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: Thank you, Wood Family.
SPEAKER_01: It's great to see our families lead us through those Advent times.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're following us on social media each day, you will also receive some follow-up readings.
SPEAKER_01: So I pray those are a blessing to you and you're following through those.
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm enjoying that each day, seeing those.
SPEAKER_01: Turn with me in your Bibles to First John chapter one as we continue our theme this month on the joy of Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank the choir again for singing for us.
SPEAKER_01: That is the way joy to the world ought to sound.
SPEAKER_01: I sing it just like that in my car every day on the way to work.
SPEAKER_01: So they did an incredible job, and we are blessed to have them with us today.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you again for that.
SPEAKER_01: As we think about the joy of Christmas, today I want to focus on what I think may be the number one incredible truth in all of the things that you can talk about in Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the joy of Christmas is Emmanuel or Jesus with us, God with us.
SPEAKER_01: As you'll remember, that is the message when the angel of the Lord showed up to Joseph to tell him, look, this is about to happen to you, son, so you better get ready, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so he tells him this incredible truth, the angel quoting a prophecy from Isaiah in Matthew chapter 1, where he says, and his name, when you name him, when you call him, and there he's talking about the character of who the child would be.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You will name him Emmanuel, which is being translated God with us.
SPEAKER_01: So if you think about what that means for us, it means that our Savior that was born was God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And it was God choosing as a matter of love to intervene into human history and become that salvation for us.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to remind you of that verse here in Matthew chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: I think you'll see it on the screen, where again he speaks to us and he says, uh his name, the character of who he is, will be God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Then I want to remind you the next verse in John chapter 1, not first John where we are, you stay there, but in John chapter 1, here's what one of my favorite scriptures of all.
SPEAKER_01: As the apostle John, who was a close friend of Jesus, began the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_01: We refer to the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_01: Those Gospels are the historical telling of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the purpose of accomplishing salvation.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 1, he begins and he tells us that Jesus was there from the beginning, that everything was created through him, that he is God, and then because of his love, the word, that's how John the apostle referred to Jesus, the word became flesh.
SPEAKER_01: He became human and he took residence among us.
SPEAKER_01: And we observed his glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Now I love that picture right there of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That he became flesh and lived among us.
SPEAKER_01: Lived among us.
SPEAKER_01: The original word there is the word that we would translate into English, tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: And some versions of Scripture will use that translation.
SPEAKER_01: He tabernacled among us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the idea of a tent.
SPEAKER_01: That's the idea of I set up living and residence there among you.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's our text for today, where we grab all of that together and we see that that's exactly what happened at Christmas, that Jesus who came was the Son of God who came to be our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: So here's how John writes in this later epistle letter that we call 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: Begins in verse 1, where he says, What was from the beginning?
SPEAKER_01: That's Jesus in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, John is giving testimony.
SPEAKER_01: I was there, I saw it happen.
SPEAKER_01: What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Jesus was there.
SPEAKER_01: They shook hands, they slapped each other on the back, they ate together as guys do.
SPEAKER_01: They punched each other in the shoulder and all those different things.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was here physically.
SPEAKER_01: When he said in John 1, he became flesh and made his residence among us.
SPEAKER_01: John is now further expounding on that and said, He really did become a man.
SPEAKER_01: We saw him.
SPEAKER_01: I heard him preach.
SPEAKER_01: I heard him talk to me.
SPEAKER_01: I saw him on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: When he was there and I saw the blood flow out of him.
SPEAKER_01: When we had dinner before we went to the cross together, I sat next to him.
SPEAKER_01: And in that culture, when they sat, you know what happens is you would have pillows and you would have a low table and they would sit on these pillows and they would recline like that.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times they would lean against each other, or they would be shoulder to shoulder, that kind of a deal.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that John literally leaned his shoulder against Jesus, that they were that close of friends and were connected.
SPEAKER_01: John says, Listen, I want you to know we've heard, we've seen with our eyes, we've observed, and we touched concerning the Word of Life.
SPEAKER_01: That life was revealed, and we have seen it, and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father was revealed to us.
SPEAKER_01: What we have seen and heard, we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us.
SPEAKER_01: And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then John says this we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
SPEAKER_01: And now he's talking about everyone's joy collectively together.
