SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Well, today we're going to continue our series on the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to talk about this.
SPEAKER_01: It is one of my favorite things to preach about.
SPEAKER_01: I will preach about it often and a lot, and that is this.
SPEAKER_01: The goodness of God means that he has given us the gift of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we talked about, began the series in James 1, where we talked about every good gift and perfect gift is from our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01: And so one of the greatest gifts that He has given us as believers is the gift of His Word.
SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the things that I that one of the many reasons that I'm blessed to be here and honored to be here, and it's humbling to be here, is when you look back through the heritage of this church, its foundational belief and stance on the Word of God, and the incredible men of God who have been preaching that scripture from the pulpits of this church.
SPEAKER_01: It is incredible when you begin to see the heritage of the foundation of the people who started the church and then the men of God who have stood in and preached the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this week I've been doing a little bit of history research of the church because it's really fun and it's fascinating to see the heritage that we have.
SPEAKER_01: And when the church was founded, it was founded by a group of people.
SPEAKER_01: Their first meeting was in someone's home, December 1, 1857.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know what the menu was, but I'm sure there was food involved because they started a Baptist church, right?
SPEAKER_01: And as they got together and started the church and they put together their founding documents, here's their first principle that they built on.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm reading directly from their handwritten documents in which they established the church.
SPEAKER_01: First, we believe the scriptures constituting the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God and acknowledge them to be the only rule of our faith and practice.
SPEAKER_01: That's who we've always been as a church.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I thought it was kind of cool as I read that and was looking at that.
SPEAKER_01: I went onto our website, and when you go there and it says, What we believe, listen to how closely these are still aligned.
SPEAKER_01: It says, the Bible is God's perfect holy word.
SPEAKER_01: It has no errors and is the authority for life.
SPEAKER_01: We started that way and we continue that way today.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that incredible?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that heritage has been faithful through our church.
SPEAKER_01: There are a number of ways and times that you, if we started sharing testimonies about how God's word has been integral to the flow and the growth of our church and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But one of the stories, I want to share one of the stories many of you know, but it I just found it incredibly fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: Last week for holiday weekend, we had some of our longest-term friends from Memphis with us.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've been through life together, college, got married, raised babies together, all that.
SPEAKER_01: Just great folks.
SPEAKER_01: We love them.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm standing shaking hands, you know, all that kind of deal, and they're standing out in front of the library, and I walk up there, and my buddy is looking, he's standing in front of the quilt out there, you know, in front of the library deal, and he says, Okay, I know this has got to be a story.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Tell me why there's a Bible over a stack of firewood.
SPEAKER_01: And if you go look at it, you know, with someone who doesn't know and understand.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Boy, I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: I actually know that story.
SPEAKER_01: In 1898, in what is a moment that is renowned in Arkansas history, on January 11th, 1898, an incredible tornado started across the border in Oklahoma and swept into Fort Smith.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, uh, after that occurred, it was the largest and most devastating tornado in Arkansas history, and today still remains the second most fatal event or disaster in the history of our state.
SPEAKER_01: As that tornado came through, they estimate very clearly from eyewitnesses that it was a cat four, what we would call a category four tornado.
SPEAKER_01: Eyewitnesses said there was no funnel cloud.
SPEAKER_01: It ranged between a hundred feet and two hundred feet wide as it swept through our community.
SPEAKER_01: It started and entered into the city at where the National Cemetery is, and it blew through downtown and swept through the community.
SPEAKER_01: There were, by the time it was over, 55 deaths and over a hundred people with hospitalization level injuries.
SPEAKER_01: As it swept through downtown, First Baptist Fort Smith was in its path.
SPEAKER_01: I found a blog that was describing this moment on the Arkansas State Archives website, and here's what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody asked me, says, that this morning, we were talking about that story, and they said, Is that why we don't have a bell?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, they couldn't find it.
SPEAKER_01: It blew it away.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine the devastation.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine the experience of the church, and that pile of rubble on that quilt represents that the church was literally raised to the ground with nothing left.
SPEAKER_01: And as they sorted through the rubble, here's the one thing that survived that they found.
SPEAKER_01: It is the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is a Bible that was historic to the church.
SPEAKER_01: You see the outside of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those about that thick and huge.
