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: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great to see you.
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: We're excited as we head into the Christmas season.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking forward to, as a reminder, January 1, we're gonna uh start reading through the Bible together as a church family in a chronological fashion.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have a lot of tools we've been talking about to help you with that.
SPEAKER_00: So jump in and pay attention with us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, right off the lobby here is a room that we call the Bible recap room.
SPEAKER_00: And we have in there resources and we can help you walk through all of this.
SPEAKER_00: But January 1, we start.
SPEAKER_00: On January 1, you're gonna read Genesis 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's a couple of different ways you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a picture of the journal that you can buy for$10 if you want that.
SPEAKER_00: And what that is, is just a it gives you the reading for the day, and it just has some prompts, and it's really just a journal.
SPEAKER_00: We're not reading somebody else's book, we're reading God's book.
SPEAKER_00: And so it gives you a place to answer some questions about the scripture that you've been reading and make some notes.
SPEAKER_00: We also have for free um our uh some bookmarks that our folks have made that for each month that will walk you through the reading of each day, and uh, and so there's a lot of ways to do this.
SPEAKER_00: This this is a reading plan that has been put together.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Bible recap.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a platform of how they've woven together chronologically all the different scriptures to fit as we read through them together.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then, but there are a lot of resources as well.
SPEAKER_00: If you go on our church's website, we have a lot of tools that will help you move forward.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can get on there and you can get the Bible recap podcast and follow that and work your way through that.
SPEAKER_00: We uh it's a great podcast.
SPEAKER_00: What happens is you get up and you read, it's about three or four chapters a day.
SPEAKER_00: It takes you 10, 15, 12 minutes, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And then the podcast is a seven-minute podcast that just kind of recaps the reading.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a great help.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do it, but let's say one morning you get up late and coffee pot's broken, and so you're running behind, and you know, you jump in the car to drive to work, and you just turn on the podcast and she'll catch you up, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of different ways to do that.
SPEAKER_00: On the UVersion Bible app on your phone or your iPad, you can find this reading plan.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have your bookmark, you don't have to get lost, you can pull it up on there, you can pull up the podcast off of there.
SPEAKER_00: I've told you my wife, what she does is she puts her Bible on her recumbent bike that she rides every morning, and then she puts on the audio from that app, and it reads to her while she's reading it and pays attention and keeps her focus there.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of different ways to do it.
SPEAKER_00: We also have our From the Seat to the Street podcast.
SPEAKER_00: And uh this past week um Rebecca Martin was on there.
SPEAKER_00: Rebecca's one of the folks in our church who has done that, and she shares some great tidbits about why it was a blessing to her.
SPEAKER_00: She's done it in the past, and so I'd encourage you to I'd encourage you to check that out.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's a it's a great help and encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: So get ready.
SPEAKER_00: January 1, we start reading through the Bible together as a church family.
SPEAKER_00: And then each Sunday, uh, as I am preaching, I'll be preaching from that week's reading.
SPEAKER_00: And so what's incredible is as a church family, we will work our way through the entire length of Scripture over the course of 2026.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm very excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: Hope you are.
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about if you miss a day.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: We won't send Matt into your house until you've missed three days.
SPEAKER_00: So you have a little grace, okay?
SPEAKER_00: A little margin.
SPEAKER_00: No, you know we're kidding.
SPEAKER_00: Don't make it hard, don't make it homework, don't make it something weird.
SPEAKER_00: Read your way through it.
SPEAKER_00: If you miss a day, don't stress out about it.
SPEAKER_00: Catch up with the seven-minute podcast, or just pick up the next day and just go from there.
SPEAKER_00: If we do this and hang in together as a church, what'll happen is most of us will read most of Scripture, and all of us will get the context and arc of Scripture as we study our way through that together.
SPEAKER_00: And so it'll be an incredible time, and I hope you're in with us as we do that.
SPEAKER_00: This is driving you up the wall, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I can see y'all.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you'll have to wait a little while.
SPEAKER_00: I'll show it to you in a second.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 2, and we're going to continue our series on the gift of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and last week we talked about the giver of the gift of salvation and the heart of God as a giver.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about how often Scripture shows his heart as a giver and talks about the gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about the gift itself and the gift of hope that it brings.
SPEAKER_00: The gift of hope.
SPEAKER_00: So here we're going to read again the account from Luke chapter 2 of the night that Jesus was born.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what the Bible says in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.
