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: Lord, we thank you so much for this week.
SPEAKER_01: This is a week that so many have already been praying for.
SPEAKER_01: Wednesday night, we had folks come and prayer walk our campus.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we are coming now together as our church family, and we're asking you to do incredible things this week.
SPEAKER_01: This is such a special week.
SPEAKER_01: It's an opportunity for children to really fall in love with the body of Christ, to see that to be in church is fun and they're loved on and there's excitement and it's encouraging, and they get to learn about who Jesus is and how much Jesus loved them that he gave himself for them.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Father, we pray that this week will be filled with energy and joy and love and caring and the gospel, and it will be a great, great week.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray for families to visit our church and children to come and families on Wednesday night, and we pray for the opportunity to open the doors of our church family to new families who will come and discover what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, who will discover what it means that Jesus loved them so much that he died for them on the cross and he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: This week, as we have that theme of illumination, we pray that they will see that Jesus is truly the light of the world.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for us as a church, all of our workers, our students who are working, our prayer warriors who will be praying all week.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, Father, that the way Jesus said, as he is the light of the world, we shine his light and to let our light shine before men.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray this week that the light of First Baptist will shine before men and women, boys and girls, families in our community.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray this week that there will be souls saved.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, that is our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for souls to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for people to be connected to our church.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for our children who are attending, that they can deepen their love for Jesus because they are reminded how much that Jesus, as the light of the world, loved them and gave themselves for Him.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for our students that will be serving this week.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray that they will grow in this time as they serve and as they love on little kids and as they present a role model for elementary school age kids.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray that they will grow to be closer to you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray that this week that you will place your hand on our church and we anticipate in faith you doing special things in all kinds of layers this week.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we ask that in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We give ourselves to you this week to serve and to pray and to love.
SPEAKER_01: And Father, we believe in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that it is the power of God into salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And as we focus on the gospel this week, as an entire church family from young to old, Father, we believe that through the power of the gospel, you will work in our body this week.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we pray this in faith, in the strong name of Jesus, and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, church family.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, church family.
SPEAKER_01: That is wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: You guys do that well.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you will be anticipating this week.
SPEAKER_01: And I also pray that you will make yourself a part of the prayer ministry this week and be in prayer every day for the gospel as we are praying for the ministry that happens.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we've been reading through our chronological Bibles, we come to a very interesting story this week, and it's a pretty powerful story.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Samuel chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to turn there, and I'm going to start in a different scripture to set it up.
SPEAKER_01: So you're turning to 2 Samuel 24, and here is what the Bible says in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been in church any amount of time, you know that this is a well-known scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We quote it often, we look at it.
SPEAKER_01: But the story from the life of David today, I think, brings a depth and meaning in a fresh way to this verse.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible says here in verse 1, therefore, brothers, and anytime we see that, we always see, therefore, we ask the question, what is it?
SPEAKER_01: Therefore.
SPEAKER_01: And so, up to Romans 12, what he has talked about is the reality, the truth, and the impact of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of salvation, that we are saved through the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It is a powerful 11 chapters on salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says in verse 1 of chapter 12, because of that salvation, therefore, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_01: This is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that sacrifice word to us means a lot of things, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we just happened to be in Little Rock this weekend.
SPEAKER_01: We were hanging out with our kids, and I usually, if we're there on the weekend, I usually try to come back early.
SPEAKER_01: I try to usually leave by five or so, and I want to be here in time and rest and get ready for Sunday and all that.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we were about to leave, our daughter, Mabrie, uh texted and said, Hey, I know dad leaves early.
SPEAKER_01: Would it be a sacrifice for you to keep Killian for us so we can go out to dinner?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I think I'm willing to sacrifice my schedule to babysit my grandson, right?
SPEAKER_01: All the dads are nodding with me.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I had to change my schedule.
SPEAKER_01: What is sacrifice?
SPEAKER_01: And so we use that word sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we're on a diet and we say, you know, I'm going to have to sacrifice sweets right now to, you know, get better and thinner and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We use these terms sacrifice like that, and we use it on a continuing scale for a lot of reasons.
SPEAKER_01: But when someone in the Roman church, most of them probably were Jewish or have a Jewish heritage, certainly others did, when they read this word, it meant something much deeper to them.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul said that you are to present your body as a living sacrifice in their mind, in their experience, they knew what that meant.
SPEAKER_01: That meant you went and you raised that lamb without spot or blemish, and you raised it, you paid for it, you did all that kind of stuff, you cared for it, and then you went to the temple, and then you sacrificed that as the atonement for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: They understood if there was a time in your life, and we've been reading through this chronologically all these times, if I had sinned and I had transgressed before the Lord, I would have to take all these sacrifices, and I would give them to the Lord, and their blood was shed, and they were gone.
SPEAKER_01: We know that when harvest time came and they would take all these fruits of their harvest and they would give the first fruits to the Lord and these things they had paid for and they'd raised and they'd done all that, they took that and they sacrificed that to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Present your bodies a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, This, which is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_01: They understood the act of worship involved in that physical sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And so when Paul said, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, that meant to them death on the altar.
SPEAKER_01: That meant giving up everything of themselves to that sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Do not be conformed to this age, this culture, the world that's around us, but be transformed, be changed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how in modern New Testament times we live as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: When you gave your life to Jesus, you recognized that you were a sinner, that your sin had to be punished, that you couldn't fix your sin condition, and that Jesus stepped out of heaven, lived a sinless life, went to the cross, and there he sacrificed his life for us and shed his blood for us to pay the price for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: And then he rose again conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And when you come to Jesus to make him your Savior, it means you take your life, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you sacrifice your life to Jesus in worship.
