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: All right, thank you, Pastor Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, choir, thank you, orchestra.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Greg is not here today, and you know we had the children sing earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't that wonderful having the children sing?
SPEAKER_01: I was reminded recently in the hallway, one of the children that was not singing came up to me and said, Pastor Dave, are you Pastor Greg's daddy?
SPEAKER_01: That made me have a lot of thoughts about skincare regimen.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the hair needs to get some attention.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not Pastor Greg's father.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, Pastor Greg is older than me by about two or three months.
SPEAKER_01: And for the sake of today, we're going to say it's three months.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, we've got it all today, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: We've got the little kid singing, and then we've got Pastor Greg's dad coming up to give the sermon today.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I started with that.
SPEAKER_01: Just seemed like a great way to break the ice.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in Joshua chapter 5 in a few minutes today.
SPEAKER_01: I want to begin today by asking you a few questions, a little bit of self-reflection for each one of us here.
SPEAKER_01: You know, in this life, we tend to align with different things.
SPEAKER_01: We tend to align with people.
SPEAKER_01: We align with people that we call friends.
SPEAKER_01: We align with different personalities, perhaps, that we see on television or on film, or maybe we align with a celebrity from the world of sports or maybe even a celebrity from the world of politics or intellectual thinking or things like that.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we align with politics.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we are a die hard, fill-in-the-blank political party kind of person.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we align with causes.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a person calls themselves a conservationalist or someone says they're an environmentalist or they align with, they're definitely in the pro-life movement, or people just align with different things.
SPEAKER_01: And today I want us to look at those things and ask the question all of those things, many of them can work to our detriment, many of them can work in a positive way, but what's more important is are we aligned with God?
SPEAKER_01: Are we aligned with God?
SPEAKER_01: Brother Tony has a tire shop, and if your tires are not all pointing the same direction, if one of them decides it wants to point in a different direction, your tires are out of alignment, and that will mess up your car, and you can end up paying more money as a result of the things that can happen if you keep that tire out of alignment, but you continue to drive that vehicle for miles and miles and miles.
SPEAKER_01: Aligning with God.
SPEAKER_01: Today we are in Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in our our Bible recap, our chronological Bible study, we're in Joshua this past week, and we did a whole series on Joshua here at First Baptist not too long ago.
SPEAKER_01: And as a matter of fact, some of you may remember that for several weeks, Pastor Greg led us through Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And during that time, I was called to preach one of the messages, but it wasn't the message in Joshua that I really wanted to preach.
SPEAKER_01: So today you're gonna hear that message.
SPEAKER_01: The message from Joshua that I really wanted to preach.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be in Joshua chapter 5, beginning in verse 13 in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But before we begin our time in God's word, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Bow with me.
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for our brothers and sisters in the faith that are gathered around us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for those that are with us.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps they are watching online right now.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I ask you that you would prepare our minds, our hearts, our very spirits to hear from you as we go into this word, which you have inspired, which you have preserved down through the centuries, Lord, through that inspiration of your Holy Spirit, may the Holy Spirit that dwells within all believers, may that Holy Spirit open our eyes to this word, and may we come away today reminded of things we've forgotten.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll learn something for the very first time.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe, Lord, we'll just put, we'll be put on a better path of being aligned with you.
SPEAKER_01: And in all of this we will give you the honor, the credit, and the glory.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray this in the name of our matchless Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be reading from the New King James Version this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Your Bible might have a few little differences here and there, but I'm sure we'll get through there.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go ahead and begin in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: It came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries?
SPEAKER_01: So he said, No, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant?
SPEAKER_01: Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua did so.
SPEAKER_01: And we will stop our reading right there.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very famous passage.
SPEAKER_01: It's a passage, however, that often gets overlooked when we're doing something as strong as a Bible recap chronological study, because we're really focused on capturing not just a small section of scripture every day, instead, we're reading chapters at a time every day.
