Speaker 1: Hi and welcome to the FBC Eldorado Sermon Podcast.
Speaker 1: We hope God will use this week's message to both inspire and challenge you as you seek to walk closer with the Lord.
Speaker 1: Now join me as we listen into this week's sermon.
Speaker 2: All right, good morning.
Speaker 2: For those of you that don't know me, I'm Bob Shepard and I'm a member of the Pulpit Supply Team.
Speaker 2: The mission of the Pulpit Supply Team is to assure that the pulpit of First Baptist Church is filled during this time period while we're waiting for our new pastor to arrive.
Speaker 2: So Marcus Brown is no stranger to First Baptist Church and in deciding how to introduce Marcus, I talked to Dr Rex Horan, who is, of course, a friend of First Baptist and is director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, and I asked him to can you give me the job description that Marcus Brown holds down there at the convention?
Speaker 2: And this is what he said Marcus is director of convention administration, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Speaker 2: He works closely with three teams that facilitate and advance the ministries of Arkansas Baptist Churches.
Speaker 2: He oversees the convention staff, keeps staff in line with approved policies and procedures, and this is to quote Dr Horan.
Speaker 2: He says Marcus' toughest job is keeping Dr Horan between the ditches, and he ended by saying that there's no one with whom he works more closely than Marcus Brown.
Speaker 2: So, marcus, we welcome you again and the pulpit is yours.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, thank you for the introduction, judge Shepherd.
Speaker 3: I am honored to be here today and I really appreciate that introduction and customarily I would bring greetings on behalf of Dr Rex Horan, but I believe he was here last Sunday, if I'm not mistaken, and I do enjoy him being the executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Speaker 3: Bottom line is, as you read those things that I attempt to do on behalf of the convention, I just help him.
Speaker 3: He's the one who does all those things and I just try to help him in that work.
Speaker 3: I have been at the convention about to wrap up my 15th year, about to start my 16th, and just love Arkansas Baptists and I'm just so thankful for the partnership that First Baptist has with the other almost 1,500 Arkansas Baptist churches that make up the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Speaker 3: You all are exceedingly generous in what you do as far as missions is concerned and missions giving, so thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to be here, really looking forward to these next few weeks that we're going to have together.
Speaker 3: I hope you're able to enjoy our time together also and know, of course, several of the folks on staff here and I've known Brian for a long time, really appreciate his ministry and thankful for how the Lord has allowed him to serve here and have gotten to know Dustin and Colby as well, and just really thankful for them.
Speaker 3: You all are blessed with a great staff and just really excited about the influence that this church family has on this community.
Speaker 3: Now I'm going to invite you, if you would go ahead and be making your way.
Speaker 3: We're going to be looking at a passage of Scripture in Hebrews 10.
Speaker 3: We're going to be looking in Hebrews 10.
Speaker 3: And as we think through the next few weeks as Judge Shepard mentioned a moment ago, they're going to be, I believe, three weeks.
Speaker 3: That I'm not going to be able to be with you over the course of these next three months, but at least a couple of those.
Speaker 3: Warren Gasaway is going to be coming down and preaching, so I think some of you all may know him.
Speaker 3: I'm the B team, warren is the A team, warren and Dr Horan are the A team, and so y'all will be looking forward to being able to hear from him in my absence.
Speaker 3: We're going to be looking here in Hebrews 10 in just a moment, but before we do that, I want you just in your mind as we get started to think about how Scripture begins.
Speaker 3: You don't have to turn there, but we're able to remember many of you are.
Speaker 3: If you haven't, if you find yourself here and you're searching for answers and looking into Christianity, you may not be familiar with some of the things that I share this morning, but I'm thankful that you're here and, before you leave today, if that's where you find yourself, I'd love to answer any question that I might possibly be able to, and I'm sure there are a whole lot of people in this room that would love to help you in your search for what truth is.
Speaker 3: But for many of you, you can think back on how the book of Genesis begins, and it is the creation and the fact, this emphasis on God creating everything that is.
Speaker 3: And then you get into Genesis, chapter 2, and it begins to give us some detail about this and specifically, it describes the creation of the Garden of Eden and it describes the creation of the first man, whom we know to be Adam, and all these animals that were in the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 3: God creates this perfect place and it's wonderful and it's His to enjoy and, matter of fact, god gives Him the responsibility of naming all the animals.
Speaker 3: And in that passage of Scripture in Genesis, chapter 2, it says that he's named all these animals and he's surrounded by animals and he is surrounded by perfection.