SPEAKER_00: That same region, that's the same region, same area in which Jesus was born.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as you know, Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem, and then in that same area around the surrounding areas around Bethlehem, in the same region, that's where the shepherds were.
SPEAKER_00: Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
SPEAKER_00: But the angel said to them, Don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy.
SPEAKER_00: And you see that word joy, that will be for all the people.
SPEAKER_00: Today a Savior, who is Messiah, the Lord, was born for you in the city of David, Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: This will be a sign for you.
SPEAKER_00: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a feeding trough.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts, with the angel praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace, and you see that word highlighted, peace on earth to people he favors.
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: And so now you have this story in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is when you think about those words, hope, joy, and peace, those are very common at Christmas time.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you'll see Bobby just pulled up some, you know, pictures of ornaments and different things.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see those on, you know, the glass walls and restaurants and stores that decorate.
SPEAKER_00: In our house, we have a tree that stands right in front of the entry hall.
SPEAKER_00: We call that our Jesus tree.
SPEAKER_00: We've told you about that before if you've been here any number of years.
SPEAKER_00: And we have ornaments that look just like this peace, joy, hope hanging on our tree.
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, sometimes the more familiar we get with something, it kind of loses its impact to some extent.
SPEAKER_00: I told the chaff at campus this morning, one of the greatest, one of my favorite times every year is in November when Chick-fil-A finally brings back the peppermint milkshake.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is like heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: You've been waiting all year, it's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Now, y'all don't tell my wife, but I'm about 15 in now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not exaggerating.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's, you know, and now they're still really good, and I'm cramming them in because they're going to be gone.
SPEAKER_00: But but the 15th one doesn't taste like the first one.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all got me?
SPEAKER_00: You understand what I'm saying, right?
SPEAKER_00: Familiarity loses a little bit of its something.
SPEAKER_00: And we get familiar with this story, and we sing about angels and the heavenly host and joy to the world, and we see all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we lose the magnitude of a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to think about for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: In this moment in history, God opens up the doors of heaven, and he sends out what the Bible describes as the heavenly host of angels.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a Bible scholar, I want you to think about this for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only time in history that this happens.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only time recorded in history.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we have angels and we have moments and we have spiritual warfare and all that, but there's not any moment that is reflected by God opening up the doors of heaven and what could be the entirety of the angels, or certainly a massive amount of the angels all come out and reveal themselves and show themselves worshiping Jesus and filling the skies.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible moment.
SPEAKER_00: The only time you see anything that even looks close to this is in the book of Revelation when they're worshiping at the feet of the resurrected Jesus as eternity begins.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the moment of this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we got angels, and we put little blow-mold angels, and we've got little angels on the tree, and that's all cool.
SPEAKER_00: I think we ought to do that.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us of that, but sometimes that familiarity we forget.
SPEAKER_00: This moment in history is a unique moment in history that God marks in a way that he never marked another moment in history.
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible if you think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what would be so powerful in this moment that God does something that he's only done once.
SPEAKER_00: He marks it with an event that is so unique it only happens once.
SPEAKER_00: And listen to what they're singing.
SPEAKER_00: They are singing glory to God in the highest.
SPEAKER_00: And on earth, peace to the people God favors.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, his grace is shown.
SPEAKER_00: Joy and peace come in this moment, and it is so profound that God marks it in a once, in a human history moment.
SPEAKER_00: The magnitude of the angels.
SPEAKER_00: Hollywood can't, even with CGI, can't even begin to create a picture of God placing his stamp of majesty and approval on the birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What is so magnificent about this moment?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the message tells us that, as well as the method that he celebrates it.
SPEAKER_00: They are celebrating, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They are celebrating the birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly that deserves nothing added to it and is certainly worth the angels of heaven celebrating him.
SPEAKER_00: But it's even more than just the birth of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: It is we bring you good news of great joy and glory to God in the highest, because peace has entered into the human experience for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: It has now changed the course of human history.
SPEAKER_00: And God celebrates that what he has been weaving from day one is now unfolded and has happened.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible when you consider the magnitude of this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to try to do something here, and I'm going to need a couple of my helpers.
SPEAKER_00: So I got Dave and Matt are going to come help me with this.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked them to come do this because they always order me around and tell me what I'm supposed to do, so I get a little turnabout fair play now.
SPEAKER_00: This is a very famous document.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Adams Map of History.