SPEAKER_01: But these verses, these five verses, uh three verses, excuse me, have so much content for us today.
SPEAKER_01: And they help us, they help steer us, they help align us with Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the beginning, when we go back to verse 13, we're told, as it came to pass, and if you look at what happens in that chapter before as it came to pass, you will see that the Israelites have already crossed the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: They are already in the area of the promised land that God had given them, and you read that all of the pagan nations occupying that land were scared to death.
SPEAKER_01: Their hearts were melting inside of them.
SPEAKER_01: They were melting inside of them because God had stopped up the Jordan River, and a million plus Israelites had come across that river as on dry land, and then they had just occupied the area there on the border of the Promised Land.
SPEAKER_01: And then we see this the people of Israel do a few things that we'll get into in just a few moments, and we see that it comes to pass that Joshua, he's looking down.
SPEAKER_01: We know that because the Bible says he looked up.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking down, and we don't know exactly what Joshua was doing.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps he was in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps he was thinking, Lord, how are you going to use us to conquer this land?
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps he was going over some details.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps his basketball team had lost in the NCAA tournament.
SPEAKER_01: And he was down.
SPEAKER_01: He was looking down.
SPEAKER_01: That's a joke for our Arkansas folks in here, which is most of us.
SPEAKER_01: We just know that he looks up and suddenly there is this figure before him.
SPEAKER_01: The language that's in the Bible suggests the idea that it's out of the ordinary, out of the blue, just suddenly there's this man standing opposite Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: The King James uses the language that this man stands against Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: He is standing opposed to him.
SPEAKER_01: He's facing Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And this man has a sword, a drawn sword in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: What a sight that must have been.
SPEAKER_01: One minute you got your head down, next minute you look up, and there's a man with a drawn sword in his hand facing you.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua goes to the man.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks to the man.
SPEAKER_01: The man speaks back.
SPEAKER_01: And as we see this man speaking to Joshua, he uses language to talk about himself.
SPEAKER_01: He uses language to talk about the ground upon which he stands and the ground upon which Joshua stands that shows us that this isn't just an ordinary man.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't even just an ordinary angel.
SPEAKER_01: Something very different is happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_01: Something very unusual is happening here.
SPEAKER_01: This angel, this commander of the armies of the Lord, he doesn't act like other angels that we see in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, other angels we see in the Bible come with a message from God that the people need to hear.
SPEAKER_01: The word angel means messenger.
SPEAKER_01: And we remember it at Christmas time, we always hear the story of the angel Gabriel coming to tell Mary that she is going to be the mother of our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: In the Old Testament book of Daniel, that same angel Gabriel comes and delivers a message to Daniel about things that are going to unfold in the future.
SPEAKER_01: This angel isn't really coming with a message.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he's coming with orders.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming and he's acting less like an angel.
SPEAKER_01: He's acting more like God himself.
SPEAKER_01: Things that he says mirror the language that Moses heard when Moses encountered the burning bush.
SPEAKER_01: This angel says, Take off your sandals, for the ground upon which you stand is holy.
SPEAKER_01: And through the centuries, in reading and in studying this passage, it has become understood to us that this angel, this commander of the armies of the Lord, may be more than just an angel.
SPEAKER_01: He may in fact be an appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: We have a 25-cent word for that called Christophany or Theophany.
SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of God appearing before his incarnation.
SPEAKER_01: He would not be named Jesus yet chronologically, because the name Jesus is given to him when he is placed in the womb of the Virgin Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the Bible tells us that God the Son has been, always was, is, and always will be.
SPEAKER_01: There was never a time when God the Son did not exist.
SPEAKER_01: Years ago when I was pastoring in Tennessee, I made the statement that God the Son has always been, is, and always will be, and I had a few people after the service come up to me and say, I just thought that Jesus didn't occur, didn't appear, didn't begin until he was placed in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
SPEAKER_01: Before that, I didn't think there was a God the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the Bible makes it very, very clear.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, in talking about the creation of the world, the Bible tells us that everything that was created was created through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has always been.
