stay connected. Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, other areas.
We want you to grow with Jesus. That’s what we’re asking. Grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
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Young people today are facing giants that previous generations could never have imagined.
A wicked and secular culture stands like Goliath, taunting them with hate and intolerance for their Christian beliefs.
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In a powerful book by Ken Ham, Will They Stand, you can learn to give your children what they need to face cultural adversity and become tomorrow’s Christian leaders.
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