SPEAKER_00: Adams was a college professor, a scholar, a college president, a pioneer in the Wild West.
SPEAKER_00: He was an elected official.
SPEAKER_00: He was an incredibly brilliant man.
SPEAKER_00: He was also a believer.
SPEAKER_00: And through his lifetime and study of human history, he created a map.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible and the story of Jesus is the center part.
SPEAKER_00: And then he creates around this map all the major events of human history unfolded right here along the story of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Matt is going to begin right there with Cain and Abel and Dave.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you have enough room on the stage to be able to unfold this.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to see this.
SPEAKER_00: It is reprinted in the way that the guy actually did it.
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to stand in the back and hold it up?
SPEAKER_00: Keep going, Dave.
SPEAKER_00: Is that awesome?
SPEAKER_00: Move that way a little bit, man.
SPEAKER_00: That is human history from Adam and Eve up to 1871.
SPEAKER_00: And this tells the story of Scripture historically as it lays itself out in all of the events of human history.
SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: Janet and I are going to donate one of these and we're going to put it in the Bible recap room so you can see it.
SPEAKER_00: And it is amazing when you begin to place Scripture in the history of human race and you see how God has unfolded this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you begin to read this, here's what you realize.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that human history is nothing but conflict and war.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this week, apologize for my voice, I'll probably cough up a lung here in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I have an allergic reaction to something, I got a sinus infection, so it's given me more time to read and study.
SPEAKER_00: So here's two things I want to recommend to you that illustrate this point.
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm trying to get across to you is the magnitude of the entirety of the angels of heaven showing up to celebrate this gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: There's two things I'd recommend to you.
SPEAKER_00: First one is on YouTube, if you'll YouTube, TED Talk and Billy Graham.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: TED Talk and Billy, if you know what a TED Talk is, those famous like philosophers and all that, and they do this 20-minute deal and all.
SPEAKER_00: When Billy was 80, they were having a TED Talk in California related to technology.
SPEAKER_00: So it's all these people talking about AI and internets and the future of all this kind of.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked him to come speak on the intersection of faith and technology.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a masterclass in teaching the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of the greatest sermons I've ever heard, and every person ought to study it.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: But in it, what he says is he uses the illustration of David, and David is about here in this story.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bronze Age, you're coming out of the Bronze Age, in the Iron Age, and he uses the example of an explosion of technology.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible tells us that a nation called the Hittites, and they were, you know, you know what the G8 is today, the big countries in the economy and the G8.
SPEAKER_00: In the G8 in that day, the Hittites were one of the G8.
SPEAKER_00: And you see them in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And they had the iron technology, and Israel did not, and they had kept it from Israel, and they were enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And David was able to bring that technological revolution to the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, they explode as a nation because technology has equipped them to do incredible things they've never been able to do.
SPEAKER_00: Economically, militarily, and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then Billy says this in all of the technology and all of history, whether it's the Iron Age, whether it's the invention of the computer, other significant cultural events like personal deodorant and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all get that, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for that invention, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: All of those inventions, they have failed to answer three primary questions.
SPEAKER_00: Technology has never answered the question of human evil.
SPEAKER_00: It has never answered the question of human suffering, and it has never answered the question of death.
SPEAKER_00: And what you see from Cain and Abel through, you have God starting over in the flood, and within 300 years, you get to the Tower of Babel, and we've already started it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: And he spreads us around the world, and then you have nation states are built, and people attacking other people, and you have different races that grow from that, but we all came from the same heritage, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's only one human race, but now it's spread around, and we begin to get these differences in our races that happen because of that.
SPEAKER_00: And you have racism and you have battles and you have wars, and all of these maps right here, all of them show that we have never solved the question of human evil, human suffering, and human death.
SPEAKER_00: There's another podcast I would encourage you to listen to.
SPEAKER_00: The name of the podcast is School of War.
SPEAKER_00: Something that I listen to.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great just studies like this is what we learn from wars and history that speak into the future and give us information and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: In the most recent episode, they interviewed a man who has written books on the ancient history of civilizations and the rise and fall of those civilizations.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to take that from about here to about here.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of this is rising and falls of these nations: Babylon, Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And every one of them, they rise to power under certain conditions, the culture falls apart, and certain things happen, and that civilization deteriorates.
SPEAKER_00: It has happened to every single governmental structure in human history.
SPEAKER_00: There are ones now like America or Russia or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't fallen yet, but there has never been a civilization that did not rise and then did not fall.