SPEAKER_01: We want you to have the same joy that we have because you understand the prophecy that was given in the Old Testament that God Himself would come to be our Savior was fulfilled when Jesus, who was God Himself, stepped out of heaven and in those humbling, humble settings, was born of a Virgin Mary and came to be our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: That he grew up as a boy, that he lived as a young man, that he began his ministry where he explained to people who he was and why he came and what his purpose was, and then he accomplished that purpose by going to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And there he died on the cross, taking on the sins of all mankind.
SPEAKER_01: He died so that his death could be a sacrifice for ours, so that he could pay the wrath and punishment of God for our sin, and then he rose again, conquering death and sin to offer us the life that John talks about.
SPEAKER_01: And what he wants us to know is that prophecy, God with us, was accomplished in the person of Jesus, who was the only begotten Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He was the promised Messiah, and he came to save us from our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you think about that, to me, that is the most mind-boggling truth that I can ever try to wrap my arms around.
SPEAKER_01: That the creator, God of the universe, the one who had every right to do with us whatever he wanted to do with us and to make humankind, to make the planet, whatever, he can make all of that happen however he wanted to.
SPEAKER_01: And when we rejected him in the Garden of Eden and sin became rampant throughout humankind, what the creator God of the universe did was step out of heaven to save his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And to save those that he had made to love.
SPEAKER_01: When you think about the incredible unconditional love of God, that we had sinned, and as the Bible says in the book of Romans, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: He came and lived as a man, walked among us, showed himself to us, showed us what it looked like to love, showed us what it looked like that the plan that God had for us that we could be, that we could be a part of.
SPEAKER_01: He showed us right there in a tangible way how much he loved us.
SPEAKER_01: And then he went to the cross and died for us right there in front of us so we could see how much he loved us.
SPEAKER_01: And then he conquered death and sin when he walked out of that grave.
SPEAKER_01: And again, he appears to all who were around to show them, yes, I have come and done what I came to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredibly mind-boggling thing to think that the creator God of the universe loved us so much.
SPEAKER_01: He came himself to be the Savior for us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you three truths and kind of unpack what John is doing to try to grab some of the depth and the beauty of this truth.
SPEAKER_01: And so I've entitled these Joy Truths, just because I kind of like that idea here.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I want you to see first that Jesus, even though he is God, came himself to create salvation for us.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what John says.
SPEAKER_01: What was from the beginning, and he's sort of calling back to his first letter that he wrote, that first gospel, when he says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and everything was made through him.
SPEAKER_01: And so then he comes down and he says, Here, uh, he talks in verse two about that eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, What we have heard, in verse three, we declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so John reaffirms right there that even though Jesus is God and He is the Son of God, He came Himself to create salvation.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't send someone, He didn't create some methodology, He didn't write some new rule book, He didn't create exceptions to Scripture or asterisk or create a footnote or do something else to try to fix all this.
SPEAKER_01: He himself came to do this for us.
SPEAKER_01: That was the prophecy that Emmanuel is God with us.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus Himself came to do that.
SPEAKER_01: It is incredible when you think that verse that John again describes in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John when a man named Nicodemus comes to him and he asks him, How can I inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: How can I deal with these struggles that I have?
SPEAKER_01: What happens to me after I die?
SPEAKER_01: How can I inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: So loved the world.
SPEAKER_01: So loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 1, just listen to how he describes this.
SPEAKER_01: This is who our Savior is.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says in John chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
SPEAKER_01: He was with God in the beginning, and all things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.
SPEAKER_01: Life was in him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, The word became flesh and took up resonance among us.
SPEAKER_01: We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: What he says is, it is incredible to imagine that all of this creation and all of the authority and all of the power and all of the holiness and all of the person of who Jesus was as the creator God of the universe, that he loved us so much, he took care of our salvation himself.
SPEAKER_01: He stepped out of heaven and did what no one else could do.
SPEAKER_01: There is a requirement.
SPEAKER_01: It took someone of that magnitude to die for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Bible teaches all of us are sinners and sin must be punished, and that holy God has to deal with that sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so there had to be some methodology to pay the price for our sin, or we're going to pay that price.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' love for us was that he said, Listen, it's not good not good enough for me.
SPEAKER_01: It's not good enough for my creation.
SPEAKER_01: It's not good enough for who I love that there will be judgment for that sin.
SPEAKER_01: There must be forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: There must be a method to take care of the problem and the issue of that sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so God Himself, in the form of Jesus, came and was born.
SPEAKER_01: We know and understand the virgin birth was so that Jesus was not, he did not receive that sin nature that all of us receive from our parents.