SPEAKER_01: And as we flipped through a couple of pages this week, uh through the years, a number of pastors have actually preached from that Bible in key moments.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and it's it's kind of old, you know, 1898, and I didn't want to be the one that tore it apart.
SPEAKER_01: So we just took pictures of it.
SPEAKER_01: But you can see it's beautiful, it has some breathtaking uh pictures and all of that in it, and it has testimonies and different sheets and flyers in it.
SPEAKER_01: And so it has been one of those things through the years that First Baptist people have told that story.
SPEAKER_01: God's word has been the foundation of our church, and regardless of what happens to our church, we will stand on the word of God and preach and teach the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: One of those incredible stories, isn't it, about that you just see as God takes these moments and puts his thumbprints on circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I want to teach you about today from 2 Peter chapter 1 is that God's word is a gift.
SPEAKER_01: It is his gift to us.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people say things about Scripture, a lot of people believe things about Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of people who validate the existence of Scripture, and they are proud of strong theological statements about Scripture, but in their personal lives are they invested in the Word of God on a daily basis?
SPEAKER_01: They tell us that Charles Haddon-Spurgeon once said, it is easier to find a hundred men who will die for the Bible as true than to find ten that will read it every day.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we, what I want to do is stir in your heart and encourage you today a new love for Scripture as an individual.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we cannot be a people of the Bible collectively if we're not people in the Bible individually.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, as I was preparing this morning and as I was praying for you as we started the service, this became my prayer that God laid on my heart for us today.
SPEAKER_01: Today, here's what I just wrote down my prayer for you this morning, preparing for church.
SPEAKER_01: I pray God stirs a view of Scripture from Scripture that stirs your desire to invest your life in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Let me share that with you again.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that God stirs a view of Scripture from Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Not something I say, but from Scripture that stirs your desire to invest your life in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I chose this passage.
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of great passages about the Bible itself in the Bible, so we'll understand what it is.
SPEAKER_01: But this one I chose because it grabs that view of Scripture that should stir our hearts as individuals, that it is God's gift, and it is given out of his goodness, and it encourages us to be in it and to stand in it and live through it as individuals.
SPEAKER_01: Here's, as we read, I want to remind you of our central truth about the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: What is our definition of the goodness of God?
SPEAKER_01: And as we read through here, I want you to see and reflect on that as it's shown in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: God's attributes, his attitudes, and his actions are driven by both his holy righteousness and his benevolent grace.
SPEAKER_01: His holy righteousness, God is good.
SPEAKER_01: And his benevolent grace, God is good.
SPEAKER_01: Now look and see how Peter describes that.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: God's divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to take a minute right there, just stop in your Bible, and I want you to look and see, is there an asterisk in your Bible that drops a footnote right there?
SPEAKER_01: Is there an asterisk on the word everything?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just wondering, is there some footnote that says, except for when life's hard, or accept for when you need an answer and can't find one, or accept for when you're in this?
SPEAKER_01: There's no asterisk there.
SPEAKER_01: This wraps up everything that you can need.
SPEAKER_01: The word everything properly translated is the word everything.
SPEAKER_01: His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness.
SPEAKER_01: He teaches us then that happens, that life and godliness and his power works through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
SPEAKER_01: By these, his own glory and goodness, by God's glory and goodness, he has given us very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the view from Scripture that I want you to see that encourages you into Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: That by his very goodness and the glory of who he is as God, he has given us not a rule book, not a legislative act, not a law book.
SPEAKER_01: He has given us not an instruction manual, but he has given us great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: Promises that he's given us everything we need for life and for godliness.
SPEAKER_01: They are precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_01: We get everything we need through the knowledge of him who called us.
SPEAKER_01: And so what these promises do, or they call us into a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: They connect us with the giver of the promises.
SPEAKER_01: They are his personal promises to us as his people.
SPEAKER_01: If you will call on my name, I will save you.
SPEAKER_01: Let not your heart be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe in God, believe also in men, and I am going to heaven to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm going to do that, I'm sure gonna come back and receive you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout Scripture, we see now that this is God's promise to us that empowers us and gives us life and godliness and guides and protects.
SPEAKER_01: They are promises that draw us into a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: If someone makes a promise to you and you receive that promise, you're now in a relationship built on trust and responsibility and obligation that draws you together to completion to what was promised.