Speaker 3: It is just a wonderful place.
Speaker 3: We can only try to comprehend how great it was.
Speaker 3: And yet you get to verse 18 of Genesis, chapter 2, and all of a sudden, the Lord says that something in the Garden is not good.
Speaker 3: That is that verse there, genesis 2, 18 says it is not good for the man to be alone, and so, as a result, you may be familiar that God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, he takes one of Adam's ribs, he crafts the first woman and there in the Garden, creates the first institution, and that is the institution of marriage.
Speaker 3: And these are important times for us to be focused on the importance of marriage and biblical teaching on that.
Speaker 3: That's really not our purpose this morning, but I do want to draw attention to the fact that, though there's a lot of reasons for marriage, one of the primary reasons, of course, is, according to Genesis, chapter 2, is God created this relationship between a man and a woman because it is not good for a man to be alone, and he created that, and the relationship is so important in this institution of marriage.
Speaker 3: Then you fast forward to the first few pages of the New Testament and there we find another man, if you will, introduced onto the scene.
Speaker 3: He is Jesus, jesus of Nazareth, and he lives this life that he came to live, and it was in sinless perfection.
Speaker 3: And he dies on the cross for the sins of the world and he's raised from the dead and he ascends into heaven.
Speaker 3: And there you find His believers are left behind and they are filled with the Spirit in Acts, chapter 2, and all of a sudden, a new institution, the second institution, begins, and that is the institution of the church.
Speaker 3: And there are a whole lot of reasons why the church is important, but I contend one of the primary reasons God created the church is because it is not good for believers to be alone.
Speaker 3: Now, with that in mind, I want us to make our way here to Hebrews, chapter 10, and we're going to read a couple of verses of Scripture here out of Hebrews chapter 10.
Speaker 3: It's going to be verses 24 and 25, where the writer of Hebrews says this let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting or encouraging one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching Now I have three children.
Speaker 3: They're not children anymore.
Speaker 3: My youngest is turning 18 in two weeks, and so time just flies.
Speaker 3: By Matter of fact, we are, let's see, is the weekend that you all are hosting the students in your home.
Speaker 3: Is that next weekend?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
Speaker 3: Our church is doing the exact same thing, and so we're having this they call it a lift tour or reality weekend up in Selene County, where I live, just outside Benton, and so we are a host home as well, so we're hosting the senior high boys.
Speaker 3: So if I show up next Sunday, a little bleary eyed, a little grouchy, y'all are going to know what's going on.
Speaker 3: We've spent the weekend hosting a bunch of guys.
Speaker 3: We're looking forward to it, thankful for how you're investing in the next generation, in that, and hope the Lord blesses you with a good weekend.
Speaker 3: So we have three children that are racing toward adulthood, and I can recall when our daughter, who is our middle child, she was about 11 months old and she was just on the verge of being able to walk, and so I can remember she was in a spot where she was crawling everywhere she went, but we knew she had it in her to be able to do this.
Speaker 3: And one day I can recall that I was sitting on my couch, I'd gone to the living room and it was the month of October.
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all know what the month of October is, but it is pastor appreciation month, pastor staff appreciation month, and someone in my church, where I pastored, had given me a tube of summer sausage for pastor staff appreciation month.
Speaker 3: Nothing says we love you, pastor, like a tube of extruded meat.
Speaker 3: Okay, so y'all remember that, all right?
Speaker 3: So don't when October rolls around, y'all just keep that in mind.
Speaker 3: So they'd given this gift to me and my little daughter loved this summer sausage.
Speaker 3: So I was sitting on the couch with a paring knife and I was just eating some of it.
Speaker 3: And as I did, she sees me from across the living room and scurries over to where I am and she crawls up right beside the couch with both hands on the cushions and she sticks one hand out putting in a request for some summer sausage.
Speaker 3: I cut off a little piece and I go to hand it to her and all of a sudden I had the thought now wait just a second, I need to use this opportunity.
Speaker 3: And so I get up from the couch and I step back a little ways and I just held it out to her like this.
Speaker 3: I didn't whistle or anything, I just I just wanted to.
Speaker 3: I wanted to see what she was going to do, and I assumed she was going to drop down on her hands and knees and crawl over to where I was.
Speaker 3: But to my surprise she did not.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact.
Speaker 3: Instead, she, she let go of the cushion and she, she took a couple of really unsteady steps, pivoting 180 degrees, and she came over to where I was Now, in a move that makes me eligible for dad of the year.