SPEAKER_01: I used to tell my dad all the time, man, dad, it's great to be a chip off the old block.
SPEAKER_01: I'm balding like you.
SPEAKER_01: I have your allergies.
SPEAKER_01: I have your temper.
SPEAKER_01: I can't sleep like you can't sleep.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Dad.
SPEAKER_01: But on top of that, we receive more.
SPEAKER_01: But yet Jesus is not tainted with that sin.
SPEAKER_01: He is more than just a beautiful baby.
SPEAKER_01: He is God with us.
SPEAKER_01: And as he began to grow up and live, his parents saw and understood that his child was, that this child was different.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus had brothers and sisters through the natural process of having brothers and sisters, they were different.
SPEAKER_01: And as Jesus grew to be a man, they began to understand the hand of God on his life.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he began that ministry, Mary was a part of that very beginning and called him out and said, Listen, it's time for you to move out and do what you're here to do.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that, that moment in that wedding.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus then began this three-year journey of preaching and of sharing and of healing and of doing all the things he did.
SPEAKER_01: And in all of that, it was clear that Jesus was not a normal man.
SPEAKER_01: He was a man.
SPEAKER_01: Because a man has to pay the price for the sins of mankind.
SPEAKER_01: But he also was God as the creator of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: He was what old time preachers used to say a God man.
SPEAKER_01: He was all man, all God.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that was wrapped up in the process that He created for us.
SPEAKER_01: That He could go as a man, but a sinless man to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He had the power and the ability to live a sinless life.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he died there on the cross and God placed the sins of the world on him, it created a method for us to look to Jesus to be our substitute.
SPEAKER_01: And he did that for us.
SPEAKER_01: To think of the holiness that God, Jesus set aside to take on our sin.
SPEAKER_01: God with us means something rich and powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Not only did he come himself to create salvation for us, but joy truth number two, God with us means this.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to live as one of us with us to show us in a tangible, credible way what his love means for us.
SPEAKER_01: He came to be pointed out and to be revealed and to be acknowledged as the Savior and did it in a way that there are eyewitnesses and history and everything else to prove that Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Look what John says in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: He says in 1 John, we held, we heard, we saw, we observed, we touched, we have seen it, and we testify and declare to you that the eternal life that was in the Father was revealed to us.
SPEAKER_01: What good would it do to have salvation if we didn't understand it and didn't know it was there and didn't know it could be for us?
SPEAKER_01: What good would it do for us to understand that we had a means for our sins to be forgiven and our hearts and lives to be restored, that we could walk in fellowship with the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: What good would it do for that to be true and us not to know or understand how to access it?
SPEAKER_01: How to receive it, how to know what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: What good would it do for us to not have something that we could believe in as true and understand?
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus came and he lived this incredible life.
SPEAKER_01: He lived a normal life.
SPEAKER_01: He did the things that we do.
SPEAKER_01: We see the story of his birth.
SPEAKER_01: When he's a teenager, we see him when he goes to church and he gets all distracted and he's talking about things with the high priest, and mom and dad get all distracted, and Joseph and Mary leave and they go off somewhere and they leave him there.
SPEAKER_01: And then, like parents do, they look around and one of them notices, where's Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And mom says, Joseph, where's Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph says, Well, I don't know, Mary, I thought he was with you.
SPEAKER_01: And Mary says, Well, it's your job to take care of him, because it's always the husband's job to take the blame, right?
SPEAKER_01: And they figure out, oh my goodness, we left Jesus back in Jerusalem, and you see this incredibly teenage moment that all of us can relate to.
SPEAKER_01: Mom and dad and kids, and where are we?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure that Mary went running up to Jesus and she hugged him and she says, Where, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: Why weren't you with us?
SPEAKER_01: Why did you wander off?
SPEAKER_01: Where is all this?
SPEAKER_01: And he says, How would you not know that I was here about my father's business?
SPEAKER_01: And they are reminded again that Jesus is different.
SPEAKER_01: But we see this moment in their family and how it works.
SPEAKER_01: And then we see Jesus who comes and he walks through this life, and we have four different explanations and stories woven together for us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of witnesses, eyewitnesses, just like John, who saw, who heard, who touched, who watched it happen, and they watched Jesus reveal himself as a Savior.
SPEAKER_01: They heard Jesus say, I am the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: They heard Jesus say, If I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw men to myself.
