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: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about the chance to worship with you again.
SPEAKER_01: It's fun to worship in both places.
SPEAKER_01: We had a great morning at Chaffee Campus this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We had 90 again this morning, so uh it was good.
SPEAKER_01: So the rain did not stop Baptists at our Chaffee campus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: It's good.
SPEAKER_01: I want to do something before I get started this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we have two wonderful opportunities this week that are great.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelism sharing Jesus opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing, uh uh Eli, Pastor Eli and his team put these together.
SPEAKER_01: This is a great little sheet, has some games on it and different things for kids, and it invites them to both of our campuses, and this is to put in the candy uh envelope uh bag when kids come and knock on your door for Halloween.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have these uh at each of the doors as you're leaving, and they are bundled in stacks of ten.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So if you're handing out candy for Halloween and all that, slip one of these in there along with that.
SPEAKER_01: And do do me a favor, if you put this in here, don't give them just one little Reese's thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like we want to bless them and we want them to come.
SPEAKER_01: So show them how we eat at First Baptist and give them a lot of candy in one of these.
SPEAKER_01: Is that good?
SPEAKER_01: You got that?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all can do that.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing we want to do, uh, we have a kind of a fall festival type event at Tillis School.
SPEAKER_01: And uh again, Pastor Eli and his team have put together, uh, they have offered us the opportunity to have a table to tell people about our church and all that kind of a deal at that event.
SPEAKER_01: And we are going to man a table there, and our Hispanic church partners are going to man the table with us.
SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna be a great opportunity to do uh ministry alongside each other and see how some of that synergy can begin to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are very excited about that.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll do me a favor, we want to pray over that uh Tillis opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll join me real quick before we get started this morning, Lord, we thank you that you give us the opportunity to share Jesus, to show the love of Jesus, to be light in our community.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for the opportunity that we have to serve our schools and the doors that you open, how we can minister to kids and to families.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I want to pray for Pastor Eli's team and the team from our Hispanic Church, brothers and sisters, who are going to work together to share Jesus, to show the love of Jesus, to be light in that group, the opportunity for us to do that side by side.
SPEAKER_01: Father, it is an opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for opening that door at Tillis and the school there.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray, Father, that you will open doors in hearts and minds for our Hispanic church family in the base, or for us, or both.
SPEAKER_01: You just be the Lord of the harvest.
SPEAKER_01: As we studied a few weeks ago, we know that the fields are white for harvest, and that you have called us to pray for effective doors for the sharing of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so we come and we pray, Father, if there can be baptisms here or baptisms at the Hispanic Church or both, we just pray and lift up that opportunity for us to share Jesus and be salt and light in our community here in the downtown area.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray this in the name of Jesus and all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you turn with me in your Bibles to John 14, we're going to ask the last question in our question series.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, we've been studying this month uh questions that God asks, uh that we ask God.
SPEAKER_01: And we are using illustrations of times where people come to Jesus with a real life question.
SPEAKER_01: They ask him and he answers, and how those questions relate to moments in our lives as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so today we're going to ask two questions, actually, that are inextricably linked.
SPEAKER_01: They are related together, and these are life's most important questions.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, there are multiple stories of people asking Jesus this question or these questions.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what I'd like for you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Look at John 14, chapter verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Here is a famous verse that you have heard if you've been any amount of time in church.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let your heart be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we hear that all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We do that in a lot of funeral services and that kind of deal, but we don't usually take the time to really unpack this incredible passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to do that this morning, and I want you to learn with me the context of where this happens.
SPEAKER_01: What has happened here over the preceding chapters is that Jesus has called his disciples together, and they have gone into their Passover Supper, and Jesus in that time is trying to explain to them that he will be the Lamb of God that's represented in the Passover Supper.
SPEAKER_01: He tweaks it and turns it into what we call the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_01: We will be observing the Lord's Supper together as a congregation here and the congregation in Chaffee in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: And so after the Lord's Supper, he begins to prepare them for what's about to happen.
SPEAKER_01: He is literally hours away from heading to into the events that lead to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it is in this moment, this meeting, where he dismisses Judas, and Judas goes out and does the exchange that creates the chance for him to betray Jesus and turn him over to the authorities.