Speaker 3: I backed up a couple more steps, just held that out a little further just to see what she would do.
Speaker 3: And she came with a couple more steps and, and I backed up the whole way across the living room, just doing like this the whole way, and she kept coming until she, she finally made it all the way across the living room.
Speaker 3: I gave her that piece of summer sausage for all of her effort, and I am not exaggerating when I say that was the day she convinced herself she was able to do it.
Speaker 3: She was able to walk.
Speaker 3: There was no going back.
Speaker 3: She had been spurred on to it, and we have summer sausage to thank for that great milestone in the in the life of my little daughter.
Speaker 3: This passage of scripture tells us, in verse 24, as we look here, it says let us consider how to.
Speaker 3: Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't know about you, but I am so thankful that, as I stand up here this morning, I am so thankful that the message I'm sharing with you is not this Now listen.
Speaker 3: This next week.
Speaker 3: In the rest of your life, you better get out there and you better live the best you can possibly live and just hope that when you close your eyes in death, your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, because if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you're going to make it into heaven, but if your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, you're going to end up going to hell and be separated from God.
Speaker 3: Aren't you thankful?
Speaker 3: That is not the message of the Bible.
Speaker 3: If you're watching online this morning.
Speaker 3: If you're listening on the radio this morning, I want you to know that is not the message of the Bible.
Speaker 3: That wouldn't be good news at all because I'd never make it, I would never be good enough.
Speaker 3: But instead the message of the Bible is even though I'll never be good enough, god made a way for me to have a relationship with Him and be able to enjoy living with Him in heaven for all of eternity, through faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: That is indeed the good news.
Speaker 3: And so we come to Scripture, and it references here in this passage, stirring up love and good works.
Speaker 3: We're supposed to encourage each other, spur each other on, stir each other up to live out a life of love and good works, not in an effort to be saved, but because we have been saved.
Speaker 3: That is the reason, that is the purpose behind the works that we do and the love that we possess.
Speaker 3: It is to demonstrate our great appreciation for the God that has brought us salvation.
Speaker 3: And so we do this.
Speaker 3: We stir each other up to live out the life God saved us to live, and that's what leads us to verse 25.
Speaker 3: It says not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much more.
Speaker 3: As you see the day approaching, let me read that for you in the new living translation.
Speaker 3: This morning I'm reading from the new King James, but let me read it from the new living translation Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works, and let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, and especially now that the day of Jesus return is drawing near.
Speaker 3: Now let's think for a moment.
Speaker 3: Think that you get out here this next week and you're pumping gas at the gas station.
Speaker 3: Somebody comes up and pulls up alongside you.
Speaker 3: They're getting gasoline.
Speaker 3: They say, hey, I know that every Sunday you come to church down there at First Baptist, and even on those beautiful spring Sundays you could be out on the lake or whatever.
Speaker 3: I know every Sunday you come down there.
Speaker 3: Why on earth do you do that?
Speaker 3: Why would you give up a beautiful weekend day to go down and go to that place?
Speaker 3: We can think about what some of our answers would be.
Speaker 3: Well, our first answer might be well, we do it to worship together, and that is absolutely true.
Speaker 3: We're thankful for the opportunity that we have together and to sing praises to the Lord, and it is the time of the week that we gather with other believers to do that, and so I do affirm the importance of that.
Speaker 3: However, I do want us to acknowledge that the truth of the matter is I can and should be worshiping the Lord all throughout the week.
Speaker 3: If the only time you worship God is when you get in this room, you're not worshiping the Lord nearly enough.
Speaker 3: You need to think about how great he is all throughout the week, but this is a unique time for us to come together.
Speaker 3: Another answer we might give as well is to learn God's Word.
Speaker 3: That is absolutely true.
Speaker 3: I am operating under the assumption that in your life groups, those who lead those and facilitate those times are teaching you God's Word.
Speaker 3: It is my desire to teach you God's Word in the weeks that I'm here with you, but the truth of the matter is, if the only time I ever crack this book is when I'm on this property, I am not getting the Word of God nearly enough.
Speaker 3: This is God's revelation of Himself, and we need to take all the time we can to cherish it and to study it so that we can become more like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: What does Hebrews, chapter 10 say?
Speaker 3: The purpose is?
Speaker 3: It says the purpose.
Speaker 3: It says in the New King James, it says exhorting one another.
Speaker 3: Another translation which you may have, says encouraging one another.
Speaker 3: The purpose for gathering.