SPEAKER_01: They saw the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: As they're walking down the street one day, a leper comes up to them, and leprosy struck terror in their hearts in those days because they did not know that there would ever be a cure and it was fatal all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And a leper comes running up to Jesus and he says, Master, if you are willing, that's a powerful question.
SPEAKER_01: If you are willing, will you heal me?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Of course I'm willing.
SPEAKER_01: Your sins are forgiven and you're healed.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible tells us that he reached down and he touched this man with leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine the horror from his disciples as they go, and then the man stands up healed.
SPEAKER_01: And you know Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Story is they're going off.
SPEAKER_01: They're walking through town, they're going to their next meeting, and someone comes running up and tells them there's a girl over in this next area over there, and she's very sick, and she's going to die if we don't, if you don't do something about it, if you if you will come and heal her, please do that.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus gets the messengers and the father and all of them in tow, and he begins to try to work his way through the crowd, and there's so many people in the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: People are jostling and people are shoving.
SPEAKER_01: And a woman the Bible describes as having a blood disorder that has caused her to bleed for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_01: It says she had no hope.
SPEAKER_01: She had spent all her money and all her family's money on doctors and everything else trying to find a treatment.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of sounds like today, right?
SPEAKER_01: We can relate.
SPEAKER_01: And so nothing has happened.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says as they're jostling their way through the crowd, she just reaches out, and her faith is such: if she can just touch the hem of his garment, based on what she's heard and based on what she's seen, if I can just touch his coat, I'll be healed.
SPEAKER_01: And here in the middle of all this crowd and all this stuff, and people jostling and working their way through, and they're trying to get through this, when she touches him, Jesus immediately stops the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: Stop! Someone touch me.
SPEAKER_01: Someone needed me.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine this father whose daughter is dying and they're on the way, and he's going, Hurry up, hurry up.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get my daughter, my daughter.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stops in the middle of everything.
SPEAKER_01: He stops what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: And he heals this woman.
SPEAKER_01: And he tells her that he loves her.
SPEAKER_01: And he proves that he always has time to stop for you.
SPEAKER_01: He proves that no one is more important than the other.
SPEAKER_01: And he heals this woman.
SPEAKER_01: And then he turns to the dad and he says, Don't worry.
SPEAKER_01: Your daughter's going to be fine.
SPEAKER_01: Makes his way to the house and he heals the daughter.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible when John begins to think of all the ways that Jesus showed how much he loved.
SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of that loved, showed that he had the power of God to save.
SPEAKER_01: John is thinking as he writes this, I would imagine, if you just use a little heavenly imagination, he's listing through all of the things.
SPEAKER_01: How could you not have moments of reminiscence when you're saying that life was revealed and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you?
SPEAKER_01: Just the confidence of him writing that makes you think he's going back and he's rehearsing these moments in his mind.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't believe he just didn't immediately his thoughts run to the moment when they understood that Jesus, one of the families that he was friends with, Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: And they get word that Lazarus is dead, and Jesus comes there in the ceremonies after his death, and he's already been buried.
SPEAKER_01: And John is thinking, listen, Jesus is life.
SPEAKER_01: If you're reading this, I want you to know that Jesus is life.
SPEAKER_01: I saw him call Lazarus out from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: And he remembers as Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth.
SPEAKER_01: And he walked out of the tomb alive.
SPEAKER_01: And when John says there is life in Jesus, John saw it happen.
SPEAKER_01: John recorded it for us so we would know.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, how do we know that's true?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you just flip over a couple of pages, you find out that John spent the last years of his life on a prison island for preaching Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back in the book of Acts, I think it's in Acts chapter 12, John's brother James was executed for following Jesus and preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: John's friend Peter, historians tell us, was also martyred for preaching Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, John says, I saw it happen and I'm willing to give up my life for the truth of it, so you'll know that Jesus came to identify himself for us as the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We've touched him, we've seen, we've heard, we've watched, we've listened, we know he has the power to bring life.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, the last joy.
SPEAKER_01: You see here, Jesus came to make sure we understood what it means to have fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_01: What is John's joy that he's describing?
SPEAKER_01: He is describing the joy of Jesus with us, of what it means, of this relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
SPEAKER_01: What joy is that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: He explains it.
SPEAKER_01: What we have seen and heard, we declare to you so that you may have fellowship along with us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that fellowship mean?