SPEAKER_01: Judas has gone out.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is washing their feet.
SPEAKER_01: He is trying to talk to them about what it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And then he tells them, I am going to leave you.
SPEAKER_01: And where I'm going, you cannot go.
SPEAKER_01: And that creates great consternation in them.
SPEAKER_01: They've already seen Judas leave.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is washing their feet.
SPEAKER_01: They're not really sure about that.
SPEAKER_01: Peter sticks his foot in his mouth, as often happens in the middle of that.
SPEAKER_01: They got all this going on, and Jesus is trying to explain to them, I'm going to die, I'm going to the cross, you know, and then I'm going to leave you.
SPEAKER_01: Now you've got to think about, they have given three years of their lives.
SPEAKER_01: They have invested all of their faith and everything they believe in what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_01: And they're still trying to sort it out to make sure they understand all of it.
SPEAKER_01: They get the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They get the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: They're still not real sure about the throne of David and it's going to be Rome and how's all this going to work.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, I'm leaving.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to leave you.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't follow.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're not really sure how this is all going to unfold.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when Jesus tells them again this famous statement.
SPEAKER_01: Let not your heart be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: If you've heard it that way for so many years through the King James Version, here in our version it says, Don't let your heart be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on to explain more about where he's going.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 2, in my father's house are many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, I would have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is an illustration that would make some sense to them.
SPEAKER_01: In that culture, often what would happen is you would have these family compounds or these complexes, and dad and the groom would go and they would build in the family area.
SPEAKER_01: They'd build a room onto the house or build another house on the land or whatever kind of a deal.
SPEAKER_01: And they're preparing for that.
SPEAKER_01: And then the groom would go and get his bride, and he would take her to that place that they had prepared.
SPEAKER_01: And they're getting this picture in their mind, the father's house and this provision and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And they're going, I don't, I'm not really, how do I match all this up?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus continues to speak in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.
SPEAKER_01: You know the way to where I am going.
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to affirm, you understand, I am the means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And Thomas says, Lord, we don't know where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus told him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: If you know me, you will also know my Father.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and have seen him, Jesus saying, because you've seen me.
SPEAKER_01: And so here Thomas articulates for us a question that every person asks at some point, usually multiple times, in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: These are our two questions.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Jesus is leaving, he's going to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: They know enough to know that's where the Father is.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: What is eternity like?
SPEAKER_01: What is heaven like?
SPEAKER_01: How is that?
SPEAKER_01: And how do we know the way there?
SPEAKER_01: How do we get there?
SPEAKER_01: And then the answer Jesus gives them is this My Father's home, that's an eternity spent living with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's going to prepare.
SPEAKER_01: An opportunity for us who have been redeemed to go and to live an eternity in the presence of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answers and says, I am the only way.
SPEAKER_01: No one goes into that eternity with him without knowing Jesus as their savior.
SPEAKER_01: And so that right there, those are the most fundamental existential questions in life.
SPEAKER_01: I want to share with you our church a number of years ago went through an incredible exercise, and this is one of the few churches that I've ever seen actually do this, and it is an awesome thing.
SPEAKER_01: On our website, if you go to the About Us part, you'll find a document entitled What We Teach.
SPEAKER_01: And the church really went through a long process of determining what our theology is and what our doctrine is.
SPEAKER_01: There's a section there called Last Things, and I want to read it to you, and it affirms exactly what we've just said, and it is built on this passage of Scripture among others.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what our church teaches.
SPEAKER_01: God, in his own time and in his own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end.
SPEAKER_01: According to his promise, Jesus Christ will personally, what did he say?
SPEAKER_01: I am coming to receive you again to myself.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus will personally return and visibly in glory to the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all humanity individually in righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The unrighteous will be consigned to hell, the everlasting place of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: The righteous, those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, in their resurrected and glorified bodies, will receive their reward and will dwell forever in heaven with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I'd encourage you to look at that sometime and think through that again.
SPEAKER_01: The church did an incredible job preparing that.
