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, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are probably thinking one of two things.
SPEAKER_01: Either, oh, Pastor Dave is going to deliver the message today, or perhaps you're thinking, Pastor Greg looks a little different this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Greg and I have had many people comment on the fact that we're both graced with wonderful gray hair, dark rimmed glasses, have a proclivity for wearing sport jackets on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: You can tell Pastor Greg that he looked a little better than usual this past Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: The next time that you see him, that will not offend me one bit at all.
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, it is wonderful to be with you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm Pastor Dave Skaroop.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the pastor to the 60 Plus.
SPEAKER_01: How many of my 60 plus are out there this morning?
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you didn't lift your hands.
SPEAKER_01: I saw you.
SPEAKER_01: We will talk.
SPEAKER_01: We have an amazing group of 60 plus here at Fort Smith First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: It has been a blessing to me to work with this group.
SPEAKER_01: I get plenty of opportunities to teach with and preach with them on Thursdays.
SPEAKER_01: This is a plug for the 60 Plus Lunch, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Thursdays at 11:30.
SPEAKER_01: We would love to have you come and join us.
SPEAKER_01: Even if you just turned 60, there's a seat for you at the 60 plus lunch.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, we're going to be focused, most of our reading is focused right there in the Gospels this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And this morning, I'm taking us in a slightly different direction.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Greg started a series on thankfulness, and he was in Daniel chapter 6 last week.
SPEAKER_01: We heard a wonderful sermon from that passage.
SPEAKER_01: Today, there is an element of thankfulness in what I'm preaching to you, but there's also a sense of finding those opportunities to present the gospel and not being scared if the circumstances aren't exactly perfect.
SPEAKER_01: The title of this morning's message is Jesus' Sacrifice Breaking Into Three Lives.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' Sacrifice Breaking Into Three Lives.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to focus on three different passages from the Gospels.
SPEAKER_01: You know, as a teacher, I teach at Bible colleges as an adjunct professor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a minister.
SPEAKER_01: I've been a pastor now for many years.
SPEAKER_01: I've had the opportunity, the blessing really, to share the good news with lots of different people at lots of different places in their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I run into people who say, Well, you know, I want to hear about Jesus, but the timing just isn't right.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe they say, well, right now in my life, I've just got too many distractions to hear about salvation and Jesus and the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Others will say, you know, when I'm ready, that's when I'll listen to what it is that the Bible has to say about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And on the other hand, sometimes I talk to people who I know I'm very confident that they're saved.
SPEAKER_01: I'm part of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: They're part of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll talk to them and they'll say, well, you know, I want to share the gospel with this person, but I'm waiting for the right time.
SPEAKER_01: And I just don't want to mess things up.
SPEAKER_01: I want to wait until things are exactly perfect.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want their experience of hearing about Jesus to be messed up by my poor presentation.
SPEAKER_01: I just don't want to make a mess of everything.
SPEAKER_01: Now, don't make a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: There are clearly better and worse times for bringing up the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Clearly there are.
SPEAKER_01: But it's been my experience that a lot of times people are less focused on finding the perfect time and they're more focused on, well, what excuse can I use not to share the gospel right now?
SPEAKER_01: And what we forget is that the strength of the gospel is not in our timing.
SPEAKER_01: The strength of the gospel is not in how perfect our presentation is.
SPEAKER_01: The strength of the gospel is not making sure that everything lines up exactly the way that we want to.
SPEAKER_01: The strength of the gospel, ladies and gentlemen, is the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The strength of the gospel is what Jesus did for us that dark day on Calvary some 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: And so today we're going to look in the scriptures at three people that encountered Jesus at a time that we would call the worst possible timing.
SPEAKER_01: Three people who encountered Jesus under the worst of all conditions.
SPEAKER_01: And in our reading, hopefully this will encourage us to be more confident that when we're sharing the gospel, it's less about us and our timing and our presentation, and it's more about the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: Before we begin our time in God's Word, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for every man, woman, and child who is here within the range of my voice.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I thank you for those who will be watching this either online or through television.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I just pray right now that what I have to say, people would not be focused upon me, but they'd be focused upon what it is that your word has to say.