SPEAKER_01: Look how Peter goes on.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's gonna tell us if that's true, and God's word is that much of a gift to us, then we have to do something with it.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 5, for this very reason.
SPEAKER_01: What reason?
SPEAKER_01: The reason that God has drawn us into relationship through great and precious promises given through his goodness and his glory that change our lives because of that, because of that view and understanding of Scripture, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_01: For if these qualities are yours and they are increasing in your life, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten cleansing from his past.
SPEAKER_01: When we're not in God's word and allowing it to transform our lives, we have forgotten what we were saved from and saved to.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election because if you do these things, you will never stumble.
SPEAKER_01: For in this way, in this process of standing on these promises and them transforming our lives and turning us into usefulness to the kingdom and fruitful in our walk, for in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be richly supplied to you.
SPEAKER_01: It is an incredible truth that Peter is trying to teach folks and to grasp onto and understand.
SPEAKER_01: Let's break it down this way.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first truth that I want you to get.
SPEAKER_01: Again, my prayer is that you have a new view of Scripture, a deeper view of Scripture from Scripture, and see how He has described it.
SPEAKER_01: By these, by His glory and goodness, God has given us great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: God's word was written to us from the very heart of the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just soak in that for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Our Heavenly Father, who is good to us in every way, who has given us every good gift and every perfect gift and all of those things that He's done for us, what He has done is given us a way to understand how much He loves us and desires a relationship with us, the faithfulness to save us and to carry us and to prepare a place for us in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He has done all of that by giving promises that activate, change, transform, and build our lives.
SPEAKER_01: This verse says, because of his goodness, he saved you.
SPEAKER_01: Through his goodness and glory, he's called you into a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And then through that goodness and glory, he's given you everything that you need for every part of life.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the word of God is for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we come to Scripture in the morning when you sit down and that first cup of coffee is percolating, and you're trying to prop your eyes open, and you're thinking, Do I have the energy or the time this morning to get out God's word and to have a quiet time?
SPEAKER_01: That should answer the question for us.
SPEAKER_01: It is the beauty of God's word in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: It is the promises that He's given us.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, Jesus is not going to save you because I stood up here and told you Jesus will save you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is going to save you because of exactly what he said.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will never perish, but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that.
SPEAKER_01: It is recorded in the scriptures so we would understand the promise of salvation for us.
SPEAKER_01: Even in the very beginning, in Genesis chapter 3, as we looked at in the very first week, Satan is trying to lie to us and tell us that God is not good.
SPEAKER_01: His word is not good.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back and think, and that's why I love to preach in these series and layer these sermons and the length of these so we soak in this time, it begins to really do some things for us spiritually when we understand.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the lie that Satan told in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: He told Adam and Eve, God is holding out on you.
SPEAKER_01: God's character is not good.
SPEAKER_01: He does not love you as much as he said he did.
SPEAKER_01: But how did he do that?
SPEAKER_01: He did that by attacking the words of God.
SPEAKER_01: He took the rule and tried to turn it into some kind of rule or club that God was preventing them.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible says, don't do this, Satan wants us to believe that God is holding out on us and there's something good we need and want that God didn't want us to have.
SPEAKER_01: That's the lie in the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: No, that is never what God's word is.
SPEAKER_01: When God makes a promise to us, like he did to Adam and Eve in the garden, he said, Look, all of these trees, the abundance that's available here, all of this is yours, and I've created all of this for you.
SPEAKER_01: We begin from the perception and the perspective that God's word is a reflection of his goodness.
SPEAKER_01: And what he calls us to, he has blessings and abundance for us.
SPEAKER_01: And what he tells us not to do, we believe, protects us from what Satan and sin would harm us.
SPEAKER_01: That God's word is rich in relationship, that it is the promise from his heart to ours.
SPEAKER_01: And that he wants us to trust him and walk with him because he's given us everything we need for life in that process.
SPEAKER_01: God's gift to us is what God's word does in our lives and our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's that new view.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to begin to look.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of amazing.
SPEAKER_01: When I go to somebody and I start asking them, hey, God laid you on my heart, teach Sunday school.
SPEAKER_01: What's the first answer that you get?
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've been asking people to teach Sunday school since I was like a layman in the church, whatever, trying to help people teach, help me teach Sunday school when I was teaching Sunday school.