SPEAKER_01: And that message right there is the ultimate meat of the coconut of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: There is a way to spend an eternity with the Lord, and that is through Jesus as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here let me show you a couple of truths to kind of unpack this process first.
SPEAKER_01: Eternity, life after death, what happens to us when we die?
SPEAKER_01: That is a question that every single person asks.
SPEAKER_01: There were numerous times that people came to Jesus and asked that question.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 3, a man named Nicodemus came and asked that question to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's another story we refer to as the rich young ruler.
SPEAKER_01: A young guy comes to Jesus and he says, What must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: The thieves on the cross, one on either side of Jesus, one of them is ridiculing Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the other one asks Jesus to remember me in heaven or in paradise.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone asks this question.
SPEAKER_01: Janet and I love to travel, and we love going to museums and all kinds of things like that.
SPEAKER_01: We love history.
SPEAKER_01: And if you spend any amount of time in any museum that has any kind of that ancient history to it and all that, inherent in all those exhibits of all those cultures, Mesopotamia, Egyptians, Romans, whatever you want it back to, you know, as far back as they can excavate things, as archaeologists find them, it is clear that every single culture in every single epoch of time on every single continent has always asked this existential question, what happens to me when I die?
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of the weird answers they come up with are amazing, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you'll find people who are buried in a pit with pots of food and stuff to take with them to the afterlife.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever get a chance to go to like an Egyptian thing when they excavate or, you know, archaeological finds out of uh pyramids and stuff, they have embalmed them and put them in a sarcophagus and they put all kinds of riches in them, in there with them, and they would even board up their servants in that tomb alive, and they would die so that when they got to the afterlife, they would be there to serve them in the next afterlife.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people come up with all kinds of weird ideas.
SPEAKER_01: We have, I know of a religion where what happens is if you are good enough and you earn your way to be not judged, then what happens is you and your wife, if you're married properly, y'all get your own planet, and you get to make babies for all of eternity and populate your own planet.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding, that's like really true.
SPEAKER_01: In America, people believe that.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: We make all these kind of weird ideas, and I'm not trying to make fun of any of those.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying we got all these kinds of ideas, and what that proves is one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone wants to know what happens when I die and where do I spend eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone understands that life is temporary.
SPEAKER_01: All of us have a set number of days.
SPEAKER_01: Our days are numbered.
SPEAKER_01: All of us will face death at some point, physical death.
SPEAKER_01: And that does a number of things.
SPEAKER_01: It creates this question in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: It also creates a sense of uncertainty.
SPEAKER_01: And so people who are afraid or people who are trying to control things or all that kind of stuff, all these weird experiences that we have, these things we cling to, and all of that, all of that has its root in an understanding that this body is not going to live forever.
SPEAKER_01: I spent the weekend doing yard work.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure it was going to make it to today.
SPEAKER_01: But we don't know when all of that's going to happen or not happen.
SPEAKER_01: And it creates a question, and we all ask that question, and Thomas expresses that.
SPEAKER_01: They are facing this existential deal.
SPEAKER_01: We've built our life with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is going to do these things.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, I am leaving, and I am going to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And they're not really sure what that means, and they're trying to figure that out.
SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to be here, and you're with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And how do we get there with you?
SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a question that everyone asks.
SPEAKER_01: I told the congregation, Chaffee, this morning, I'm not a social media guy.
SPEAKER_01: I kind of hate all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why y'all spend all that time on it.
SPEAKER_01: I hate all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But since the Charlie Kirk thing and all that sort of stuff, there's so many people asking so many questions in culture.
SPEAKER_01: And people are returning to church.
SPEAKER_01: They're asking questions how to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Uh different faith heritages are having people show up and ask questions.
SPEAKER_01: These questions are showing up on things like Bill Maher and Joe Rogan, and everybody with an opinion is on TikTok or Instagram somewhere telling everybody what they think about religion.
SPEAKER_01: I was telling Dave, I was talking to Pastor Dave this week, and there's this guy that comes on on TikTok and he opens his thing and he says, I'm so-and-so, and I've spent my time studying the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gives you these weird things that, like, I've been in church my whole life and I never heard that before.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you're either a liar or you're studying a different Bible than the one I am, because I never heard of that.