SPEAKER_01: That they be focused upon listening to you and what it is that you are saying in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I pray that as we gather here today, that we would all be in prayer, in prayer, that perhaps today we'll hear something that reminds us of something that we've forgotten.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps we'll be introduced to something that is new to our way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, in whatever it is that we hear, that we would use that, that you would cause us to internalize that, that you would use that in a way that promotes your kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we just pray all of this and every good thing in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The first of the three people we're going to look at this morning is the man Simon of Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: Now, those of you that remember the Gospels, you remember that Simon is the man who was pressed into service to carry the cross of Jesus when Jesus, exhausted, was no longer able to carry the cross himself.
SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look directly at the scriptures where we see mentions of Simon and Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: He is mentioned in both Luke and in Mark.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at Luke chapter 23 and verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just read it off the screen here.
SPEAKER_01: As they led him away, they seized Simon, a Sirenian, who was coming in from the country and laid the cross on him to carry behind Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Stop here for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to notice a couple of things.
SPEAKER_01: First, we see this man Simon.
SPEAKER_01: He's identified as a Cyrenian who was coming in from the country.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' crucifixion took place during the Jewish festival of Passover.
SPEAKER_01: During that festival, the population of people gathered in the city of Jerusalem multiplied so greatly that some historians say that there were well over a million people who could have been gathered there in the city of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Simon is from a place called Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: He is a Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: History tells us that during the days of Jesus, the area of Cyrene had a tremendously large Jewish population.
SPEAKER_01: It was so large, in fact, that the Cyrenians had pulled together their resources, the Jews from Cyrene, they pulled together their money and they actually arranged to have a synagogue for their own people group right there in the city of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see this man Simon.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming in from the country.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know if he was there on business.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know if he was there because he was a believer in the Jewish religion.
SPEAKER_01: That tends to be the more logical approach, is to think that he is there observing the Passover with the other Jews from Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: He is there, he thinks that he's doing his obligation that God has called him to do, to go to Jerusalem during the time of the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens?
SPEAKER_01: He gets seized and dragged into the larger work of God that's happening through the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There's another passage, we've read the passage from Luke.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and look at the passage from Mark chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: They forced a man coming in from the country who was passing by to carry Jesus' cross.
SPEAKER_01: He was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.
SPEAKER_01: Stop here for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Now our previous passage in Luke made no mention of the fact that he had these two children.
SPEAKER_01: Mark's gospel was written, we believe, with heavy input from the apostle Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Sometime after Jesus had ascended into heaven, Peter and Mark together put together the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_01: Peter, we understand, was in Rome during the later parts of his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, Christian tradition tells us that Peter was crucified on an upside-down cross there in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And here we have in Mark's Gospel a mention of two sons of Simon of Cyrene, Alexander and Rufus.
SPEAKER_01: Well, why do you think Mark put those names in there?
SPEAKER_01: Does that really add anything to our understanding of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
SPEAKER_01: Mark put those names in there because at the time of writing his gospel, Alexander and Rufus were still alive.
SPEAKER_01: And they could give testimony to what it was that Mark was writing there.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we see here is that the sons of Simon of Cyrene, Alexander and Rufus, they were believers.
SPEAKER_01: And for the life of me, I can't think of any other way that they became believers, other than their father, Simon, had also become a believer.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, when we jump forward in the Bible and we look at the book of Romans, when Paul is writing there to the Church of Rome, there in chapter 16, Paul says, Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, and mine.
SPEAKER_01: Even the Apostle Paul was familiar with this family, this family that had been dragged in to the story of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Now stop here for a moment with me and just consider.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that you are on the road that day as Jesus is carrying his cross.
SPEAKER_01: People are yelling, shouting insults.
SPEAKER_01: Others are sad.
SPEAKER_01: They are moaning because they see Jesus carrying this cruel cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has been beaten so badly.
SPEAKER_01: He's had fists taken to his face.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that they had even plucked out parts of his beard.
SPEAKER_01: As he is carrying that cross, Jesus' physical strength comes to an end, and he falls.
SPEAKER_01: And the Romans grab this man, Simon of Cyrene, seized him, as we saw in one of the gospel accounts, and they force him to carry the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine you're Simon of Cyrene.
SPEAKER_01: You look behind you, and there is that beaten shell of a man, Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: You are being forced to carry his cross.