SPEAKER_01: There has always been Father, Son, and Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way it's always been.
SPEAKER_01: And so here we have possibly an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he is not there to come along Joshua, pat Joshua on the back, and say, I'm with you, brother.
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
SPEAKER_01: No, instead, what the commander of the armies of the Lord does is he demands that Joshua and the Israelites come along and align with him.
SPEAKER_01: And align with him.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we align with God, to go back to my original point, when we are aligning ourselves with God, we are going to act differently.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see ourselves differently, and we're going to see God differently.
SPEAKER_01: First off, we're going to look at four different things in this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at the power of God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at the preparation for God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: I should have started with that.
SPEAKER_01: Then the power of God's presence, then the position of his presence, and the perfection of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: And since all of these start with the letter P, they are Southern Baptist approved, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way we do things around here.
SPEAKER_01: I had someone ask me years ago, why is it that Southern Baptists do alliteration so much?
SPEAKER_01: And it's because we want to make these things easy for you to remember.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes I think we want to make it easy for the preacher to remember as well, just between you and me.
SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look in preparing for his presence.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at this first point here.
SPEAKER_01: Preparing for his presence.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier in this same chapter, I was just upstairs teaching a Sunday school class on the second floor, and they got to hear me talk about what the Israelites did earlier in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: And if you take a look at what they did, one of the things that they did is they had spent 40 years in the wilderness before they came into the Promised Land.
SPEAKER_01: And during those 40 years, they had stopped the Israeli rite of circumcision.
SPEAKER_01: And so you had all of these young men or adult men who needed to be circumcised so that they would be brought into the covenant that had been created, that God had created with Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Now, whenever you talk about circumcision, everybody's just like, oh, will you please hurry and get to the next thing?
SPEAKER_01: Because no one wants to talk about this.
SPEAKER_01: Alright?
SPEAKER_01: But the first thing they had to do in chapter 5 was they had to bring all of the males in line with the circumcision ritual, with the with the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: So they did that in the first parts of chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: And in the second part of chapter 5, something that only takes up a small, one or two verses, it tells us that they celebrated the Passover feast.
SPEAKER_01: And it even gives us the date of when they celebrated the Passover feast.
SPEAKER_01: And you find out that it was on the right day for celebrating Passover.
SPEAKER_01: Now, today in the historic Christian calendar, we normally would call this Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And we would celebrate Jesus coming into Jerusalem, people waving the palm branches, and that begins a week that we often call Holy Week.
SPEAKER_01: And on Thursday of Holy Week is the Passover festival when the Lord institutes the Lord's Supper with his apostles.
SPEAKER_01: And so this does fit in many ways the calendar of this week by going to this lesson, because the Israelites had just celebrated Passover together.
SPEAKER_01: What were the Israelites doing?
SPEAKER_01: Why did they reinstitute the circumcision right?
SPEAKER_01: Why did they celebrate Passover after they crossed the Jordan and landed in the Promised Land?
SPEAKER_01: They knew that they had battles coming up.
SPEAKER_01: God had said, you are going to displace the evil peoples of this land and you're going to take over this land.
SPEAKER_01: That was his will.
SPEAKER_01: And so what they did was they did a little self-examination.
SPEAKER_01: And they asked themselves, is there anything that we aren't doing that we should be doing as God's chosen people?
SPEAKER_01: And someone who I'm sure was very unpopular from that moment forward in time said, We haven't done the circumcision ritual.
SPEAKER_01: And so they said, Yes, we need to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And so they took care of that.