SPEAKER_00: And human history portrays that all the way through.
SPEAKER_00: And I listened to that and it was fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: And when you put your biblical worldview and you see how Scripture is woven through this, and God is bringing the promise of Jesus because no civilization, no government structure, no other formal religious type thing, none of that has ever solved the problem of human evil, of human suffering, and of human death.
SPEAKER_00: In all of this history.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do with it now.
SPEAKER_00: If we fall there you go.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick it up afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we need to understand.
SPEAKER_00: In all of that history, in all of that study, in all of those experiences, all woven through that, from the very beginning of time with Adam and Eve was the promise of a Savior who would solve the problems of human evil, human suffering, and human death.
SPEAKER_00: And on the night that Jesus was born, God opened up the heavens and sent countless scores of angels to explode the sky to say that hope, joy, and peace had now actually come to the human race.
SPEAKER_00: You think about the statement that peace has come in a world that's never known peace.
SPEAKER_00: The entire history of the nation of Israel was a war.
SPEAKER_00: It was a war.
SPEAKER_00: It was a constant war.
SPEAKER_00: They escape from Egypt and they have war with the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_00: They go through the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and they're battling and struggling.
SPEAKER_00: They have war to go in and take over the land of Canaan as they have unfolded that through the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: You have war after war after war.
SPEAKER_00: They call for a king, and Saul does nothing but go to war.
SPEAKER_00: And David does nothing but go to war.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God told David, there was a moment where David said, I want to build God a temple, and God says, No, you're a man of war.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to let you build it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to let your son build it.
SPEAKER_00: The nation of Israel split into civil wars, the northern kingdom into southern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: They were all conquered and repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: And you have all throughout scripture in the book of Daniel and all of that, and now you end up with the Roman Empire, and they're a conquered nation again under the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: And God splits the skies of heaven and says, Now there is peace.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot underestimate the significance and the majesty of that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to give you my favorite Christmas verse.
SPEAKER_00: And you probably didn't know it was a Christmas verse.
SPEAKER_00: But it's Romans 15 13.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to stay there in Luke chapter 2, and I want you to watch how this unfolds.
SPEAKER_00: Now the word hope doesn't show up, but hope is clearly there when he says a message of good news of great joy to all people, which is a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what the book of Romans says in chapter.
SPEAKER_00: 15.
SPEAKER_00: This verse says, May the God of hope, and you'll see all three words there, these are our Christmas words, hope, joy, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: May the God of hope, that is literally who God is.
SPEAKER_00: He is the God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who started in the very beginning of time.
SPEAKER_00: And in all of this mess and all of this chaos, I am sending a Savior, there is hope.
SPEAKER_00: I am sending a Savior, there is hope.
SPEAKER_00: All those pictures of sacrifices and all of that that happened all throughout in the nation of Israel, in the history of that, all of that, there is hope.
SPEAKER_00: I am sending a savior.
SPEAKER_00: There is hope, I'm sending a savior.
SPEAKER_00: God is the God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever let anyone tell you that the God of the Old Testament is some evil, vindictive, mean God, and all that kind of nonsense that you hear.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that God is the God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Human evil, human suffering, and human death are the result of the judgment of our sin that we chose as a human race.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says God is the God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: And when he split the skies of heaven, he said, Hope is here.
SPEAKER_00: It is here.
SPEAKER_00: And when you give your life to Jesus, the Bible says that's where the joy and the peace part of that comes in.
SPEAKER_00: Good news of great joy, which shall be for all people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came and died for every person who ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: He gives them the opportunity to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: He creates the path to accomplish the promise of salvation in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a message of joy.
SPEAKER_00: And the message of good news is salvation in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Good news of great joy.
SPEAKER_00: I have sent you a Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And peace flows from that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just let you break down that just for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: The God of hope is who God is.
SPEAKER_00: We saw last week he is the God of love, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says now not only is he a God of love, that he creates the gift of salvation, that then makes him the God of hope because he has provided a means of salvation for us.
SPEAKER_00: That is who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And then he speaks of joy.
SPEAKER_00: What is that?
SPEAKER_00: That is salvation brought through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is joy in a walk with Jesus that does not exist in anything else.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other way to know actual joy that transcends circumstances, that transcends questions, that transcends the experiences of human evil, human suffering, and human death.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rises above all that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus conquers all of that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the cross, the Bible says in Hebrews 12, says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.