SPEAKER_01: That is just flat out strange.
SPEAKER_01: And there's all kinds of attacks at the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: People are attacking the gospel all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Why are there all these opinions and why are there so many people seeing this as an opportunity to have a platform to speak to other people?
SPEAKER_01: It's because this is a question that every single person asks.
SPEAKER_01: We all ask.
SPEAKER_01: Truth number two, Jesus makes it clear that an eternity will be spent either in God's presence or out of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: There are two distinct eternities that people will land in.
SPEAKER_01: Just as I read from our what we teach as a church, the Bible teaches that sin is everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Every person has sinned.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And our sin is judged, and our sin sends us to hell.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus loves us so much that he steps out of heaven and he died on the cross, as we're about to see him, if you keep reading in John, go to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: So that there can be a payment that is paid for our sins that I don't pay for with my own eternal judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus raises from the dead, conquering death and sin to offer new life.
SPEAKER_01: And if I come to him and I say, I know I'm a sinner and I can't fix my sin and I am placing my faith in Jesus to save me.
SPEAKER_01: Now I have an eternity spent in heaven that Jesus has prepared for me.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He is being very clear and distinct about one destination.
SPEAKER_01: In my Father's house are many dwellings.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going there to prepare a place for you, and I'm going to come back to receive you myself.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, there's somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: There is a place prepared for eternity with the Father, and there is somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you look back in the same time that Jesus is talking with them and trying to prepare them, in John chapter 12, beginning in verse 44, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: I have come as a light into the world, so that every one who believes in me would not remain in darkness.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone hears my words and doesn't keep them, I don't judge him, for I did not come to the world to judge, but to save the world.
SPEAKER_01: The one who rejects me does not accept my sayings and has this as his judge.
SPEAKER_01: The word I've spoken will judge him on the last day.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, his rejection of Jesus, his refusal to follow, his sin will judge him, and he will spend an eternity separated from God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said this same thing when Nicodemus came and asked him, How do I inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: How am I all that?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, the verse that we know, John 3.16, 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: But then God has a plan that Jesus continues to explain in more detail.
SPEAKER_01: For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, because the world was condemned already.
SPEAKER_01: But that the world through him might be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And so our sin will judge us to eternity.
SPEAKER_01: That sin does not have to have any quantity or quality.
SPEAKER_01: The existence of sin judges us.
SPEAKER_01: And if And someone will pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: The judgment of our sin is eternal separation from God.
SPEAKER_01: Unless you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, and then you enter into a relationship with Him and you are able to spend an eternity in God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: That leads us to truth three.
SPEAKER_01: Eternity with God occurs only in a place prepared by Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The two distinct eternities are being separated from God forever in what we refer to as hell, or it is to be in God's presence, living and walking with Him, because you have placed Jesus as your Savior and you are saved and redeemed by His work on the cross and His resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: There is only one way to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Again, if you go and pay any attention, and I am not recommending you do that.
SPEAKER_01: I would recommend you don't.
SPEAKER_01: Do something fun with your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Go to Brahms and get ice cream cones or something else rather than wasting your time on social media.
SPEAKER_01: But we do need to recognize that culture is trying to attack the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Ephesians chapter 6 says this: that we put on the whole armor of God that we can stand against the schemes of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: And what are the schemes of the devil?
SPEAKER_01: To eradicate the efficacy of the gospel, to distract people from the truth of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why there are all these people on there, and they're doing all these things to try to attack Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They use big fancy words that they think sound all theological and intellectual.
SPEAKER_01: For example, there's a whole line of people now who are attacking the substitutionary atonement, something else, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And they're trying to say that Jesus' death on the cross, death, burial, and resurrection is not what saves us, it's something else.
SPEAKER_01: He does it for some other reason, or he does it for some other glory, or it's whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to me, Jesus makes it very clear.
SPEAKER_01: If you place your faith in him, you're saved.
SPEAKER_01: And if you do not, if you reject him, you will spend an eternity separated from God.
SPEAKER_01: It is the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When you come to be saved, you are engaging in a spiritual transaction.