SPEAKER_01: Then another person said, We have not observed the Passover all this time that we've been in the wilderness because we haven't been able to get grain to make unleavened bread.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible tells you in chapter 5 that now that they were in the promised land, they were able to get the materials that they need, they celebrated the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: And in celebrating the Passover, what they were doing was they were remembering that Passover festival is filled with symbols that reminded the Israelites of their time in bondage, of their time as slaves in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And so they celebrated that Passover and they remembered how good God had been to take them out of that slavery and deliver them into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: What does this mean for us today?
SPEAKER_01: What it means for us today is if we're going to align with God, if we're going, if we're saved, ladies and gentlemen, and we're going to align ourselves with God and his purposes, then from time to time we need to do some self-examination.
SPEAKER_01: We need to think, is there anything that we're doing that we shouldn't be doing?
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that we shouldn't be doing that we're doing?
SPEAKER_01: And once the Holy Spirit identifies those things to us, we need to go ahead and take care of that.
SPEAKER_01: We need to take care of that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, when we do that, when we examine ourselves, we examine ourselves when we have the Lord's Supper together, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can't examine yourself at times other than the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_01: And once they examined themselves and they took care of those things, they were now separating themselves from the influences of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They were isolating themselves as God's holy people.
SPEAKER_01: They were being obedient to what it was that He called them to do.
SPEAKER_01: They were examining themselves in that Passover festival.
SPEAKER_01: They were being filled with gratitude for everything that God had done.
SPEAKER_01: And likewise, us, when we align with God, we need to practice examination, separation, obedience, and we need to have a spirit of gratitude if we're going to align ourselves with what God is calling us to do.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to our next slide.
SPEAKER_01: The power of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: That commander of the armies of the Lord had a sword.
SPEAKER_01: That sword was drawn and in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's one thing if a person has the sword in the scabbard and they're walking around and the sword is not drawn, you are not reluctant to go and have a conversation with that person.
SPEAKER_01: But once that sword is drawn, then it is sending the signal that that person is ready for combat, ready for combat right now, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_01: I've had the privilege through the years of talking with people who've served on police forces and sheriff forces, and they have informed me almost to a man that once they draw their weapon, then they are in a position where they are ready to give fire at a moment's notice if it's necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise with a sword, when the sword was drawn, the statement was being made, I am ready for battle against you or anyone else at a moment's notice.
SPEAKER_01: This man stood opposite Joshua with a drawn sword in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: When we think of the power of God, we think of the strength of God.
SPEAKER_01: God is, the seminary word is omnipotent.
SPEAKER_01: The idea is that he is all powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing is more powerful than God.
SPEAKER_01: Could we agree to that?
SPEAKER_01: That nothing is more powerful than God?
SPEAKER_01: You know, from time to time I live in this world just like you do, and I'll see people, they're so worried about what's happening in other parts of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They're so worried about what's happening here in our own country.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people get worried about what's happening in their own neighborhoods here in Fort Smith.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to remind ourselves God is all powerful.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing that is going to happen that is beyond God's ability to handle it.
SPEAKER_01: He is all-powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And when we recognize that God is all-powerful, that should create in us a reverent fear of God.
SPEAKER_01: All too often in American life we are so urgent to bring people into church and to make them welcome that we begin to talk about Almighty God not as the omnipotent, all-powerful God, but instead we begin to talk about God in terms of He is your buddy.
SPEAKER_01: He is a grandpa-like figure that you can go to and just cuddle up with.
SPEAKER_01: Now don't get me wrong, ladies and gentlemen, we do serve a loving God.
SPEAKER_01: We do serve a God who loves us.
SPEAKER_01: And yet at the same time this loving God is also all-powerful, almighty, and willing to use his power for his purposes at any given time.
SPEAKER_01: He is a God that is worthy of our respect, of our fear.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see the power of his presence.
SPEAKER_01: And when we are aligning ourselves with God, we need to remember that we are not coming alongside God doing him some big favor, as though we are somehow strengthening his role in the world.
SPEAKER_01: No, when we come alongside Almighty God, he is all-powerful.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need our help, but he through his grace gives us the ability to participate in the things that he is doing.