SPEAKER_01: And 80% of the people that I've talked to, they all say, I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Why would we say that?
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's a false impression of scripture that we look at.
SPEAKER_01: It's some big, deep, complicated, hard to read, I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01: There's all this stuff in it, and I'm going to mess it up and all that kind of.
SPEAKER_01: That's the only reason that you would answer that way.
SPEAKER_01: Because you've not begun with the perspective of, man, these are just promises to share with people because God is good.
SPEAKER_01: Even if I've never taught before, if that's my perspective, I want to learn how to teach so other people get what I got.
SPEAKER_01: And other people hear and see.
SPEAKER_01: When I talk to people having a quiet time, I hear this all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Pastor, I just don't know how to read my Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I just know how to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, because you started with the fundamental presupposition that somehow God is holding out on you and wrote it so complicated that you can't understand it.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I'm standing here preaching a sermon this morning, and I'm the most untrained person to be a pastor in the entire Southern Baptist Convention.
SPEAKER_01: I am here as God's sort of laughing excuse that you've got no excuse.
SPEAKER_01: If he can use me to do this, you can do anything he asks you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he has given you all you need to teach people and to share Jesus when he gave you this promise.
SPEAKER_01: It all begins with that first perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's take a minute and just think about what that gift does in our life?
SPEAKER_01: Truth number two is this Scripture now comes into our lives for a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: It is integral to our spiritual transformation.
SPEAKER_01: God has given us his word to change us, it is a cat.
SPEAKER_01: Catalyst that grows us.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is what it does in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture says about itself, it is living and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: It divides apart the soul and the spirit, the bones and the marrow.
SPEAKER_01: It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: God can literally, through a Bible verse, penetrate into what we're thinking, what we're feeling, and speak directly to us the message that He wants us to get.
SPEAKER_01: Here is the promise that you need in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I've given you this promise.
SPEAKER_01: Stand on this promise.
SPEAKER_01: And then we step out in faith and we stand on that promise.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's the catalyst of how the transformation process works.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, we have everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_01: He is teaching us about who he is and who Jesus is and what he's done in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's how he draws us into this process.
SPEAKER_01: Look how he ends this again in verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: For if these qualities are yours and keep increasing, the transformation process of growing to be like Jesus, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The whole Christian life is a process of God comes into my life through faith, Bible study, and choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, Bible study, and choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: You will hear me say that until the day Jesus comes back, or I die on I-40 driving home to go visit my mom in all that chaos and traffic, right?
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: What happens is we come to the Lord, we're praying, we're listening, we're investing in his word.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks to us through his word, he calls us to a choice of faith.
SPEAKER_01: We step out in faith, we see that he's faithful to his promise.
SPEAKER_01: He teaches us about who he is.
SPEAKER_01: We get up the next morning, we do the same thing again.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Christian life is.
SPEAKER_01: Look at how he describes it here.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people misunderstand some of this.
SPEAKER_01: You start with faith, you add goodness, then goodness, you add knowledge, then knowledge, you add self-control.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a sequential, orderly kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: This is a literary device.
SPEAKER_01: You get a key to it when he says right here, make every effort.
SPEAKER_01: Make every effort.
SPEAKER_01: This is an effort on our part.
SPEAKER_01: We are stepping out in faith.
SPEAKER_01: James in chapter one, where we started, said, be doers of the word and not hearers only.
SPEAKER_01: God's word and promises should activate us to act and step out on those promises.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, you take that faith that you've given, that you invested when you trusted Jesus as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And now what I want you to do is add to that.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to make the effort to step out and learn by standing on those promises and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_01: So now he gives this list that is designed to teach us that we've never graduated.
SPEAKER_01: We're always working.
SPEAKER_01: We're always being transformed.
SPEAKER_01: Because we now view Scripture as the promise of God.
SPEAKER_01: What that should tell us is God is always working in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, add this to this.
SPEAKER_01: And when you got that, add this.
SPEAKER_01: When you get this, add this.
SPEAKER_01: When you get this, add this, when you get this, add this.
SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Don't stop.
SPEAKER_01: Step out.
SPEAKER_01: Grab a verse.
SPEAKER_01: Step out in faith.