SPEAKER_01: As you go through the streets, people are hurling their insults at you because they think that perhaps you are the man Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You are suffering shame that is meant for the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Simon of Cyrene came in contact with the story of the gospel at a time where it didn't make any sense to put your trust and faith in the man who was behind you.
SPEAKER_01: That man that was behind you was so weak, he was unable to even carry the beams of wood to the place of his execution.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, when we look at the scriptural record, what we see is an indication that Simon of Cyrene did come to faith in Jesus Christ at some point.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when Jesus was at his worst, he still had the power to bring people like Simon and his family into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the same Jesus that was, it is the same man Jesus, but it's not the same image of the man Jesus who was performing miracles.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the same image of the man Jesus who healed the lame, who fed the multitudes with fishes and loaves.
SPEAKER_01: This is the man Jesus who's been beaten within an inch of his life, who can no longer carry the cross, but even at that moment, the power was still there to save.
SPEAKER_01: The power was still there to call people to himself.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we look at Simon of Cyrene, Simon was a man, he was there in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: He was prepared to do business with God for the Passover feast, but he wasn't prepared to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He was prepared to go about his way, going to the synagogue, but he wasn't prepared to have salvation be breaking into his life.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we know, we see that this man was part of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's move on to our second group of people.
SPEAKER_01: The thieves on their crosses, the two thieves.
SPEAKER_01: We're in Luke chapter 23.
SPEAKER_01: We'll begin reading there in verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: Two others criminals were also led away to be executed with him.
SPEAKER_01: When they arrived at the place called the Skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.
SPEAKER_01: Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at him.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you the Messiah?
SPEAKER_01: Save yourself and us.
SPEAKER_01: But the other answered, rebuking him, Don't you even fear God, since you are undergoing the same punishment.
SPEAKER_01: We are punished justly because we're getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to him, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
SPEAKER_01: Stop here.
SPEAKER_01: We're familiar with this account.
SPEAKER_01: The two thieves that were crucified on each side of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: These men are seeing Jesus in even worse circumstances that Simon of Cyrene saw Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: These men represent in many ways the entire world because we either choose to receive Jesus or we choose to reject Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Some people say, well, there's a place in between.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're trying to look for that place in between, you probably have more in common with the thief that is rejecting Jesus than you do the thief who's accepting and receiving Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you that one to think on over lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Two thieves are crucified, one on each side of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So let's focus a little bit on the perspective of what we call the good thief or the confessing thief.
SPEAKER_01: He is himself on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: He is himself in a place of great torment and great suffering.
SPEAKER_01: And he looks over and he sees Jesus on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is nailed to a tree.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has a crown of thorns that has been thrust upon his head.
SPEAKER_01: The opened wounds of his scourging are there.
SPEAKER_01: He has those spikes thrust through his wrists and his feet.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is slowly suffocating because to be crucified is a death that occurs primarily through a manner of suffocation.
SPEAKER_01: And he looks at Jesus in that situation.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, even though Jesus is moments away from death, he still has the power to save.
SPEAKER_01: He still has the power to save.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing that that thief sees in the image of Jesus on the cross that draws him to the conclusion that he can confidently put his trust in the man that is dying next to him.
SPEAKER_01: No, sometimes trusting in Jesus means going against what other people would consider common sense.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, that other thief that is on the cross shouts out, save yourself, Jesus, and while you're at it, save us too.
SPEAKER_01: So there in the midst of an interrupting man shouting insults, a crowd that is gathered, a crowd that is as large or perhaps even larger than this crowd that we have here today in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like it is in the movies where there's only about 20 or 25 people.
SPEAKER_01: This was a giant affair of the people over the Passover festival.
SPEAKER_01: They came to see the man Jesus be crucified.
SPEAKER_01: And many of them are hurling insults at him.
SPEAKER_01: And if they're not hurling insults, then they are weeping and they are sobbing over the terrible spectacle that they are seeing.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, even in the midst of all of that, Jesus had the power to save.
SPEAKER_01: That man confessed that he had done wrong.
SPEAKER_01: He said that I am deserving of the fate that has befallen me.