SPEAKER_01: You are taking your life, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and the sin that you cannot fix, and you are giving it to Jesus because he lived a sinless life.
SPEAKER_01: He did not have to die as a man, but he went voluntarily to the cross and died a death that is not under judgment, so that his judgment could be a substitute for ours.
SPEAKER_01: When he rose again conquering death and sin, as it says in 1 Corinthians, we now have a method of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: I come to Jesus, I give him my life, my sin, my future, everything else.
SPEAKER_01: I trust him to pay the price for my sin by believing in his resurrection, and then I call him the Lord of my life.
SPEAKER_01: It's not mine anymore, it's his.
SPEAKER_01: He pays the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: He dies as a substitute for my judgment, takes it in my place, and then gives me his righteousness through his shed blood.
SPEAKER_01: I gave my life to Jesus when I was a nine and a half-year-old boy.
SPEAKER_01: And now what happens when Jesus looks down out of heaven?
SPEAKER_01: He looks at me through the righteousness, the applied or imputed righteousness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It covers me because of what he did.
SPEAKER_01: It's what he did.
SPEAKER_01: And there is no other way to be saved than to trust in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They'll try to tell you that the churches had different messages and all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: They'll try to tell you that all dogs go to heaven and there's all kinds of different ways to do that.
SPEAKER_01: They'll give you something called nihilism, which means we all die and there's nothing left.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God there is eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And praise God when you know Jesus as your Savior, there is a place where you will live with the Heavenly Father for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said it.
SPEAKER_01: You may disagree with it, but you cannot deny it.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: And it is so important for us to know how to share the gospel, how to explain the gospel, how to believe in the gospel, how to put on the whole armor of God.
SPEAKER_01: When Ephesians 6 he says put on the whole armor of God, he says, put on the helmet of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Why does he say that?
SPEAKER_01: The helmet protects our head, it protects our ability to think and function on the battlefield.
SPEAKER_01: And what protects our head and our minds is the helmet of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is an understanding of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is being rooted in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It is viewing life through the prism of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It is having a biblical worldview or the perspective that Jesus saves and he is the only author of life and the only means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And when I gave my life to Jesus Christ as my Savior, it is now his and his alone.
SPEAKER_01: It helps us to function and process in a world that is seeking to attack the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And listen, here's the beauty of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This prepared place by Jesus, this is an incredible truth.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to just think about a couple of things with me on this.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's prepared.
SPEAKER_01: It's prepared.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus himself prepared it.
SPEAKER_01: I am preparing a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: When you think of heaven and you think of an eternity with Jesus, I want you to think of the fact that Jesus loved you so much, he built it himself just for you.
SPEAKER_01: Is that incredible?
SPEAKER_01: I told a congregation or Chaffee, my dad, and I may have shared this story here before, my dad was great.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was brilliant, he was a chemist, but he had zero mechanical skills whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I was 16, he sat down with me and he said, Son, you're going to now drive, you have a driver's license, and he plops a phone book down on the table.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you remember what a phone book is?
SPEAKER_01: Think of like Paper Google.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Son, all I can do for you, I can't help you with your house in the future.
SPEAKER_01: I can teach you how to change the oil in your car, and then I can teach you how to use the yellow pages to call mechanics and carpenters.
SPEAKER_01: He said, That's all I got for you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's all I inherited.
SPEAKER_01: I got nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: I, to me, to have to fix something in the house is a burden and a temptation to sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna cuss, I'm gonna be mad, I'm gonna be, I hate it, I hate doing it.
SPEAKER_01: But other people are builders.
SPEAKER_01: Janet's dad, he was an engineer.
SPEAKER_01: Man, he built stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He tore stuff apart so he could figure out how it works and build it back better.
SPEAKER_01: He loved it.
SPEAKER_01: He built clocks.
SPEAKER_01: They had clocks all over their house.
SPEAKER_01: Every 15 minutes, ding, ding, dong, dong.
SPEAKER_01: Westminster chimes, dong, ding, ding, in their house all the time.
SPEAKER_01: It was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: And he built them and he was so proud of them.
SPEAKER_01: And it was awesome to see him be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And you think about one year he gave us a clock that he had built, and it was so special, and it was incredible because he was a builder and he designed it.