SPEAKER_01: Learn what it teaches you about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Learn what it teaches you about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Learn what it teaches you about the promises of God activate in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And when you've got that one, then get the next one and go to the next one.
SPEAKER_01: It is a process that goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: There is never a day in your life as a believer that you should not be invested in what's the next promise and what's the topic that God is working on in my life and how is he shaping me?
SPEAKER_01: And what am I learning about him?
SPEAKER_01: And what am I learning about myself?
SPEAKER_01: And what am I learning about the promises of God?
SPEAKER_01: And then praise the Lord, we got that lesson, and then we go to the next one.
SPEAKER_01: Because our life is built on prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Those things are always connected.
SPEAKER_01: They never are unconnected.
SPEAKER_01: They are always working together in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Just take one example right here from Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness.
SPEAKER_01: See, here's, think about this.
SPEAKER_01: By his goodness and glory, he created salvation.
SPEAKER_01: By his goodness and glory, when we come to know Jesus as our Savior, he saves us and begins the transformation process.
SPEAKER_01: When we go, what now?
SPEAKER_01: I got saved, what now?
SPEAKER_01: By the same goodness, he gives us promises in our lives that grow us in that transformation process and draw us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so if God is good, if he loves us from his goodness, if he has saved us through his goodness, if he has given us scripture through his goodness, and now we're adding to an understanding of scripture in our lives, why wouldn't goodness that reflects the person of God be part of what we're asking, we're we're learning in our lives?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in the book of Galatians, passage this famous for if you've been in church for a long time, we call it sometimes the fruits of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if you are walking by the Spirit and you're surrendered in the Spirit, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you surrender yourself to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's working in your life, and he starts to bear fruit love, joy.
SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
SPEAKER_01: About four or five in, we hit what?
SPEAKER_01: Goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If our God is good and our salvation comes from his goodness, and he's given us his word as our goodness, and we start to step out and we are being transformed, we are going to be transformed into the image of the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: That means when the Bible calls us to holiness through Scripture or godliness or self-control.
SPEAKER_01: When he calls us to those things, when he's working on that in your life, it's not God being mean or ugly or trying to keep you from something else you want to do or any of that other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It is his promise to transform us into his goodness.
SPEAKER_01: God is good.
SPEAKER_01: He is holy, and he calls us to holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Again, look what he says here.
SPEAKER_01: The person who lacks these things in verse 9 is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
SPEAKER_01: It is when God transforms us and he calls us to holiness that he's taking us from who I was before I got saved to who I am now.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he also says.
SPEAKER_01: We're adding to that brotherly affection.
SPEAKER_01: And brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_01: God is good.
SPEAKER_01: And we should be good the way God is good.
SPEAKER_01: I used to tell folks in Cabinet all the time, man, you gave up your right to be a jerk when you got saved.
SPEAKER_01: We must reflect the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: That'll be a whole sermon in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: You see the transformation process, finally, truth three.
SPEAKER_01: Then how do I do that, Pastor?
SPEAKER_01: One of the issues that we have in church life is that pastors, we have not spent enough time equipping people to just the technical use of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible says, for this very reason, invest your life in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: For this very reason, because it comes as a gift from the goodness of God, because it is the process of how we're transformed in the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: For this reason, invest your life in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Make every effort to supplement to your faith in Jesus, a walk by faith that engages this transformation process.
SPEAKER_01: It is the basic building block of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: It is the passion that my wife and I both in all of our various ministries and all the things that we do.
SPEAKER_01: It always comes back to one of the fundamental principles of challenging, encouraging, and equipping people to have a quiet time with the Lord, a time where they get alone and they're invested in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about that in a little more practical detail next week.
SPEAKER_01: But let me just give you three principles to kind of give you a takeaway from this.
SPEAKER_01: First is consistency.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you do it, but you just got to be in it.
SPEAKER_01: You just got to get with it and you got to stick with it.
SPEAKER_01: There's a whole lot of spiritual stuff that gets resolved if you just commit to be in the Word every day.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about what you don't understand.
SPEAKER_01: If you keep plowing, you're going to understand more than you ever imagined.
SPEAKER_01: There is so much about inertia that is involved in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus used examples from the physical world all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Inertia is one of those.
