SPEAKER_01: 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_01: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, church, for a beautiful time of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And to our brothers and sisters, we are so glad to have y'all and celebrate you and your baptisms today.
SPEAKER_00: It was a blessing to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, Pastor, we love you and your church, and it's such an honor for us to partner together.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we are excited.
SPEAKER_00: We are in our series that we started last week called Gratitude, and uh we're excited about that, and and we have so much to be grateful for as we've just been singing about what God is doing in our midst and what he's doing in the midst of our brothers and sisters in our church that meets over in the um in the Family Life Center every day, and so it is just awesome to see what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you you uh will remember that as a part of this series, we have our brew books, and so I pray that uh you are blessed this week as you studied those alongside our church and what we're doing each week as the message uh sets up a topic, like we'll do in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Then you have the opportunity with this devotional guide to spend some time each morning using that brew process to um to study a scripture that builds on the foundation of what we've talked about in our message.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also a special thing just to know that we as a church are uh studying this together, we're in the same place together, we're praying together, we're in God's word together, and it's such a blessing to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to share with somebody what God's speaking to you in your journal during the week.
SPEAKER_00: Find somebody in your Sunday school class or uh moms and dads with your kids or kids with moms and dads or whoever, share with them uh something that God taught you during the week.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the brew process is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: It just means we believe that God has something to say to us, and so you'll have a little verse that you can pray from that.
SPEAKER_00: Read and repeat a verse.
SPEAKER_00: You want to read and repeat that verse for the day, and just do it seven or eight, nine times till it begins to get to be familiar to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, you know, magical about this.
SPEAKER_00: It's not rocket science.
SPEAKER_00: It is simply meditating on Scripture, the way Scripture teaches us to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you read and repeat that verse over and over, you're getting familiar with that verse, and then you're gonna slow down and you're gonna pay attention to each word, and you'll break down each word and just think about it and consider what it means.
SPEAKER_00: So you're meditating and carefully reading through that verse.
SPEAKER_00: And as you do that, God will just really speak to you, it'll unpack that scripture and uh in in really powerful ways.
SPEAKER_00: And then if we believe that God of the universe has something to say to us from his word, and he says something to us from his word, then we ought to write that down and capture it.
SPEAKER_00: So that's really the process.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so we're working again on that idea of gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we ended up last week with what we refer to here as the triangle, and I just kind of want to remind you that for a minute, what that is, because it's going to set up for us what we're going to talk about today.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we use this as just a simple shorthand sort of illustration to describe how we grow in the Lord, how our relationship grows to be with Him.
SPEAKER_00: Every illustration breaks down.
SPEAKER_00: This is not designed to be, you know, the greatest theological, you know, discourse thing ever in history or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a shorthand way that gets our minds focused on the purpose of what we're doing is each person growing in their relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And scripture is written to us not as an encyclopedia, not as here's all the lists of do's and don'ts or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that.
SPEAKER_00: It is written to us to teach us that God loves us, He desires a relationship with us through Jesus, and how that relationship grows.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Scripture teaches us, how it works.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is a real simple, shorthand deal.
SPEAKER_00: I want to remind you again the foundation of that triangle is our identity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When you give your life to Jesus Christ, you trust him as your Savior, as our folks did that were baptized this morning, you have entered into a relationship with him, and your identity becomes that of a follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God is your heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: You're a blood-bought son or daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: That is your identity.
SPEAKER_00: My dad, when I would go out when I started 16 years old, I couldn't wait to get my driver's license.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I my birthday is January the 20th.
SPEAKER_00: I think on the 21st, I was wearing them out about when are we going to get my driver's license.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I couldn't wait.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I went to high school, and I don't know if you know this, but there are lots of girls at high school.
SPEAKER_00: And I was a 16-year-old boy, and I wanted my driver's license because there was this cool thing called dating that I couldn't wait to do, right?
SPEAKER_00: So hurry up and give him my, hurry up and give him my driver's license.
SPEAKER_00: Let me have the keys in mom's car, right?