SPEAKER_01: But this man, Jesus, he says, has done nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't help but think that because of the way Jesus answers him, that when he said, This man has done nothing wrong, he was talking beyond just the scope of the crimes for which they were being crucified.
SPEAKER_01: He understood something about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He understood that Jesus was a man who had done nothing wrong, period.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see that he goes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So this confessing thief encounters Jesus at a moment of great ugliness, a moment of great suffering, and yet his encounter did not keep him from the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: I want to chase on this for a few moments, just bear with me.
SPEAKER_01: A thought came to mind as I was reading this passage over the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: As Jesus was dying on the cross, dying for your sin and your sin and your sin and my sin.
SPEAKER_01: He had that picture of the good thief.
SPEAKER_01: He could look over as he was suffering and dying.
SPEAKER_01: He could look at that good thief and he could say, There is one who is suffering for the sins that they have committed, and there is one who I am dying for.
SPEAKER_01: Has right next to him a picture of the humanity for whom he is laying down his life.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise, think of the faith of that good thief.
SPEAKER_01: What tremendous faith.
SPEAKER_01: He is watching Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He is hearing everything that the crowd has to say about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he had been present there as Pilate had questioned Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he overheard some of that conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he overheard when Pilate shouted to the crowd, I can find nothing wrong with the man, he is innocent.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he was there when Jesus was led out into that courtyard and the murderer Barabbas was placed next to him, and the crowd was told, You make your choice.
SPEAKER_01: Shall I free the man Jesus, or shall I free the man, the murderer Barabbas?
SPEAKER_01: And he heard that crowd shouting to free Barabbas and to crucify Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, despite all of that, God gave him the faith to look past what seemed to be obvious and to see deeper and to see that he himself, the good thief himself, was a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: He was a sinner who needed to have his sins atoned for.
SPEAKER_01: He needed to have a proper relationship with God that was beyond his ability to achieve.
SPEAKER_01: And so he decided: I see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I understand he's a man who's done no wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I've received the faith I need to trust him as Savior and Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's great faith, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_01: Outstanding faith.
SPEAKER_01: Many times when we're living this life, people will look at us as we exercise our faith in Jesus and they'll think, what is wrong with that person?
SPEAKER_01: Why are they believing in Jesus when anyone else would say that all hope is lost?
SPEAKER_01: We trust in Jesus because Jesus, even on his worst day, was able to save and bring people into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: We trust Jesus because Jesus' worst day is better than our best day.
SPEAKER_01: We trust in Jesus because we know he allowed himself to suffer all those indignities and all of that pain because he loves us and he cares for us and he doesn't want to leave us in the mess that we have made of our lives, and he wants to bring us into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the best way to show us that he was serious about that was to lay down his life in atoning payment for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Let's move on to the third group.
SPEAKER_01: The centurion and some Roman soldiers.
SPEAKER_01: This is the centurion and the Roman soldiers that were present at that same scene, Jesus' execution, his crucifixion, that day on Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just go ahead and read one of the passages.
SPEAKER_01: We have three passages we're going to take a look at here.
SPEAKER_01: The first is in Luke.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Saying this, he breathed his last.
SPEAKER_01: When the centurions saw what had happened, he began to glorify God, saying, This man really was righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Stop there for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: So here we have Jesus at the moment of his death.
SPEAKER_01: At the moment of his death, we're told that he breathed his last.
SPEAKER_01: That's the biblical terminology for the fact that he dies.
SPEAKER_01: And we have this centurion.
SPEAKER_01: A Roman centurion was called a centurion because they were in charge of 100 Roman soldiers.
SPEAKER_01: 100 century, 100 centurion.
SPEAKER_01: And so this Roman centurion was most likely the highest ranking Roman soldier there that day on Calvary as Jesus was dying.
SPEAKER_01: He has seen what's been going on with Jesus, probably from the time that Jesus was brought to Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_01: And he sees Jesus breathe his last.
SPEAKER_01: And his declaration is this man really was righteous.
SPEAKER_01: But he makes declarations beyond that that we read about in Mark and in Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Let's bring up Mark chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last.
SPEAKER_01: Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
SPEAKER_01: When the centurion, who was standing opposite him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Stop here.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when we see that first passage in Luke, we see the process that's happening.