SPEAKER_01: Does that just mean we identify together and we're friends, we have the same sort of perspective of life or whatever?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to explain the deeper spiritual understanding of that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Listen, I want you to know when Jesus came to save us, what that means, God with us, that he saved us, it means that we have a relationship with God the Father through Jesus, his Son.
SPEAKER_01: Our joy is in that we get to walk with Jesus in a loving friendship relationship.
SPEAKER_01: That's why John anchors this message of being connected and walking with Jesus in the tangible reality of what Jesus' life and ministry looked like.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted us to understand that when you know Jesus as your Savior, God with us, what that means is that He walks with you through every life experience every day.
SPEAKER_01: It means that when that sin is removed from our lives, it is not just the penalty of sin that is paid for and removed, but that sin creates a barrier in relationship with us in him.
SPEAKER_01: And when that is removed, we are in relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: He is our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We are his people, he is with us.
SPEAKER_01: And John thinks about when he wrote in his gospel that story of when they're having dinner together before Jesus goes to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus looks at John and says, Listen, I now call you friends.
SPEAKER_01: And no greater love does a man have for his friend than he'll lay down his life for them.
SPEAKER_01: And fellas, I'm about to do that for you on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: John wants us to understand, and when we see that relationship with John and with Peter and James and Jesus, that that transfers to us, but in an even more beautiful way.
SPEAKER_01: Because now it's not restricted by time and space and having to be in the presence of Jesus physically.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what Jesus told us was, I'm going to go to heaven and I'm going to be there to pray for you, and the Holy Spirit is going to come down and live with you, and he's going to live inside you, and we will be one throughout our lives together.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit lives inside of us.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to think Jesus on the cross is God for us, but the Holy Spirit is God in us, that there is a relationship and a uniqueness.
SPEAKER_01: And as we walk with Jesus, we have that experience.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've already been saved for a period of time, you're saying, yeah, Pastor, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: Like we get that.
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
SPEAKER_01: We already know that.
SPEAKER_01: That's like a fundamental truth.
SPEAKER_01: It is a fundamental truth.
SPEAKER_01: But what happens is we take that for granted too often.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a time we ought to be reinvested in the joy of these truths and think through the fact that, listen, when I go about the rest of my day today, Jesus is with me.
SPEAKER_01: When I get up in the morning, I have the opportunity to connect with him and say, Jesus, what are we going to do today?
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to do today?
SPEAKER_01: What do you need me to do today?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want me to do today?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want to teach me today?
SPEAKER_01: Or you have the opportunity to say, Jesus, I've got to face this today.
SPEAKER_01: How do I do that?
SPEAKER_01: Will you help me with that?
SPEAKER_01: Christmas, God with us, means we have that privilege.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: This is from Hebrews chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: You can write that reference down if you want and read it later, but I want you to just listen to it with me.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 4, Hebrews is one of these incredible books, a lot of theology, all kinds of stuff where he's telling us how the Old Testament pictured who Jesus was so we would know who he was.
SPEAKER_01: It teaches us all about the power of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But listen to this part right here.
SPEAKER_01: The Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints in the marrow.
SPEAKER_01: It is a discerner of the ideas and thoughts of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God's word has this living, powerful word that God has invested in it and placed in his word, that it is attached to his work.
SPEAKER_01: And when we hear a scripture, it has this supernatural way of going right into our hearts and minds and thoughts and saying, This is the issue.
SPEAKER_01: This is your question.
SPEAKER_01: Son, this is what you need.
SPEAKER_01: Son, I need you to deal with this.
SPEAKER_01: Greg, I need you to go here.
SPEAKER_01: Listen what happens now when you hear this.
SPEAKER_01: No creature is hidden from him.
SPEAKER_01: But all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
SPEAKER_01: And so now you have this living, powerful word of God, and you have the ability of God to see in our lives and hearts, and everything that we do is open to him.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: We can hide it from others, but we can't hide it from him.
SPEAKER_01: And now what you have is this incredible openness.
SPEAKER_01: And in some ways you think, ooh, that's like, wow, that's raw.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I want him to see all that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want anybody else to see it.
SPEAKER_01: Why would I want Jesus to see it?
SPEAKER_01: But then he follows up with this truth of how much he loves us, of what this fellowship means.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession of faith with him.
SPEAKER_01: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
SPEAKER_01: Why did Jesus become flesh and make his residence among us?
SPEAKER_01: Why did he appear in such a way that he could be seen and heard and observed and all of that?
SPEAKER_01: Because he wanted us to know listen, I walked in your shoes.