SPEAKER_01: And he imagined what it was, and he built it just with us in mind.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave it to us as a gift.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I want you to know this is how much I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus built a place for you in eternity as the builder because he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: I prepared a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: Then look what he says.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm going away to prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prophecy of Jesus' return.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we are waiting for Jesus to return because we know he's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: Now, those doofuses that get on there and they tell you he's going to come back on October the 31st or November 8th or whatever kind of nonsense, don't listen to them anymore, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You don't know when he's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: He says very clearly you don't want him coming back.
SPEAKER_01: But he says very clearly, I am coming back.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the other beauty of that.
SPEAKER_01: It's only logical to understand if he built a place for you because he loves you and he wants you to live there with him for eternity, he is going to come back to take you there.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: My dad, I'm approaching an anniversary of his death.
SPEAKER_01: He died the November before I came here, the Monday before Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you what.
SPEAKER_01: Because my dad loved Jesus as his savior.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what happened: He took a breath, his heart beat, his heart stopped beating, and he looked into the eyes of Jesus himself, his Savior.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happened.
SPEAKER_01: And if I die, it'll be some version of that.
SPEAKER_01: And if Jesus comes back before I physically die, then we're going to meet him in the air, the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: He is coming back.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what else I can't stand.
SPEAKER_01: I've been, I'm, can I rant a minute?
SPEAKER_01: Can I just rant?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to get like unspiritual for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: I've been going, I've been pastoring for 25 plus years now.
SPEAKER_01: And I've had to go to funerals that other people have done and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just brag on our staff guys for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Our guys preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: They are awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And they have a heart to preach the word.
SPEAKER_01: And man, when you get out there and you start going to other stuff, I mean, I hear all this nonsense about, you know, somebody's died and they turn to an angel.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, where's the Bible verse for that?
SPEAKER_01: There ain't one.
SPEAKER_01: You don't turn into an angel.
SPEAKER_01: You go to heaven or you go to hell.
SPEAKER_01: You are separated from God or you spend an eternity with God.
SPEAKER_01: And you do not turn into an angel.
SPEAKER_01: You are a redeemed, blood-bought child or daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: You do not turn into an angel.
SPEAKER_01: Here's this other kind of stuff I get.
SPEAKER_01: These dudes get all flowery and they're trying to do all this stuff and they're quoting songs like, you know, I got this shack in the corner of glory land and all this kind of nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: Give me a break.
SPEAKER_01: That is not what the Bible says, and there ain't no verse for that either.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that Jesus prepared a place for you to live with him for eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: What that means is in this illustration, he's saying, Listen, my father house has many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: There's more space than you can ever imagine, and there's room for all of y'all, and there's room for everybody who wants to be saved, and there's room for all of that.
SPEAKER_01: It's none of this, I'm just glad I barely got there and all this other nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: That's just garbage, and it's not theologically accurate.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has prepared a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: He ain't making you a shack on the back side of anything.
SPEAKER_01: He died for you on the cross and rose again, conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And he is making a place for you in the presence of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So quit listening to all that nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: It's not true.
SPEAKER_01: Here's another thing I hear.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I've been the first time I heard this, I was stunned.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting in Paragold, Arkansas, and I'm sitting in this funeral.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody had passed away, they were a family member of our deal, and this old guy got up there, and there's nothing wrong with that, but he gets up there and he's all waxing elephants and he's all this kind of, and he starts describing when this person died.
SPEAKER_01: Angels driving a flaming chariot came down out of heaven, and the angels received him, and the angels took him, and all these people are amen.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, all of y'all are lost.
SPEAKER_01: You have no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: There's no picture of that anywhere in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_01: There is no Bible verse.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is coming to take you home.
SPEAKER_01: He's not assigning it to an a minion or somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is coming back.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul describes to the church at Thessalonica, he said, Listen, I know y'all have loved ones who are passing away, and you're worried that they've missed Jesus because he hadn't come back yet.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, we should be looking for Jesus' return in that same way with that kind of passion.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Listen, I don't want y'all to be unaware.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a trumpet, there's going to be a shout, and Jesus is coming to take us home, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who remain will be caught up in the air with him.