SPEAKER_00: And my dad would hold out the keys, and I would reach out for the keys, and he'd hang on to them, and he'd say, Son, I need you to remember your identity.
SPEAKER_00: You're an Addison and you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And both of those mean something.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you are, act like it.
SPEAKER_00: And then he would let me go.
SPEAKER_00: It was my identity, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he would teach us that.
SPEAKER_00: And as a Christian, our identity is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But if you become a follower of Christ, you're saved, you've given your life to Christ, God becomes your heavenly father, then the rest of us become your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And so your identity in Christ is not just being a Christian, but it means being a part of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And you are to be involved with the body and pray for the body and serve the body and love each other and care for each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's part of how it works.
SPEAKER_00: Our identity.
SPEAKER_00: That's why my dad would say, your identity, son, is you're an Addison.
SPEAKER_00: You're a part of our family, and you're a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're a Christian, and so you're a part of that family.
SPEAKER_00: So that's our identity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: One of the other legs is the relationship that we have with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is not about do this and don't do this, do this and don't do this.
SPEAKER_00: It is about how we grow to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so our relationship grows through the process we'll talk about in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer, Bible study, and faith choices.
SPEAKER_00: It is spending time with God in the Word, it is talking to Him about it, listening to Him talk to us about it.
SPEAKER_00: And if He is teaching us from His Word, then what's going to happen is He's going to put a choice of faith in front of you, and you're going to have to step out in faith and obey that.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, God blesses that, He teaches you from that, and that's how your relationship with Him grows.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you're a part of the body of Christ, then ministry is a part of your DNA as a Christian, is how you grow.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Rygrup used to say we weren't saved to sit, soak, and sour, but we were saved to serve.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is we minister to people and we serve, and so it's the outpouring of what God is pouring into us.
SPEAKER_00: And that looks like an equilateral triangle.
SPEAKER_00: And all three of those legs grow together.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what we talk about.
SPEAKER_00: When all three of those things are working, when we're stepping out in faith, being obedient to those, our triangle is growing.
SPEAKER_00: That means we're being transformed in the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It means that our relationship is growing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what I want you to see today.
SPEAKER_00: That means that all of this stuff we're talking about has a spiritual impact on you as a person.
SPEAKER_00: You are changed.
SPEAKER_00: You are impacted.
SPEAKER_00: Your behavior becomes different.
SPEAKER_00: But even more important than that, your heart becomes different.
SPEAKER_00: Your perspective of life changes.
SPEAKER_00: You see things differently.
SPEAKER_00: You think about different things.
SPEAKER_00: You have a different priority in life.
SPEAKER_00: There is an impact on us when we are growing to be like Him.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about that today.
SPEAKER_00: The impact of developing a character of gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this impact, this happens in every part of our life, right?
SPEAKER_00: Your faith may be struggling, and you step out in faith and you work through your relationship and your faith deepens and grows.
SPEAKER_00: Or it may be some aspect of your life.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to take this out of your life, or he wants to put this in your life, or there's some temptation that you're struggling with, and how do I defeat that temptation?
SPEAKER_00: And it works in this exact same way.
SPEAKER_00: You get with the Lord in your relationship, you talk to him, he talks to you, you get in the word, he points out something through the word, and then you step out in faith and obey that.
SPEAKER_00: You put it into practice, and through that you grow.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is absolutely how our character of gratitude grows.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about last week, gratitude is not just something where you walk up and thank somebody for something.
SPEAKER_00: It's a much deeper thing than that, and it is actually a part of what God does in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: To have a character of gratitude means that this transformation has been happening in that part of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And when you are allowing God to teach you gratitude and make you a person of gratitude, it impacts your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Now I chose this scripture because if you've been in church any amount of time, then you know that this scripture is a very famous scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's one that a lot of people know, a lot of people love, and I on purpose not to just repeat, you know, the same verse or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: We've preached on it before, but this is an incredible verse to teach this character trait, and I wanted one that was comfortable, that was a little more familiar, so we could talk about the process.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, as a pastor, one of the things that's most important for us, we talk about this in our staff meetings often, is that this is the most important thing we do right here what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: If I really was who I should be as a pastor, we'd do triangle messages every single week.