SPEAKER_01: I've been teaching on Wednesday night, C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis in Mere Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: We've had about anywhere from 45 to 50 people in there from week to week.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for all of you that have been attending.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis makes a point about sharing in God's work.
SPEAKER_01: Why does God let us share in his work?
SPEAKER_01: How does it give God pleasure for us to be involved in his work?
SPEAKER_01: And Lewis uses an illustration.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a little boy who goes up to his father and says Daddy, I want to buy you a Christmas present.
SPEAKER_01: Can you give me$20 so I can buy you a Christmas present.
SPEAKER_01: But it makes the father happy that the son wants to buy him a Christmas present and show his appreciation and love for his father.
SPEAKER_01: So what does the father do?
SPEAKER_01: Gives him the$20.
SPEAKER_01: And he receives the joy of receiving a present that's only made possible by his own resources and supply.
SPEAKER_01: When we come alongside God and we are involved in the things of God, we are not giving God anything that he doesn't have.
SPEAKER_01: Rather he receives joy because we want to be involved in the things that he is doing.
SPEAKER_01: If that makes sense to you give me a head nod if you would okay thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you out there didn't get enough coffee but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about position in his presence.
SPEAKER_01: You remember the passage in Joshua that when Joshua goes to the commander of the armies of the Lord Joshua says are you for us or for our adversaries?
SPEAKER_01: And I do like the way that the King James and the new King James answers that question because the commander of the army of the Lord says no I'm not for you I'm not for your adversaries.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: God is for himself God is for himself and for his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: Once again God doesn't come along and pat Joshua on the back and say hey I'm here for you everything's going to be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Rather God goes to Joshua and says get in line I'm about to work you know I think that we would find ourselves a lot more happy in doing the works of God if we had this mindset rather of God coming and saying oh you're doing so good rather just God says get in line let's get to work I've worked for bosses that were real super encouragers but they would never give you a direct order to do anything.
SPEAKER_01: That's a miserable place to be as an employee.
SPEAKER_01: You want a boss who's going to be straightforward with you and say this is what we're doing this is why we're doing it let's get to work and that's how the commander of the armies of the Lord is he says to Joshua let's get going and what does Joshua do?
SPEAKER_01: In verse 14 the second part of verse 14 Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him what does my Lord say to his servant notice Joshua's position in the presence of God did not say to Joshua Drop to the floor in worship.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua didn't need to be told Joshua saw this man and dropped to the floor remember this man has a drawn sword in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is putting himself prone on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: He is basically entrusting everything about his life to this man, this commander of the armies of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua we're told worshiped him and this is one of the areas where the commander differs from any other angel in the book of the Revelation the apostle John is talking to an angel and John is overwhelmed and he begins to get down on the ground to worship before the angel and the angel says to him only worship God only worship God and yet this commander of the armies of the Lord receives the worship that Joshua is giving him this is one of the reasons why we believe that this commander may be in fact Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: The position Joshua gets to the ground I wish I could take a photograph right now and put it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Take a photo of all of you and put it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are very attentive you're alert you're you are locked in on what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you look as though you're halfway through a nap.
SPEAKER_01: You're just kind of like this and you know it may be that you had a double shift at work yesterday it may be that you're real tired.
SPEAKER_01: I get that I get that but you know if we're coming to worship the Lord of Lords and the King of kings if we in worship have invited the Lord to be here with us today we should act as though we are in the presence of God we should conduct ourselves in a way that shows that we know we're in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: We should not be watching Pastor Greg or his dad.
SPEAKER_01: We should not be watching the person who's speaking as if we're watching something on television and we're just lazing back in the easy chair.
SPEAKER_01: Our position in the presence of God says much.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're angry at me for bringing that up then I would invite you to straighten up a little bit and get on board with the rest of us here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Our position, but not only our position physically, not only our position physically, but our position spiritually when we recognize that we are in the presence of God we need to remember that He is omnipotent, He is all powerful and we are not.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, compared to the power of God we are completely powerless.