SPEAKER_01: I will take you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: You get that?
SPEAKER_01: To myself.
SPEAKER_01: You get that picture?
SPEAKER_01: That's how much Jesus loves you.
SPEAKER_01: He is wrapping his arms around you and he is taking you home because you are his and he bought you with his shed blood on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Is that incredible?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you got to think about how much Jesus loves you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves you so much that he was not satisfied with your sin judging you and having you spend an eternity separated from him.
SPEAKER_01: He was so not satisfied with that, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stepped out of heaven and he lived a sinless life, and then he went and took our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He sacrificed his life, his blood, and his holiness for us.
SPEAKER_01: And then he rose again, conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And he is telling those disciples, listen, don't you be afraid or troubled when in Acts chapter 1 I go to heaven because I'm going to prepare a place for you, because that's how much I love you, and I'm going to make it out of all my love and design, and I'm going to come back and I'm going to take you myself, and then I'm going to receive you to myself so that you can live with me in the Father's house for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know any better news than that.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus says, This I'm the only way there.
SPEAKER_01: Make no mistake, Jesus is very clear.
SPEAKER_01: The ultimate truth of his teaching in this passage is that he is the only way to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus as your Savior is the only way.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: These are definite articles, and it only means one.
SPEAKER_01: It only means one.
SPEAKER_01: It means that it is exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: It means that there is no other option.
SPEAKER_01: It means the single.
SPEAKER_01: It means the only.
SPEAKER_01: It is the only way there is.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the way.
SPEAKER_01: He is the means of our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is his sacrificial death on the cross, and it is trusting him to pay the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: It is his resurrection that gives us new life and recreates us.
SPEAKER_01: He is the only way to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And if someone tries to tell you that there is some other way, or y'all are just mean because you're, you know, rejecting all these other, you know, denominations or religions or whatever kind of thing they're telling you, listen, you need to cling to this verse where Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father but by me.
SPEAKER_01: We are sharing the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: This is not our message.
SPEAKER_01: This is not, we own it because we're Baptists or whatever kind of weird thing.
SPEAKER_01: We're not being exclusive to anybody.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is open to everyone.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: That whosoever believes in him, in my Father's house are many places to live with him.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is the only mean.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the truth.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Look, I am the touchstone for redemption.
SPEAKER_01: All of Scripture is written about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The front half is Jesus will come because God promised a Messiah, and this is how you recognize him.
SPEAKER_01: And the back half is Jesus came and fulfilled all those promises, and this is what it means to walk with him, and he is coming back.
SPEAKER_01: And eternity in heaven is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Scripture is, and Jesus is the truth and the touchstone of all of it.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is the life.
SPEAKER_01: He changes you.
SPEAKER_01: He was the author of life and gave you physical human life when you were born.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were born again a second time, he gives you an eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And the nature of that life is his.
SPEAKER_01: And he is offering you salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, whether you're watching online or by television or you're here in the room this morning, I want to ask you to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Confess your sin to him.
SPEAKER_01: Tell him that you trust him.
SPEAKER_01: Tell him you want to be in that place that he's prepared for you.
SPEAKER_01: You go to him with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: There are no magic words, there's no incantation.
SPEAKER_01: You go to him believing what he said, and you give yourself to Jesus who gave himself for you.
SPEAKER_01: And he'll save you.
SPEAKER_01: In a moment I'm going to pray, and then our people are going to stand and sing a testimony of this salvation we've been studying about this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to be saved and you're in the room, you come.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we're not arm twisting you, we're not trying to manipulate anybody.
SPEAKER_01: If this has raised questions or answered questions and you have more, listen, we're fine.
SPEAKER_01: Come tell us you want to ask more questions and take the journey.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to walk with you, to show you Scripture so that you can know Jesus as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: You come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for this incredible word that Jesus spoke and this vision of eternity with Him and you as our Heavenly Father that He gave.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that you will speak through the Holy Spirit to people and draw them to you today.
SPEAKER_01: It is in your name that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said, 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 at the First Methodist Church.