SPEAKER_00: And you'd be brewing every single week.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't do it that way because sometimes y'all just go, ah, we're doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: But really, this triangle growth process, this stepping out in faith in obedience to a command and allowing God to change us is literally the building block of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: This is how it works.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we do on a day-in, day out basis.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we spend time creating, and our staff has created that brew book for you to equip you to get that verse, to dig into this process, to step out in faith and let God create that faith pressure that helps you grow.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about that using this uh familiar verse.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just to break it down real quick, there are several commands in this verse.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is don't worry about anything.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is an impacting thing in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you do any kind of cultural, cultural research today, they tell us that people are under more stress and more anxiety than ever before in American history.
SPEAKER_00: They tell us that teenagers are under a stunning amount of anxiety and pressure because of the impact and of influencers on the internet.
SPEAKER_00: When they see social media and all these Photoshop pictures of people and all the arguments and the bullying and all the stuff that goes with all of that, that students are under more anxiety today than ever before.
SPEAKER_00: In the state of Arkansas, we have one of the highest rates of doctors prescribing anti-anxiety or anti-depression medicine of states all across the country.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible the amount of that that is impacting people.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's pretty easy to say, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're a worrier.
SPEAKER_00: My mom is a worrier.
SPEAKER_00: My mom watches all these messages.
SPEAKER_00: She's no I was gonna say this.
SPEAKER_00: My dad used to tease her all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Sweetheart, things are going great.
SPEAKER_00: What can you be worried about?
SPEAKER_00: And mom would say, Well, I'm just worried about what's gonna come next.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Worriers worry.
SPEAKER_00: But everybody has times in life when we have anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what he says: don't worry, but he tells us how not to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And he works into our character and uses these circumstances that are generating worry to teach us how to grow in him.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what he says: let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: So don't worry, but bring the circumstances or the stresses or the questions, the things that you're concerned about, the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: You bring those to God as your requests.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you pray about them.
SPEAKER_00: So he tells us, don't worry, let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he tells us how.
SPEAKER_00: In everything, in every circumstance, always, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, that's how we bring our prayers to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, through prayer, that word is the generic word for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's like come and pray.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pray.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word we use for pray all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer and petition, that word has a more specific sense to it.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, it's not just coming and praying, but it's bringing your specific prayers to Him and reaching out to God with this is what I need.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's powerful right there.
SPEAKER_00: It's an important.
SPEAKER_00: He is commanding us to be thankful as a part of our prayer life, be thankful as a part of combating worry, being thankful as a part of this entire process.
SPEAKER_00: And so thankfulness or the spirit of gratitude is a character trait that He is commanding.
SPEAKER_00: He's expecting us to step into and exercise in these moments.
SPEAKER_00: And even do it in times where the circumstances are causing us to worry.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what he says: this is a triangle verse.
SPEAKER_00: This is in your identity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is stretching out.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we say, Lord, I'm studying your word, and I'm in the middle of this stress, and I'm worried about it, and you said not to worry, and I need you to tell me how to do that and teach me how to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, here's how you do it, Greg.
SPEAKER_00: You are grateful, and you exercise gratefulness, and you let me build that spirit of gratitude because it will impact you, son, if you do it.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the process, how it works with Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've given you three examples of ways that we are thankful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we could spend weeks on just this list right here, but I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna give you three.
SPEAKER_00: And illustrate how we step out in faith in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, he's talking about in a time where we're supposed to be worried, where normal people would be worried.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you gotta be grateful even in those moments.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the mechanism of how we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the first one.