SPEAKER_01: I had a family, I had friends, I had hard times in life, I had struggles, I saw pain, I saw sin, I saw restoration, I saw love, I've seen all of those things that you do.
SPEAKER_01: I lived the life that you lived.
SPEAKER_01: I walked in your shoes.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you come to me, I know how to help.
SPEAKER_01: Don't hide from me.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the word spoke to you, and yes, it called something out, or yes, it said, I need you to be obedient and move this way, but listen to me, I did that because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I look at all those things in your life and I call them out no matter how raw it feels, because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to know I walked that road so I could know how to do it as intimately as I possibly could.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means that we have fellowship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: When John says, listen, He was the only one, the Son of God, but He revealed Himself in grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that how a relationship works?
SPEAKER_01: It works on what's true, and then it works when we show love and grace.
SPEAKER_01: And that is certainly true when you think about the example of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He came to point out how life works.
SPEAKER_01: He came to point out, Greg, you did this wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Greg, there's got to be forgiveness for that.
SPEAKER_01: But Greg, I want you to see the grace and mercy in my life.
SPEAKER_01: That I came and I understood that and I walked through that.
SPEAKER_01: Just so when you had the question in your heart, can I really trust you?
SPEAKER_01: You could read and know that you can.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted you to understand that I know what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01: So when you have that pain and you want to try to hide it, or you want to try to bury it under something, or you want to mask it in something, I want to say, Greg, I know what that feels like, and I want you to bring that to me so I can heal it because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to walk with you.
SPEAKER_01: John says, we want you to know the fellowship that we all have as the people of God when we walk with him as his people, and we do that through Jesus, and we want you to be in that relationship with Jesus too.
SPEAKER_01: And during this Christmas season, I want you to be reminded of just how incredible a truth that Jesus came for us.
SPEAKER_01: That he lived here among us.
SPEAKER_01: That he came so that you could come to the throne of grace with boldness in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: And that happens when you know him as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible teaches us, if you continue to read through John, he makes it clear how that happens.
SPEAKER_01: We recognize that he came because we are sinners and all of us have sinned.
SPEAKER_01: All of us have messed up, all of us have a conscience, all of us have done things in life that we know that we have to be forgiven for, and that's what the Bible calls sin.
SPEAKER_01: All of us have been there, and we've all done that.
SPEAKER_01: And God knows that, and you can't hide that from him.
SPEAKER_01: But the fact that he knows it is what drove him to send Jesus here and to die for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus lived that sinless life, and he walked through all of those things that we walked through, but he did it differently.
SPEAKER_01: He did not ever sin as the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he went to the cross so that his life, which would never have a death attached to it, because it had no sin attached to it, he went there and died a death that was not under judgment.
SPEAKER_01: It was free from judgment, so that our sins could be placed on him as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And we could exchange our sins through faith in him, and he would give us our righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: And he rose again conquering death and sin to accomplish all of that and to offer us salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, if you're here visiting or if you're watching online or television, we want to invite you to trust in God who came to be in fellowship with you through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Right there where you are at home, just talk to the Lord and tell Him, you know you've sinned.
SPEAKER_01: You know He died for you.
SPEAKER_01: And you want to accept through faith that spiritual exchange of He being a substitute for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here in the room in a moment, I'm gonna pray.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to just bow your heads.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pray.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have pastors at the head of our aisles, somebody in the balcony if you're there.
SPEAKER_01: God's people, in just a moment after I've prayed, will stand and sing a testimony of their joy in this relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like to be saved, we want to invite you to come and to give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for the incredible joy of Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: When that prophecy came from Isaiah, God with us, the profound truth of what that means, that Jesus Himself came to be our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And when that angel spoke to Joseph, and he said, His nature, his character, his name will be God with us.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Son of God who is born miraculously through the work of the Holy Spirit and Mary's life.
SPEAKER_01: And he came and he was born to live for us, to live with us, to live in front of us, and then to die for us, and then to be raised again so that we could be with him.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray if there's someone this morning who is who needs to be saved, they'll trust Christ as their Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, Father, if there's a brother or sister in Christ who, through circumstances of life, has sort of gotten disconnected from that truth that praying through and thinking through these joys of God with them in their life, it'll encourage and strengthen them.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we praise and worship you, Lord, I pray if there's someone who needs to be saved, you'll give them the freedom to respond.
SPEAKER_01: It is in Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said.
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.