SPEAKER_01: Objects at rest tend to stay at rest, and objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're in motion with Scripture, your consistency is going to carry you through.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not, it takes a lot to get started and to get in it.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to encourage you, if you're not meeting with the Lord every day, you just get your Bible out and read something.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care where you read, I don't care what you read, it's not that big a deal.
SPEAKER_01: The most spiritual foundational truth you need to understand from that is you just need to read it every day, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: God can't steer a ship until it's moving.
SPEAKER_01: You may be moving in the wrong direction, but once you're moving, he can take the rudder of your life and take you exactly where he wants you to go.
SPEAKER_01: So just get busy with it.
SPEAKER_01: Just get in it every day.
SPEAKER_01: Next.
SPEAKER_01: A plan.
SPEAKER_01: It helps to have a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the great thing about being involved in the church family.
SPEAKER_01: Plans are easy.
SPEAKER_01: Take the scripture that we did in the sermon and just reread it every day and just spend a little time with it that week.
SPEAKER_01: We have great, hear me, great Sunday school teachers in our church.
SPEAKER_01: I walked around this morning, interrupted about four Bible lessons, and it was awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all almost didn't get me back to the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to just stay.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was great.
SPEAKER_01: They're teaching the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do the same thing with your Sunday school class.
SPEAKER_01: Take the lesson that you had on Sunday and reread that every day.
SPEAKER_01: It's great to have a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Just for a second, sort of work with me.
SPEAKER_01: Our daily bread is not a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing wrong with it.
SPEAKER_01: It's fine, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to be reading Scripture, not what somebody else thinks about Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: It helps for a plan, and I love devotional guides.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'm trying to write one, and I can't ever get enough time to get it finished.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal: those are tools to get you in the word.
SPEAKER_01: It's a plan to be in the word, it's not the plan itself.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're using them, great, use it.
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Understand what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: But what I'm saying is, when it gives you that Bible verse, you put aside what that is saying about it, and you figure out what God wants to say to you through his word about it.
SPEAKER_01: And spend a little time, take some of those things and just work through them.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, here's a little thing.
SPEAKER_01: I'll teach you a little bit more next week.
SPEAKER_01: Brew.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I use.
SPEAKER_01: Brew.
SPEAKER_01: I like that word because people who love Jesus drink coffee.
SPEAKER_01: Baptists drink coffee.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're someone who doesn't know Jesus, in a moment I'm going to give an invitation, and you can come and give your life to Christ, and then I'll take you out for your first cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_01: I like it because that's what I do in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: I have what I call coffee with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I just go have coffee with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times this is what I do, which is where that stirred for me.
SPEAKER_01: Brew made sense to me, it helps it work.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: You believe that God has something to say to you.
SPEAKER_01: You always come to God's word first by saying a prayer, saying, Lord, I know that you have given me very great and precious promises and you have something to tell me.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you begin your quiet time.
SPEAKER_01: And if you skip that step, you may miss something.
SPEAKER_01: Believe.
SPEAKER_01: Stop and state that belief.
SPEAKER_01: God, I believe that you have something to say.
SPEAKER_01: And then when you get that verse, like if you want to take verses three and four and brew those this week, if you don't have a plan for a quiet time, that's what I'm going to ask you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Just brew those this week.
SPEAKER_01: My little midweek devotion on Facebook, I'm going to do some more about brew, but here's what you do.
SPEAKER_01: Just say, Lord, I believe you got something to teach for me there, and then you read and repeat it over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Read and repeat, read and repeat, read and repeat.
SPEAKER_01: Those same three verses over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: God's word was meant to soak in, not speed through.
SPEAKER_01: These are great and precious promises for you to own in your life.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a novel to read that way.
SPEAKER_01: And so you read and repeat that same verse over and over and over and over and over, and then you slow down and you read every word.
SPEAKER_01: You make sure that every word you stop and pay attention to.
SPEAKER_01: And then if God, the holy God of the universe, is saved us by his glory and his goodness, given us precious promises to draw on his relationship by his glory and goodness, and he shows up in the morning and has coffee with you, then what he tells you is eternally important, and you need to write it down.
SPEAKER_01: Write it down.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care if it's a post-it note, carry it on your car, have a journal.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: It's not homework.
SPEAKER_01: It's God speaking to you, and so write down what he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you real quickly how it works.