SPEAKER_00: We are grateful for our access to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15, he is using the illustration there of a high priest and how the high priest, when it was Jesus, changed the rules and allows us to boldly come to the throne of grace in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are grateful that we can always come into God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a powerful illustration in this book of Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Hebrews was written to take the Old Testament theology of how they did the Jewish faith and all of that, because all of that was designed to point to the Redeemer who would come, the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And then we know that that was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so in Hebrews, he's showing how Jesus fulfilled all those things.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the high priest was the one who would offer their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: The normal Jewish person, church member, couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Only the high priest would do that.
SPEAKER_00: You'll remember the stories of the tabernacle in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: What they understood was we're God's people, and God lives over there in the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: They would build the tabernacle, it would be a tent wall around it, and there would be a tent wall in a tent building in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: There would be two large rooms to that.
SPEAKER_00: There was one big room where the priests did all kinds of stuff, and there was a smaller room in the back of the tent that was called the Holy of Holies.
SPEAKER_00: And they knew that the Ark of the Covenant sat in there and God lived there.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, what would happen is God's presence would come down and he would hover over that part of the tent, and that's where God lived.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Old Testament, the high priest was your access to God.
SPEAKER_00: You had to go through him.
SPEAKER_00: There was no opportunity to go to God yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You brought your sacrifices to the priest, and the priest would take them to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The priest only went into the Holy of Holies one time a year with the blood sacrifices that were sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is it was such an intimidating thing.
SPEAKER_00: They built this incredible curtain wall that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the tent.
SPEAKER_00: It was woven with all of these colors and designs that were all pictures of the Messiah who would come.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a picture of how sin separated us, but one day the Messiah would give us access to the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, when the Holy Spirit, one of the coolest pictures in Scripture, and one of the most intimidating, is when the high priest put on his robes, there were bells that dangled on the bottom of his robes, and they tied a scarlet cord around his ankle so that if he went into the Holy of Holies and he wasn't clean before God, he would drop dead in the presence of God, in the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how do you go in there if only the high priest can get in there and you got this dead body lying in there?
SPEAKER_00: And what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: They would pull him out with the rope on his ankle.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you want a picture of how you be serious about your walk with Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Picture a rope around your ankle to drag you out of the presence of God if you weren't clean as you went before him.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the picture in Hebrews chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus became the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus died on the cross, there was a curtain separating the Holy of Holies in the temple, and the Bible says that God tore the curtain from the top to the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: He tore it in half, symbolizing that Jesus opened up our access to the person of God.
SPEAKER_00: And this verse says that Jesus is our high priest gives us the ability to literally personally come into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: I do not need a priest or anyone else to take me to the Lord now.
SPEAKER_00: As a follower of Jesus, when I've given my life to him, I have the complete freedom to boldly step into the holy presence of God and bring my prayers to him.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you can't get any better than that.
SPEAKER_00: Now here I am, I'm in this anxious situation, things are difficult, I'm stressed about all that, and I'm thinking, what am I going to do with this?
SPEAKER_00: And life changes when I stop and I get on my knees and I tell the Lord, thank you so much that I can boldly come into your presence with this request because of what Jesus has done for me.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden it becomes different.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing, think about this.
SPEAKER_00: We are grateful that God answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 11, the Bible tells us that Jesus had been praying and his disciples come to him and they say, Lord, we will you teach us how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: We want to pray like you do.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Yeah, and he gives them the Luke version of the Lord's Prayer, and then he gives them a parable teaching them about how you're to come to God and keep coming to him because he answers.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says, straight up, you keep asking and God will answer.
SPEAKER_00: You keep knocking and God will open the door.
SPEAKER_00: You keep seeking and God will, you will find him, and he will reveal himself to you.
SPEAKER_00: One of the many places where Jesus promises answered prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, listen, God answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you come to the Lord, it doesn't matter how big your circumstances or how stressful it is, Lord, thank you for giving me access to you, and Lord, praise you that I come knowing you're going to answer this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for being a God who answers my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: They don't get round filed, they don't get lost in a folder somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: When I bring my requests to you, you know them and you answer them and you care about me.