Speaker 3: One of the primary reasons we gather together is for the purpose of encouraging each other.
Speaker 3: If you were to look in the New Testament and if you were to look at the passages of Scripture that reference Christians singing in the New Testament there aren't a lot of those, but one of the main ones is in Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 19, where it says speak to one another through Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as we sing and praise the Lord.
Speaker 3: How did that verse begin?
Speaker 3: As we sing and sing these Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, what are we supposed to do?
Speaker 3: We're supposed to speak to one another in our singing.
Speaker 3: So as we sing to the Lord, even as we gather for the purpose of singing, we do it in an effort to encourage each other in our faith.
Speaker 3: And here's something I've had to come to terms with, and this is painful.
Speaker 3: I pastored several years before coming to the state convention and and I've just had to come to terms with the fact that people may come to our church for the first time because of the, the singing, or they like it.
Speaker 3: Maybe they just love the participatory feel of it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it did.
Speaker 3: It was good team leading, it did a great job and and there's a good spirit in the room.
Speaker 3: People may come.
Speaker 3: They may be drawn for that.
Speaker 3: They may come for the preaching, but that is not why they stay.
Speaker 3: That's not why they stay.
Speaker 3: I've had to come to terms with the fact that you can go home and you can get online or you can turn on the television and and there are a whole lot of preachers out there that are a whole lot better than I am at preaching.
Speaker 3: Now there's some that are a whole lot worse, okay, so got to kind of balance that out.
Speaker 3: But there are a lot of them that are a whole lot better preacher than I am, and so they may come for the preaching, they may come for the singing.
Speaker 3: That is not why they stay.
Speaker 3: Why do people stay the course in a local body of believers?
Speaker 3: They stay because they're encouraged.
Speaker 3: They stay because they have friends here, they have built relationships here.
Speaker 3: They stay because they feel spurred on to live out the life God's called them to live you ever known anybody that didn't stay?
Speaker 3: You probably have I have, certainly.
Speaker 3: In in preacher world, we call that the back door.
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all have ever heard that phrase or not, but but if you ever in a group of preachers and they're talking about, I got to figure out a way to close the back door.
Speaker 3: That's their, that's code, for members are slipping away and we're not what.
Speaker 3: They're not coming back anymore, and so that's, that's this reference to, to people that don't stay.
Speaker 3: Why do they not stay?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a variety of reasons.
Speaker 3: You may have found yourself there before.
Speaker 3: If you haven't been to church in a long time, let me this is a parentheses for more If you haven't been to church in a long time, this is the first time in six months, a year, ten years you've come.
Speaker 3: I didn't know you were coming.
Speaker 3: Okay, this message is not specifically crafted for you.
Speaker 3: Nobody told me, okay, so don't worry about that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we can.
Speaker 3: We can ask people who don't stay.
Speaker 3: We can ask people, you know, if they've stopped attending our church, why do you do it?
Speaker 3: And and they may just say well, I'm just too busy, or it turns out Sunday's my only day off in the week and it's the only time I have to get away or to spend time with family.
Speaker 3: We've we've heard that.
Speaker 3: I know, as a pastor, I know when I encountered people that didn't stay the course, my answer usually would have been something like if someone were to ask me well hey, what happened to them?
Speaker 3: You know, well, you know it apparently wasn't a priority for them or they weren't as committed as we thought they should have been, those kinds of things.
Speaker 3: And then I had an experience one time that has forever changed my perspective on this we I'm a member of a church just outside of Benton, great church.
Speaker 3: It is a great church, we love it, lord's really working and just a lot of great things about it.
Speaker 3: If you, if you know some family member that's not attending church in Benton, come see me because I've got a great church for them to be a part of.
Speaker 3: But I can recall this young lady coming into our church.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's been 10 years ago now.
Speaker 3: I was in May.
Speaker 3: She attended for the very first time.
Speaker 3: She was about 21 years of age, she'd never been to our church before, just showed up on Sunday and she apparently enjoyed, enjoyed it or had a good enough experience where she decided to come back the next Sunday and then, about the third or fourth Sunday she showed up for Sunday school and then, wasn't too long after that, she started coming on Wednesday nights and and then she started showing up on Sunday nights.
Speaker 3: I mean, this lady was all in, she was soaking it all up, and this happened all throughout the summer until you get to the end of August and and there is summers winding down.
Speaker 3: One Sunday morning after the service is over, our pastor standing down front during the time of response, and this young lady comes, she walks the aisle and she says to him I need to give my life to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: And right there she prays and she trusts Christ as her savior and Lord.