SPEAKER_01: First, the centurion has to come to the conclusion that the man who has died in front of him was righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And as he's continues to think more and he sees what's going on around him, he declares, this man was more than just righteous, this man was the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, let's take a look at Matthew chapter 27 and see what we have there.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
SPEAKER_01: The earthquaked, the rocks were split, the tombs were also opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
SPEAKER_01: Then they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.
SPEAKER_01: When the centurion and those with him who were keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, Truly this man was the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Stop here for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Simon of Cyrene, the first man that we looked at, he had seen Jesus in his beaten and weakened state.
SPEAKER_01: The second person that we looked at, the good thief on the cross, he had seen Jesus in pain and in agony dying.
SPEAKER_01: The centurion actually sees Jesus at the moment of his death.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of these three people are seeing Jesus in what we would consider a progressively worsened state than the one before.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see that even as Jesus is dead, even as he hangs upon that cross, and his lifeless body has no breath in it, that as God begins to begins the work of displaying earthquakes and splitting of rocks and the other things that occur during the story of Jesus' crucifixion, we see that the work of Jesus has the power to save, even under the circumstances where the man is seeing nothing but a dead body upon a tree.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_01: And we see that this centurion, he declares that Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: We see that he's even terrified when he realizes that the Son of God is the one who has died upon that tree.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we thank God that that's not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: We thank God that Jesus' body was taken down off of that tree.
SPEAKER_01: It was placed into a borrowed tomb, and three days later, through the power of God, Jesus was raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And that proved to all, that proved to everyone, that everything Jesus had said, everything that Jesus had done, was seen by God Almighty as being good and true.
SPEAKER_01: And for the last 2,000 years since then, people have faced the same questions that Simon of Cyrene, those two thieves on the cross, and those Roman soldiers had faced.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, what do we do about this suffering of this man, Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Do we put our faith in him?
SPEAKER_01: Do we put our trust in him?
SPEAKER_01: Or do we declare that that was nothing more than the execution of yet another human being lost to the pages of much history?
SPEAKER_01: And when we realize the situations, when we realize the circumstances under which each of these men were exposed to Jesus, suddenly we realize, you know, there's not much that I can do or say in sharing the gospel with someone that is going to turn them off from the message of salvation more than what those men saw with their eyes that day as Jesus was being led to be crucified.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're heading into Thanksgiving and Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: You know that already.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know why I said it that way.
SPEAKER_01: We're heading into Christmas and Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving, and you know, the thing that I was always told as a young boy was the things that we don't talk about around the Thanksgiving table are politics and religion.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you were alive, you woke up to it then.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what we've been told since we were yay.
SPEAKER_01: Don't talk about politics, don't talk about religion.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the proper time, it's not the proper place.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not telling you all to interrupt your Thanksgiving meals and say, Pastor David over at church told us to talk about the gospel in the middle of everything.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, if the Holy Spirit prompts you to do that, you just go right ahead.
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, ladies and gentlemen, the gospel is not accepted or rejected based upon your ability to pick the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is not accepted or rejected based upon the circumstances in which it is shared.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is not accepted or rejected based upon how eloquent you are or how filled with pauses you are when you are sharing the gospel with someone who needs to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel has power not because of your presentation.
SPEAKER_01: Your gospel has power because it is about the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Your presentation of the gospel has power because you're sharing the only way that a person can be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Your gospel presentation has power because you're delivering it in a spirit of truth and you're sharing the truth about the man who is the only way.
SPEAKER_01: He is the way, he is the truth, he is the life, he is Jesus Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if you think that a time isn't right to share the gospel, you should hopefully, after hearing this message this morning, you should take a moment to at least reconsider.
SPEAKER_01: You should think, well, is that me talking or is that God talking?
SPEAKER_01: And if now, when they're passing out the yams and all the other things, does anyone eat yams anymore?
SPEAKER_01: Anyone eat yams?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, in Arkansas you eat yams.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if they're passing the yams or the cranberry sauce or something, and you think, well, now isn't the time to talk about the gospel, then you wait till they bring out something like the mincemeat pie that's a little less popular, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Or if now isn't the time to share the gospel when you're share when you have your friends and your relatives around the table, then you wait until that time after the meal when you're watching the football game and the scores already run up anyway, and no one's really watching it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Alright?