SPEAKER_00: When you take out that scripture in Luke chapter 11 and you read and said, Jesus says right here, you will answer my prayer if I keep asking.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm asking.
SPEAKER_00: It changes life.
SPEAKER_00: Another example.
SPEAKER_00: Grateful that God makes all things work for our good.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8: Verse 28 says this for all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: When you're a child of God, God never wastes a single circumstance in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Every situation is a classroom.
SPEAKER_00: Every circumstance is a classroom.
SPEAKER_00: All things work together for good.
SPEAKER_00: What does our verse say?
SPEAKER_00: In everything, with prayer and specific petitions, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: In everything, in every situation.
SPEAKER_00: And why can I be grateful in every situation?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is always using all of it for his glory and my good.
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's difficult or a struggle.
SPEAKER_00: That's an incredible picture of the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: That however I respond, sometimes I get it right and sometimes I mess it up.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: God is not captive to my choices.
SPEAKER_00: If I do it right, he is big enough to use that to work and help me grow.
SPEAKER_00: And if I mess it up, he loves me enough to step into it, and he's strong enough to take whatever mess I made and turn it for his glory and for my good.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses all of those for us.
SPEAKER_00: Heard a story about, as I was reading this week, a famous preacher from yesteryear, one of the things he was famous for to his congregation was always being so grateful and so positive about the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Every prayer was thank you, and every sermon was about thank you and how great God was, and every prayer was thank you, and every song was thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And he was just, and some of his people were kind of like, really?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how can anybody be that happy?
SPEAKER_00: How can you be grateful like that all the time?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the story goes, there's a particular guy in his church that was in a bad, kind of in a bad situation in life.
SPEAKER_00: He was kind of struggling.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, as they were coming up to Sunday, the weather was terrible in their town.
SPEAKER_00: It was raining, it was flooding, all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It was raining cats and dogs on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where you know it's not a Baptist church because the people there actually went to church on a Sunday that it rained.
SPEAKER_00: There's a little message in there.
SPEAKER_00: And so this guy comes to church and he's kind of like, you know, and he's like, How's the preacher gonna be thankful for this?
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher stands up and welcomes everyone, and he says, Let's pray, and he says, Lord, we thank you that the weather is not always like this.
SPEAKER_00: There is in every situation something to be grateful for.
SPEAKER_00: But really, not because we're just positive thinkers, but because we believe that God has a plan and he's at work.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so here's your triangle, here's what you're doing with prayer and thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Bring your request to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so you come to the Lord and you say, Okay, Lord, I don't feel this, but I'm stepping out.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I don't feel it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel your presence.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like my prayers are getting above the ceiling.
SPEAKER_00: I can't look past these circumstances, but your word says that I have access to you.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna step out and say, I am grateful that you're listening to me today.
SPEAKER_00: I am grateful that I can come into your presence.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful that I don't have to slink in here or wait in line or make an appointment, but your word says I can boldly come to the throne of grace.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that Jesus promised to answer my prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Even though I don't feel it, I'm praying it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said it, I'm gonna step out in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for answering my prayers, and thank you that in a circumstance where I can't find a way out, I can trust that you are working for good.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says that impacts us and our character when we are grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the next verse says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds.
SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it impacts us to step out in faith and exercise this gratefulness.
SPEAKER_00: It changes our character.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean, the peace of God?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say that he gives peace or creates peace or takes away the conflict or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: God is the God of peace.
SPEAKER_00: He is always at peace.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That means he is never stressed out about it.
SPEAKER_00: He is always in a place where he believes what's going to happen, he knows what he's going to do, he always has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is he takes his peace as we step out in faith to him, and he puts it in us and he changes our character and our perspective to trust and understand that.
SPEAKER_00: How does the peace of God impact us?
SPEAKER_00: When I am praying and stepping out in faith, he changes me.
SPEAKER_00: There's three ways.
SPEAKER_00: You see these three things we talked about.
SPEAKER_00: There are three ways that the peace of God now steps into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing it does is it gives us a sense of his presence.