Speaker 3: Everybody's so excited.
Speaker 3: About a couple weeks later she was baptized and it was just wonderful.
Speaker 3: We were so thankful for this young lady coming and being a part of our church and and just so refreshing to us.
Speaker 3: So about a month later, my wife and I, we were making our way to church on Wednesday evening.
Speaker 3: Our church has a Wednesday evening meal and and we were getting there.
Speaker 3: We got there a little bit early and and so when we got there, got our plate and looked over and since it was so early, there weren't many people there, and here's, here sits this young lady.
Speaker 3: And I told my wife.
Speaker 3: I said, hey, I want to go sit with her.
Speaker 3: I've got a.
Speaker 3: I want to ask her some questions because at that time my work at the convention involved helping churches with being ready for guests, getting new members involved, those kinds of things.
Speaker 3: So I said I want to ask her what this experience has been like.
Speaker 3: So we go and we begin to talk and visit and and share, and and I told her what I did at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and I said hey, I just have a question for you.
Speaker 3: You have such a unique experience here.
Speaker 3: You came as a first time guest, having never come to our church.
Speaker 3: You got involved in all these ministries.
Speaker 3: At the end of the summer you gave your life to Christ.
Speaker 3: You've been baptized.
Speaker 3: Now you're a church member.
Speaker 3: I just want to know if, if I can ask you what has that experience been like?
Speaker 3: And she, she put her fork down and she looked over at me and she said Do you really want to know?
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, I would, I really would like to know.
Speaker 3: And she said, to be perfectly honest with you.
Speaker 3: It feels like they've closed the sale and they moved on to somebody else.
Speaker 3: And if you go to our church today, I love being at our church, I love it.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I say I love it, I was preaching at a church in central Arkansas in January and I would still go to my early service at my church and then drive over and preach.
Speaker 3: That's how much I love being at my church.
Speaker 3: I just love it.
Speaker 3: There's so much excitement there.
Speaker 3: But if you show up at our church today, you know who's not going to be there.
Speaker 3: That young lady.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was a few weeks, you know.
Speaker 3: She started missing a Sunday night and a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning here and there.
Speaker 3: For long.
Speaker 3: It was a month past and by Easter the next year nobody had seen her and she never came back.
Speaker 3: And as the young pastor that I was, I would have assessed that situation and here's what I'd have said it's a shame she wasn't more committed.
Speaker 3: It's a shame it wasn't more of a priority to her.
Speaker 3: But you know what the real shame was.
Speaker 3: It is a shame that she felt like we closed the sale and moved on to somebody else.
Speaker 3: And I look at this passage of Scripture and I see how it clearly tells us we're supposed to stir each other up to live out the life God's called us to live, and we're supposed to come alongside each other and encourage one another.
Speaker 3: I know there's a lot going on in each other's lives and people's lives.
Speaker 3: We're busy raising children, they're stressed at work, your marriage relationship may be strained or you may have some financial challenges.
Speaker 3: There's a lot going on at church.
Speaker 3: You come to church and you have a million things on your mind in terms of what you need to do this morning.
Speaker 3: When we come to church, thinking about a lot, you think about your responsibilities that you have.
Speaker 3: You're thinking about the maybe problems that you're facing.
Speaker 3: You may be sitting there right now thinking what are we having for lunch?
Speaker 3: Or you may be thinking about the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Well, if you weren't before, I guess you probably are now.
Speaker 3: So set that off to the side for a moment, maybe thinking how much longer is he going to preach?
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of things that may be going through your mind this morning as you sit here.
Speaker 3: In this time of worship.
Speaker 3: Christians need to meet together.
Speaker 3: Church members need to meet together.
Speaker 3: The writer of Hebrews here.
Speaker 3: I think it's important for us to note.
Speaker 3: In verse 25, he's not saying we need to encourage each other to attend, but instead he's saying we need to attend, we need to get together for the purpose of encouraging each other, and so we need to be in the encouragement business.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, I'm convinced we need to assess church.
Speaker 3: We need to assess everything we do at church, we need to assess life groups.
Speaker 3: We need to assess our time of worship.
Speaker 3: We need to assess what we do midweek and Wednesday nights.
Speaker 3: The question is does it encourage, does it spur us on to live out the life God has called us to live?
Speaker 3: Now we know what we believe, don't we?
Speaker 3: I stand here unashamedly saying to you I believe the Bible is entirely true, the inspired word of God.