SPEAKER_01: Four words that are key in verse four.
SPEAKER_01: Four words.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what they are promises.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about that.
SPEAKER_01: Spend a little time thinking about the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: Take two days and make a list of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: Attach some Bible verses to them that you know.
SPEAKER_01: Spend a little time with that word promise, and it'll change your view of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Bhad Easy has given us very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: So that through them you may share in this divine nature.
SPEAKER_01: Promises.
SPEAKER_01: Spend a little time with that word.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible word.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, think about the word great.
SPEAKER_01: If you read this, Bhadis has given us very great and precious promises, so through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the crunch of the world because of the desire.
SPEAKER_01: You can just blow past things and miss it.
SPEAKER_01: Every word, great.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what it says in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: His divine power has given us everything required.
SPEAKER_01: Through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory, we sang tonight before I came up to preach that God is a mighty warrior and he is the glorious one.
SPEAKER_01: And he's conquered death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And he carries us through every circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: And he has made a place for us in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And anyone put in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: Satan can never take us out of his hand.
SPEAKER_01: He can never steal what the Holy Spirit has sealed in us.
SPEAKER_01: If you are saved, you are saved forever, and you have a place in heaven, and no one can take you out of God's hand.
SPEAKER_01: A great promise of God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now that word begins to make a little sense when you start to put some off to it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Read that scripture again now, see what it says.
SPEAKER_01: By these, his glory and his goodness, he has given us very great promises.
SPEAKER_01: Invest a little time doing what I just did.
SPEAKER_01: I took 45 seconds.
SPEAKER_01: What does great mean?
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden that promise begins to look even stronger.
SPEAKER_01: A promise.
SPEAKER_01: Great, precious.
SPEAKER_01: Precious.
SPEAKER_01: What does God's word mean to you?
SPEAKER_01: You just take a morning this week and you just think through and pray through how precious God's word is to you.
SPEAKER_01: What it means in your life, what it's taught you.
SPEAKER_01: Think about who taught it to you, and God put them in your life to teach you that.
SPEAKER_01: You think about precious.
SPEAKER_01: And in the word, maybe my favorite one.
SPEAKER_01: Very.
SPEAKER_01: Man, how can you not get excited about the greatness of God and the power in his word when it is very great?
SPEAKER_01: Now you read it after just those four words.
SPEAKER_01: By these is glory and goodness.
SPEAKER_01: God has given us very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: Man, it looks different, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It comes alive, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: As we close, I'm going to ask you a question.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever trusted the promise of God to be your Savior?
SPEAKER_01: See, in his promises, he comes to us and explains us.
SPEAKER_01: In his holiness, his goodness, he says, your sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says that Jesus stepped out of heaven and died on the cross to take the price of our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He took God's full wrath and punishment on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it says the knowledge of Jesus Christ, because he's the one that died for us and he's the one that rose again.
SPEAKER_01: And the very great and precious promise is that if you will trust Christ as your Savior, he will save you.
SPEAKER_01: The journey begins there.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, the moment I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are going to stand and sing.
SPEAKER_01: Our ministers will be at the head of the aisle.
SPEAKER_01: If you're watching online or by television, man, Jesus wants to save you.
SPEAKER_01: And he promised in his word.
SPEAKER_01: Trust him as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads as we pray.
SPEAKER_01: My prayer for us as a church is that God stirs a view of Scripture from Scripture that stirs you to invest your, stirs a desire in you to invest your life in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: If that's happened to you this morning, praise the Lord, He has answered that prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And He wants to share with you in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Man, if you're already safe, praise God.
SPEAKER_01: If you need a church home that will encourage you, come join.
SPEAKER_01: Come be a part of our church family.
SPEAKER_01: With an incredible 150-plus year heritage standing on the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: If you want some one of us to pray with you, you come, we'll pray.
SPEAKER_01: If right there where you are, man, you just need to make a renewed commitment to your quiet time in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Do that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you for those very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray this morning if there's someone who needs to be saved, they'll come and they'll give their life to you.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I pray this morning that you will do a work in our life as a church.
SPEAKER_01: We're a people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: Make us individual people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: Give us the freedom to respond to you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It is in Jesus' name that we pray, and all God's people send.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.