SPEAKER_00: If I've been praying and I've been grateful that I can be in the presence of God, his peace gives me a sense that I know you didn't feel it before, but Greg, I've always been here and I have not left you.
SPEAKER_00: And now that you're focused and listening, I can remind you that I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: I can let you know that I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives me that sense of his presence because I've been grateful that I can be in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And the peace of God begins to come into our lives, it begins to change our character, and it begins to impact us and how we function and see the things around us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm okay now because I know that God's presence is here.
SPEAKER_00: You got the story of Paul and one of his missionary partners.
SPEAKER_00: They're in prison and they are in this dank, musty, horrible prison, and rats are everywhere, and they're chained in, and they've been falsely imprisoned for preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Man, they break out in a worship service and they start praising the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They're singing, and all the prisoners around are going, those guys are lunatics.
SPEAKER_00: And after they keep singing and praising the Lord, it begins to impact them, and there's a testimony set up in that.
SPEAKER_00: How can they be in that situation?
SPEAKER_00: Because they have developed a heart of gratitude, and because of that, they recognize the presence of God, and they recognize, man, this is horrible.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing Jesus is here with us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing Jesus is in the midst of my circumstance with me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has promised to be with me.
SPEAKER_00: And even from this prison, they may have put me in prison, but God did not, and I'm free to come into his prison no matter what person did to me, no matter who tried to shackle me, no matter what earthly prison I seem to be in, I am always able to boldly come and in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And God is always with us.
SPEAKER_00: When we're sensing his presence, it's not that somehow he came into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, God is always with us.
SPEAKER_00: The problem was with us.
SPEAKER_00: We get so distracted or frustrated with stuff we don't realize or we forget or we just become overwhelmed with worry or circumstances or whatever, and we just lose that sense of his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And when I come back and worship and I am grateful for that, then he is able to say, Thank you for paying attention, son.
SPEAKER_00: I'm right here with you.
SPEAKER_00: When we are grateful that Jesus answers our prayers, it strengthens our faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm saying Jesus promised to answer these prayers, and then I begin to think, Jesus answered this prayer in my life, and he answered this prayer in my life, and he answered this prayer in my life, and he answered this prayer in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Then I begin to realize he answers my prayers, and it changes how I bring those prayer requests to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now my character grows more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I grow closer in my relationship with him, and I have this supernatural sense of peace that, man, it's good because I've given this request to Jesus, and now he's got it.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to take care of it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's his.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to worry because he's got it, because he answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, for your promise to answer prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And my character grows, and there is an impact on me, and as I am changed, I have that sense of God's peace.
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly how Jesus said it would work.
SPEAKER_00: In John, Jesus said this: He said, My peace I give you.
SPEAKER_00: My peace as the world gives, but my peace I give you.
SPEAKER_00: And so what's happening is it is He is downloading in us, He is transforming our character.
SPEAKER_00: We are being changed.
SPEAKER_00: Our spiritual life is growing, and our perspective becomes the perspective of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith grows in Him and is strengthened, and we are different, and the peace of God is now affecting our perspective.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: In verse 7?
SPEAKER_00: The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to freak out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to try to take control of the situation.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go manipulate things.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go drown my sorrows or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to do any of that.
SPEAKER_00: My mind sees and understands what has been growing in my heart, and I have a biblical perspective that God is with me and He's answered this prayer, and I am safe and resting in His presence.
SPEAKER_00: And then trust that He is working.
SPEAKER_00: It builds the trust that He's working.
SPEAKER_00: If you take Romans 8.28 or other verses like that, and you are grateful that God has a plan, and I may not see it, but I can always trust that He's working, and I remember you did this, and I remember you did this, and I remember you did this.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that that's true, and I am grateful that you always have a plan.
SPEAKER_00: I am grateful that you always use this for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: I am grateful for what you're doing in the midst of this.
SPEAKER_00: It builds a trust that changes our perspective and our understanding of who God is and who we are and our identity as a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: And it impacts us.