Speaker 3: I believe God created everything, that is, I believe that I'm a sinner and I believe you're a sinner too, because the Bible says that is the case.
Speaker 3: That's the state of our reality.
Speaker 3: I believe entirely that Jesus came to this earth as God come in the flesh.
Speaker 3: He died for the sins of all the world.
Speaker 3: He rose triumphantly three days later to defeat sin and death and the grave.
Speaker 3: I believe he is going to come back one day.
Speaker 3: I believe Jesus is the only way to be saved.
Speaker 3: There's no other way to have a relationship with God except through faith in Jesus Christ, and I believe those who reject Jesus are going to be judged and separated from God forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 3: That is what the Bible teaches and I declare that unashamedly this morning, on the authority of God's Word.
Speaker 3: We know what we believe.
Speaker 3: We've got to be uncompromising in what we believe.
Speaker 3: With that said, we have got to be the most encouraging group of people on the surface of the earth.
Speaker 3: In the community.
Speaker 3: People need to know our church family, whether it's here in El Dorado or back where I live or wherever we may be.
Speaker 3: They have to know that our church family is characterized by love and encouragement, because the gospel is going to offend them and that's between them and the Lord.
Speaker 3: We just proclaim it unashamedly the gospel is going to offend.
Speaker 3: They've got to know us as people who love, as people who encourage.
Speaker 3: That's the calling of the local church.
Speaker 3: That's what it means to follow Jesus together.
Speaker 3: Let me invite you, if you would please, bow your head and close your eyes.
Speaker 3: See your heads bowed and your eyes closed.
Speaker 3: This morning you may find yourself searching, looking for answers, and if that is the case, you may have come this morning looking for encouragement.
Speaker 3: It is my responsibility to say to you that Scripture clearly teaches that the wages of our sin is death, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and I know that is very discouraging news, but the greatest news that has ever been shared is, though the wages of my sin is death.
Speaker 3: The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Speaker 3: God has provided a way for you to be forgiven, for you to be saved, for your life to be filled with purpose, right here and right now, and it's through placing your faith in God's Son, jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: In a moment, pastor Brian is going to be standing down here at the front.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be standing down here at the front.
Speaker 3: We would love nothing more than to be able to explain to you how you can have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: For those of you in this room who already belong to the Lord, you may find yourself very discouraged, and as we look at this passage this morning, your prayer may be Lord, I need somebody to encourage me, and that is my hope.
Speaker 3: That's my prayer that the Lord will put somebody in your path that will encourage you.
Speaker 3: But I do want you to know that in the book of Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 25, it says he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Speaker 3: And so let us be a people who, as I struggle with maybe potentially my discouragement, let us pray and say to the Lord Lord, let me set that aside and let me be someone who comes alongside a brother and sister in Christ to spur Him on, to stir Him up, because the calling of the Christian is to walk out of these doors and encounter a lost and dying world, desperate for Jesus.
Speaker 3: But they don't even know it.
Speaker 3: And we have the privilege of living a life of love and good deeds that God has prepared us to live.
Speaker 3: Through faith in Jesus and then the power of the Holy Spirit, let us be an army of encouragers.
Speaker 3: Let us be known as people who are living out the faith God's called us to live.
Speaker 3: Lord, we call on you this morning.
Speaker 3: We love you.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for the fact that, through faith in Jesus, because of the hope that we have in you, because of the future that awaits in a world of eight billion people, there is not one group on the surface of the earth that has more reason to be encouraged than the group of people gathered in this room this morning.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what happens today or tomorrow or through the rest of our lives, because we know, according to the authority of Scripture, that you win a triumphant victory and that you're the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and we, as your followers, are gonna be standing by your side for all of eternity, and we have great hope in that great cause to be encouraged.
Speaker 3: And so we need to walk out of these doors carrying with us the message of Jesus.
Speaker 3: Let us be people who encourage one another to live the life that you've called us to live, and so, father, I pray.
Speaker 3: Tonight or this morning I pray.
Speaker 3: If there's somebody in this room right now that has yet to give their life over to you, that today would be the day.
Speaker 3: Let them come to a point where they wanna surrender and say yes to Jesus and live the life you've created them to live.
Speaker 3: Thank you for the great gift of salvation.
Speaker 3: We entrust this time into your care, in Jesus name.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Speaker 3: When I invite you, if you would please stand to your feet, pastor Brian and I are gonna be standing here at the front as we sing.
Speaker 3: You come, you respond as the Lord leads you.