SPEAKER_01: And that being the case we should be in this place together and we should be here in a place of humility and reverence we should see him in truth we should see ourselves in truth and that should cause us that reality should cause us to want to worship.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Jacob I would not switch places with you for all the tea in China.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't do it in a heart I am not wired to lead people in worship.
SPEAKER_01: Because leading people in worship ladies and gentlemen it is hard.
SPEAKER_01: It is a struggle to lead people in worship.
SPEAKER_01: You all arrive here and you've got all sorts of different things going on in your minds and in your hearts and in your spirits.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you come here primed and ready to worship some of you are here only by an act of will were you even able to make it here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Pastor Jacob and the worship team have to come and they have to lead us in worship, trying to bring us all together in humility and reverence, seeing ourselves and him in truth and responding to that with praise.
SPEAKER_01: If I've never said it before we appreciate you Pastor Jacob thank you for what you do here.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to the next slide the perfection of his presence God is perfect.
SPEAKER_01: God does not make mistakes I know that statement is something we all agree with but boy we sure don't act like it from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: God is holy he's completely unique.
SPEAKER_01: He's not like any other person.
SPEAKER_01: God is created everything.
SPEAKER_01: He is above his creation he is not part of his creation Joshua is told take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy This echoes the language that Moses had said to him when Moses was there before the burning bush.
SPEAKER_01: God speaking through the burning bush told Moses, take off your sandals for the place where you stand is holy.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is told take sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy.
SPEAKER_01: What made this holy wasn't the real estate ladies and gentlemen it was the presence of God that was there.
SPEAKER_01: The presence of God made that holy the word holy when you begin to look at the way that it developed down through the languages down through the centuries really has with it an idea of separateness or set aside for God and his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: When we come here to worship Godnizing that this time not necessarily the real estate but this time the attitudes of our minds and hearts and spirits should be focused on the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_01: God is holy.
SPEAKER_01: If you are going to align yourself with God then you need to be ready for God to be there and for you to respond with the idea that God is holy.
SPEAKER_01: When we are here in worship we are we are engaged in a small picture of what we're going to be engaged in in heaven for all eternity.
SPEAKER_01: We are here we are worshiping the Lord we are learning more about the Lord we are seeing things about the Lord that we have never understood or perhaps have forgotten and we need to be reminded of when we are in the presence of God we are doing something that is unlike anything else we do.
SPEAKER_01: Going to church is not like going to a club.
SPEAKER_01: Going to church is not like going to a gathering going to church is not like going to a concert going to church is not like going to a seminar or a classroom.
SPEAKER_01: When we come together to worship the Lord we are getting a glimpse of that holiness that we're going to be exposed to for the rest of eternity if we're saved by the power of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now keep your shoes on all right you don't have to go taking your shoes off.
SPEAKER_01: But you should recognize that where you are is someplace unique distinct and special and we should think and pray and act accordingly.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to our last point here point number five oh we finished our points let's go to this one then I had a fifth point originally but I thought that was too many alliterative P's for all of you so we're just going to go into this.
SPEAKER_01: You know when we're aligning with God what we're saying is not that I hope God is on my side rather what we're saying is I want to be on God's side.
SPEAKER_01: Is that making sense to you ladies and gentlemen?
SPEAKER_01: All too often we tend to think well I hope God is on my side this goes back to a type of thinking that says God is my co-pilot I don't want God to be my co-pilot I want God to be the pilot if God's the if God's the co-pilot then I'm still in the seat and I'm able to mess things up.
SPEAKER_01: No, I want God to be the pilot.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise if God is on my side then he's going to leave my side as soon as I mess up.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is that when we live the Christian life we're not praying for God to be on our side we're praying God let me be on your side God open my mind.