SPEAKER_01: How can we go to the Lord on a day called Thanksgiving and ignore the one thing in this universe that we should all be the most thankful for.
SPEAKER_01: The sacrifice, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you are a Christian family, and I pray that many of you are able to enjoy Thanksgiving in a Christian family setting, then don't take it for granted that everybody who's visiting you that you haven't seen in the last seven or eight years knows the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Find ways, find ways to let Jesus break into your lives, if not Thanksgiving Day, then at some point over the holidays.
SPEAKER_01: And as I said when I started this message this morning, I am aware that there are good times and bad times for sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: God has given us minds.
SPEAKER_01: He does indeed want us to use them and to observe things that are happening and to try to pick times that are good rather than times that are bad.
SPEAKER_01: But I would stress that it is important to pick a time.
SPEAKER_01: I would stress that it is important to make that decision today that during the holidays, you're not going to let the time of Thanksgiving and the time where we celebrate the birth of Jesus go by without sharing that same Jesus with someone who needs to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: Can I get an amen on that?
SPEAKER_01: We are believers in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We do not hide our belief in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We do not hide our mission to share Jesus Christ that we're called to in Matthew chapter 28.
SPEAKER_01: We don't hide behind that because the timing isn't just perfect or isn't just exactly right.
SPEAKER_01: You share Jesus, and if you make a mess of it, if you make a mess of it, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: The power of Jesus Christ is more than enough to make up for whatever it is that you did wrong.
SPEAKER_01: The power of Jesus Christ is enough to break into someone's life when they are least expecting it, like Simon of Cyrene, and pulling them into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: A Roman centurion, a man who commanded 100 Roman soldiers, had to be the roughest, toughest son of a gun, probably there at the scene of Jesus' crucifixion.
SPEAKER_01: He saw Jesus and his absolute weakest, lifeless, dead upon a tree.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the power of Jesus Christ and his work was enough to make him say, truly, this man was the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all stand.
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, the power of the gospel is in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Even when Jesus was weak and he fell to the ground and someone else had to carry that cross, the power of salvation was still in him.
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't in timing, wasn't in circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Even as he hung upon that cross and the crowd insulted him and the good thief turned and looked at him, the power of salvation was still there in Jesus, not in timing, not in circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: As Jesus' lifeless body was being soaked by the rains of the storm and it hung upon that tree, the power of salvation was in Jesus, not in timing, not in circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this morning you're here, and much of what I've said hasn't made a lot of sense to you, probably because you're not part of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Bible makes it very clear that when we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes and resides in us, and in many ways that's when we truly begin to understand the Word of God as it's preached.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe you're here today and you want to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: You want to be part of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: You understand that Jesus came and went through all of that suffering so that you, like that good thief, could be could be brought into God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you don't know everything there is to know about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what, ladies and gentlemen?
SPEAKER_01: No one in this building knows all there is to know about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But what you do know of Jesus, you understand that he died so that you could be forgiven of your sins and you could be brought into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And you want some of that.
SPEAKER_01: God's spirit is speaking to your spirit, and you understand that that's something that's missing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And you understand that you want that.
SPEAKER_01: You need that.
SPEAKER_01: You have to have that.
SPEAKER_01: Without that, you know that your life is hopeless.
SPEAKER_01: In a few moments, Brother Gary is going to come and lead us in what we call an invitation hymn in the old Baptist way of doing things.
SPEAKER_01: We call it an invitation hymn because you are being invited to make a profession of your faith by coming down one of these aisles and talking to someone.
SPEAKER_01: And all you have to say is, I need to know more about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The person that you're talking to will take it from there.
SPEAKER_01: Up there in the choir loft, I don't know if we have anybody up there today because I'm usually the person who's standing up there.
SPEAKER_01: So, who have we got?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we've got somebody in the choir.
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: Not choir, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Balcony.
SPEAKER_01: At one of my old churches, we had the choir up in the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: That's on me.
SPEAKER_01: Bobby, let's edit that out when we do the TV show there.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter where you are, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what your circumstances are, it doesn't matter what your timing is.
SPEAKER_01: If you want Jesus Christ, Jesus is ready for you to enter into his kingdom.
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's First Baptist Church.