SPEAKER_00: It changes us.
SPEAKER_00: When you step out in faith and you build this sense of gratitude, it alters your perspective and your understanding spiritually of life.
SPEAKER_00: And there is an impact on us.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Are you at peace?
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you another question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a sense of the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: The blessing of being a Christian is knowing that God is with you.
SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't you want to have a greater sense of his presence in your life?
SPEAKER_00: It happens through the process that impacts us, and that's where that sense comes from.
SPEAKER_00: From that change that occurs.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever trusted Christ as your Savior?
SPEAKER_00: Whether we're watching on television or internet, people here, do you know Christ is your Savior?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, this is a perfect message for you to get a sense of what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: People ask, what does it mean to be a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: And you get some idiot on MSNBC or CNN or somewhere, and they talk about whether they're Christian nationalists or whatever, and you get all this nonsense that goes on.
SPEAKER_00: You go on the internet and you get these idiots that talk about all this crazy stuff that doesn't have anything to do with what's in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: This is what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That you always are in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: That He loves you as a child and he answers your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: That he has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever's going right or whatever's going wrong, he is bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00: And he holds all that together and he works it in the path to accomplish the plan that he has designed for you in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That God works in your life and he does all this for you.
SPEAKER_00: Why give your life to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Walk into that relationship with him and let him do that in your life.
SPEAKER_00: In a moment, I'm gonna pray, and our people are gonna pray.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna ask God to give you the freedom to make a decision for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I'm gonna tell you a message like this, a scripture like this that works through that.
SPEAKER_00: When you see this, this is what Jesus wants to do in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Give your life to him and let him work.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, Jesus will do more with your life than you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Give your life to Christ and let him do this work in you.
SPEAKER_00: It will impact you supernaturally and powerfully in your life.
SPEAKER_00: How do I give my life to Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible makes it clear.
SPEAKER_00: God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loved you and He stepped out of heaven and he went to the cross and he died in your place.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody will pay the price for each of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: We will pay for it by spending an eternity separated from God.
SPEAKER_00: Or Jesus died on the cross so that his death could pay the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: And when you come to him and make him your Savior, it means that you come and you trust him gratefully.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for dying for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for paying the price for my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I couldn't fix that myself, but you did.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I give my life to you because you gave your life for me.
SPEAKER_00: And you give your life to Jesus, lock, stock, and barrel.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, he'll begin this process and he'll do more with your life than you could ever do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you this morning to give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Bow your heads and we're going to pray.
SPEAKER_00: If you're already a believer, I hope this message is encouraging to you because, as best we can, we've shown how this scripture, along with many other scriptures, teach how we grow in our relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever area in your life that you want to grow, that you need to grow, that this morning you'll make a commitment.
SPEAKER_00: Spend that time with him this week.
SPEAKER_00: Step out in faith in that area and let him impact and change your life.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you that your word is so incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It just connects with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We have a sense of knowing it's true and the Holy Spirit is teaching it to us.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray you'll take this passage of Scripture and this teaching of prayer and gratefulness, and that you will speak to hearts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you'll putty the cracks of the things that I may have said wrong or messed up, and that you will be our teacher and that you'll speak to hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, if there's someone who needs to be saved, I pray, Father, you'll use this to draw them to you, to get that vision of you working in their lives, and they have access to you, and you answer their prayers and you make all things work together for good.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that will draw them to you.
SPEAKER_00: Give them the faith and the freedom to respond to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, my brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord, I pray that you'll give us a stirring and excitement to be closer to you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, this morning we thank you for our brothers and sisters in the Hispanic church.
SPEAKER_00: And I thank you for the chance to worship together and to celebrate in these baptisms with them.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray your blessings on the pastor and the leaders.
SPEAKER_00: We pray your blessings on Thursday nights.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that you'll use them to bring more people to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we come now.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that you give us the freedom to respond to you.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people sin.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to chapter and first of the Bible teaching ministry of Four Smiths at the First Matter of the Church.