SPEAKER_01: God open my eyes God open my heart and God lead my spirit so that the things that I say the things that I do the places I go the places I don't go Lord let me live a life that's aligned with you first and foremost in every situation.
SPEAKER_01: Now what does aligning with God mean initially?
SPEAKER_01: Well first off ladies and gentlemen you cannot be aligned with God unless you're saved.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't aligned with the person of Jesus Christ if you haven't repented of your sin if you haven't received him as Lord and Savior if you haven't handed your life over to him then you're so out of alignment with God we got to get you on that first.
SPEAKER_01: Once we are saved then we need to be obeying what it is that he told us in the Great Commission, the last words Jesus says before he ascends into heaven he says go and share the good news and baptize people from as Pastor Greg reminded us last week here in Jerusalem, the surrounding area of Judea go to Samaria that area on the other side of the tracks and go everywhere around the world sharing the good news with a lost and dying world.
SPEAKER_01: Susan Carter, I saw you in here a few moments ago.
SPEAKER_01: Susan is helping us through our women on mission.
SPEAKER_01: We've got a retired missionary from Bangkok of coming in on Thursday at 10 o'clock to share stories of being a missionary in one of the most challenging areas of the world.
SPEAKER_01: You're all invited to that it's in room 100 right over here on Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: We should be involved in such a way that at the end of our lives we have something to say.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we didn't travel to the other end of the world and live there for years and years but we should have something to say about what we've done to spread the good news of Jesus Christ with a lost and dying world.
SPEAKER_01: If you're aligned with God, God is going to call you to be active in that work in one way or another.
SPEAKER_01: You're either going to support it financially or you're going to be there on the front lines doing it or you're going to be a prayer warrior on your knees praying about it.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to be involved in sharing the good news with a lost and a dying world if you're aligned with God.
SPEAKER_01: Finally ladies and gentlemen aligning with God means that we let God dictate what we're going to do and what we're not going to do every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour every minute every second if you think you're out of alignment with God, it's real, real simple to get started getting aligned with God.
SPEAKER_01: You simply surrender what it is that's keeping you from doing what God would have you to do and embracing the things that you know he wants you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Let's have our worship team come up because in a few moments we're going to begin the invitation time.
SPEAKER_01: The invitation time in Baptist churches is a traditional time where we allow people to respond to the message of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this week after week because God's working on people week after week God's bringing people closer to him one week to the next a person who didn't walk the aisle last week might walk the aisle this week.
SPEAKER_01: What does walking the aisle mean?
SPEAKER_01: What it means is that you are ready to get serious with God.
SPEAKER_01: What it means is that you're ready to stop hoping that God will be on your side and you're ready to align yourself to take your marching orders from the commander of the armies of the Lord you're ready to listen to what Jesus has to say to you Jesus said in numerous places repeatedly Jesus said that if we will repent of our sin, if we will receive him as Savior and Lord, if we will trust what he did on that cross 2,000 years ago taking our sin upon himself and replacing our unrighteousness with his righteousness if we'll surrender to him as savior and as Lord then we can be saved.
SPEAKER_01: We can be made men and women in the kingdom of God men and women in the family of God.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe me give me a little head nod on that all right not everyone's nodding okay that's alright if you're not nodding and you did that because you couldn't honestly say that we want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: We want to talk to you we want to answer any questions that you may have we want to assure you of any fears that you may have I'm probably driving the camera people crazy by coming down here.
SPEAKER_01: I apologize for that but right now I want to get as close to you as I possibly can if I could get in the pew and sit down next to you I would do it right now.
SPEAKER_01: If you need Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior as we begin to sing and when everyone stands let's just go ahead and stand right now as we all stand as we begin to sing you come and say I need to know I need to learn I need to hand my life over to Jesus we pray this message has been a blessing to you and help to strengthen your walk with Jesus 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 thank you for listening to chapter and first the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.