SPEAKER_00: There is joy in salvation that you can't describe in any other way outside the person of Jesus, and you cannot find outside the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But when you know him as your Savior, there is joy that takes over your life.
SPEAKER_00: It is the gift of God, it is the result of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He brings that through the gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And then there is peace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the peace that he's talking about when the angels speak and they say peace to men whom God favors or how whichever version of that that you read.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about world peace.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's never been world peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons I brought this map, and I want you to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And when we put it in the recap library room out there, you can walk through and you can watch all the wars of all of mankind and all the nations and all the conquering and all the fighting everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's not just ancient history in which there's war.
SPEAKER_00: There has never been a time in my life where there were not multiple wars in our world.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, right now, the president talks about having negotiated ends to like eight different wars, and there's still other wars going on.
SPEAKER_00: That's not about the president.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't send me an email, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's just an illustration of how much that goes on.
SPEAKER_00: It's everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's not talking about peace because peace did not break out after the coming of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not peace like that.
SPEAKER_00: Why is there no peace?
SPEAKER_00: Because of the problem of human evil.
SPEAKER_00: People hate each other, they treat each other terrible, they steal stuff from each other, they create governments that are based on false truths and false ideas and hold people down and do all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: The peace that God is talking about is the peace that only Jesus brings.
SPEAKER_00: It is the peace that comes through salvation.
SPEAKER_00: When I know Christ is my Savior, there is no more guilt in my life.
SPEAKER_00: There is no more condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible literally says that.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in the book of Romans, in the same book as our Christmas verse we're looking at today, there is, therefore, now no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you have peace before God.
SPEAKER_00: You are in a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: There is no fear that I could ever lose my identity as a salvation, as a saved person.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that when you are saved, you are saved from eternity.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible describes that gift again in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes him will not or never perish, but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't save you for you to have 10-year life.
SPEAKER_00: It depends on whether you are able to keep it or not.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saved you from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
SPEAKER_00: He changed your heart, he changed your name, he changed your desire, he changed your future, and he changed your eternity when he saved you.
SPEAKER_00: And now you are in a relationship with him, and you are never afraid of losing your identity in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our relationship may go like this as we're learning to walk with him, and we struggle with that and learn lessons, but it never goes away, and you never lose your identity, and God never gives up on you, and he never walks away from you, and he's with us always.
SPEAKER_00: And so he has filled us with a sense of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this.
SPEAKER_00: Treaties are broken.
SPEAKER_00: People are people, human evil, human suffering, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says his peace never goes away.
SPEAKER_00: And that peace that comes with him as a Savior, when he saves us and he gives us that new identity, and we are adopted with God as our Heavenly Father, and we are joint heirs with Christ, the Bible says, and we are in that relationship, and now there is peace beyond description.
SPEAKER_00: When human evil or human suffering happen around us, we have joy and we have peace because of what God has done in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says we have hope through the gift of salvation because the God of hope fills us with joy.
SPEAKER_00: And when I know the joy of walking with Jesus, and I have the peace that I can never lose that relationship and I'm always in Him, then it gives me hope beyond what you can describe.
SPEAKER_00: And the hope that comes from the Lord is not like, man, I hope something happens.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I hope that new football coach in Fayetteville can actually win a game or two.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's kind of a grasping at straws hope these days in some ways.
SPEAKER_00: This is hope that comes because I know I'm gonna spend an eternity with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's a hope that comes because I have the joy of a relationship with him, and I have the peace that comes from nothing can separate me from him, and I am with him always, and I know I'm gonna be there in eternity, and there is a hope that happens because I know no matter how bad this gets, heaven is gonna be awesome and it is real, and it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: The God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: And so now when you see that ornament or you see that word painted on a window, hope means something so much more significant.
SPEAKER_00: It is hope that comes from being filled with joy and peace.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Greg, how does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's how it happens.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible makes it clear in our Christmas verse.
SPEAKER_00: Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Jesus and are filled through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, comes and lives in us in the moment of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: When you gave your life to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came and lived inside of you, and the Bible describes him as the seal and the down payment on our inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: Man, it is an irrevocable contract that happens when you gave your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It is sealed by the blood of Jesus, it is held by the promise of God, and it is gripped by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can ever separate us from the person of God in salvation in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It is held with his eternal, everlasting, omnipotent power through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that gift of salvation must be received.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: A gift must be received.
SPEAKER_00: So we talked about last week.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we loved him first, but he first loved us and gave his son to be the payment for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to accept this gift.
SPEAKER_00: It's not automatic in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved because you came to church.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved because you're a human.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved because your mom and dad were saved.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved because it says Baptist Church out on the street sign or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: None of that's what saves you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not saved because you think you did really good this week and you impressed the Lord, and so you showed you were worthy.
SPEAKER_00: None of that is how you receive the gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, for by grace are we saved, and that is the giver giving the gift through faith, that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_00: What a shame it would be in your house and your family, if all those gifts that you wrapped sitting under the tree, you went and had turkey and dressing, and you went and ate fruitcake and apple pie and whatever it is that your mom or your grandmother makes for your family deal, if you had monkey bread on Christmas morning, which is our tradition, and all that kind of stuff, and you never opened the gifts.
SPEAKER_00: What a tragedy it would be if those gifts sat under your tree and they were never accepted by the person that they were given to.
SPEAKER_00: And on January the 2nd, you loaded them up in your car and you took them to the Salvation Army.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens if you don't accept the gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You must reach out in faith by believing in Jesus to accept this gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It is a volitional, intentional choice.
SPEAKER_00: When you give your life to Christ, you are acknowledging there's nothing that I can do, not of works, lest any man should boast.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything to earn my salvation, to be worthy of my salvation, to add to my salvation or anything else.
SPEAKER_00: But you come to Jesus and you realize Jesus paid it all and all to him I owe.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Lord, I am going to believe in you and give you my life.
SPEAKER_00: What does that belief look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible explains it in the same book in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: It explains very clearly: if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: It is the promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible says those two things.
SPEAKER_00: You confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're just saying words.
SPEAKER_00: What it means is you are making a public confession that I have given my life to Jesus, and it is not mine anymore, and it belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: It is his.
SPEAKER_00: And now he does with your life whatever he wants to do with it.
SPEAKER_00: But remember, he gave you that gift of salvation out of his love.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he do something terrible with your life?
SPEAKER_00: He gave his to give you this gift.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you give your life to him, what happens is you go where he wants you to go, you do what he wants you to do.
SPEAKER_00: He begins to change and restructure your life to make you become more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But every day of your life, he fills you with joy and peace that gives you a hope for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: This right here is human history.
SPEAKER_00: And on this map is the moment where the angels split the sky and celebrated the birth of Jesus because that is a real historical moment.
SPEAKER_00: And then as you move a little bit further, you reach the point where Jesus, even though he had never sinned, allowed himself to be prosecuted, convicted, and hung on a Roman cross so that he could die in our place and pay the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: And on this map is the historical moment and fact in history when Jesus walked out of that tomb and conquered death and sin because he is the God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: And so you come to history and you believe that really happened.
SPEAKER_00: You got to believe that happened.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not a myth, and all this weird stuff out there about he's a mythical figure and he represents whatever kind of a stories or all this kind of nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: Satan puts all that out there because he is trying to obscure the fact that this is a real fact of history.
SPEAKER_00: Someone has to die for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: It can be you and me, or we can trust Jesus to have done it for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you, if you have never accepted the gift of salvation, I want to invite you to accept God's gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you to give your life to Jesus by accepting that gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Confess Him as Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: If you're watching on the internet or television, you can give your life to Jesus right there where you are.
SPEAKER_00: There's no incantation, there's no whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It is an intentional, volitional choice that you make to surrender your life to Jesus and trust what he did for you on the cross to save you.
SPEAKER_00: Here in the room, I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_00: God's people are going to stand and sing an invitation hymn.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be singing because we want you to know we believe in the truth of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And if you need Jesus, you come.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have ministers ahead of our aisles, or if somebody we can we can get to you if you're in the balcony.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be in the lobby after the service is over.
SPEAKER_00: Don't leave here without accepting that gift.
SPEAKER_00: Don't leave it under the tree of life unopened.
SPEAKER_00: Give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you for salvation in Jesus' name and what that means to us today.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray this morning that if there's someone who needs to be saved, they will accept this gift.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that the Holy Spirit will putty the cracks and stuff I messed up or said wrong or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I pray the living, powerful word of God will speak to lives and hearts, and that this morning you'll give a freedom to people to respond to your call to accept the gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It is in Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said.
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, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith at the First Baptist Church.