SPEAKER_01: It is no longer your life, it is his, because he sacrificed his life for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we're saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now, read with me in 2 Samuel chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: When we find ourselves right here, the context of this is David, things have been going very well for King David.
SPEAKER_01: The country has grown and multiplied, their military strength is great, they are rich and they have really flourished in their economy, and David has flourished in his own personal wealth, and things are going great.
SPEAKER_01: So David decides, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Man, we're pretty awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Let's check this out.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, I'm going to declare a census.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the culture, remember Romans 12, 2, don't be conformed to this age or this culture.
SPEAKER_01: In the culture, they always took census, other nations did, because they wanted to know how where are we?
SPEAKER_01: How are we doing?
SPEAKER_01: Are we growing?
SPEAKER_01: What is the size of our army?
SPEAKER_01: How many people do we have to draw from the army?
SPEAKER_01: And it was very common in that world.
SPEAKER_01: But God had told the children of Israel, do not ever take a census.
SPEAKER_01: Do not take a census.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why would God tell them that?
SPEAKER_01: As we have been reading through all these battles through the first part of the year, we see how often God reminds them that He as God is the power of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It is not in their size of their armies or any of that.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, whatever size army they have, he blessed them with that anyway.
SPEAKER_01: But when they went to battle, he was the strength of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you'll remember times when they'd have all these armies and they'd only send a portion of them out to battle because God is their strength.
SPEAKER_01: Gideon, we read about Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Gideon, one of the judges.
SPEAKER_01: Man, God reduced his army down to 300 people, and they attacked the, you know, an enemy nation with just 300.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God is reminding them that he is their power.
SPEAKER_01: They walked around the walls of Jericho and they defeated Jericho.
SPEAKER_01: How's that a military strategy?
SPEAKER_01: Walking around walls.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is reminding them that he is the power of their army.
SPEAKER_01: And so he has passed this sentence.
SPEAKER_01: You will not take a census because however many Israelites there are, it's because of my blessing to you and my promise to Abraham and to Moses and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I don't want you counting your armies because I don't want you thinking y'all had the victory.
SPEAKER_01: I, as the God of Israel, are the strength of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: But David thinks, hey, I'm going to take a census.
SPEAKER_01: Now one of his generals comes to him and he says, David, don't you know God has told you not to do that?
SPEAKER_01: That's a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not going to go well.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to like the result of that.
SPEAKER_01: And David ignored him and went ahead and did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, God judged him very, very harshly.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember reading the story, he offered him three different types of penalties and he let him choose.
SPEAKER_01: In a lot of ways, that's an even worse experience.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the options are.
SPEAKER_01: They're all bad.
SPEAKER_01: I have to choose how I'm going to be punished for this.
SPEAKER_01: And David chose three days of pestilence.
SPEAKER_01: And so God began to sweep through the land of Israel this terrible disease and pestilence, and people are dying.
SPEAKER_01: And David, as the king, is brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_01: He knows he served, he sinned before God.
SPEAKER_01: And now the people that he is responsible for as king are paying the price for his sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so he repents before the Lord and he pleads with God, please, this is my sin.
SPEAKER_01: Don't take it out on my people.
SPEAKER_01: And so God sends a prophet to tell him, and here's where we're going to read.
SPEAKER_01: Gad is the name of the prophet, and here's what it says in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Gad came to David that day and said to him, Go up and set up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Arunah the Jebusite.
SPEAKER_01: David went up in obedience to Gad's command, just as the Lord had commanded.
SPEAKER_01: So this is God's word through the prophet to David what to do.
SPEAKER_01: Aruna looked down and saw the king and his servants coming to him.
SPEAKER_01: So he went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, this guy owns this plot of land and he's got his farm there and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: So he comes out to David the king and he begins to honor him as the king.
SPEAKER_01: Aruna said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant?
SPEAKER_01: It's a big deal when the king shows up at your house.
SPEAKER_01: David replied, To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague on the people may be halted.
SPEAKER_01: Aruna said to David, My Lord the King may take whatever he wants and offer it.
SPEAKER_01: Here are the oxen for a burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.
SPEAKER_01: Your Majesty Aruna gives everything here to the king.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to the king, May the Lord your God accept you.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, he, in order to serve the king and honor the king, is offering everything for David to do this.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to David's response.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: I insist on buying it from you for a price.
SPEAKER_01: For I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 20 ounces of silver.
SPEAKER_01: He built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord was receptive to prayer for the land, and the plague on Israel ended.
SPEAKER_01: So David literally says, Bro, I appreciate you providing all that, but listen, I have sinned before the Lord, and I am coming before the Lord to worship and to ask for repentance.
SPEAKER_01: I am coming in obedience to the command of the Lord, and I am not going to offer to the Lord a cheap offering.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to offer to the Lord something that somebody else has done.
SPEAKER_01: I am going to only offer to the Lord something that I have paid for, that it has cost me, because it is not a sacrifice before the Lord if it doesn't cost me.
SPEAKER_01: That's what makes it a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And in our Christian life, when you read Romans 12, 1 and 2, examples just like this are what sacrifice means.
SPEAKER_01: You can read it this way when Paul says, Therefore, brothers, because of the magnitude and the beauty and the majesty and the power of your salvation, because you've been forgiven for all of your sins, Romans chapter 10 says, Therefore, there is no condemnation in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, present your bodies a living sacrifice, which you will not offer if it has not cost you something.
SPEAKER_01: Holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_01: So in our lives, what we've got to grapple with is Jesus gave his life for us.
SPEAKER_01: He sacrificed his life for us.
SPEAKER_01: He was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: God uses that picture of the Lamb who paid the atonement for our sin and weaves that all through and teaches that Jesus will be the Lamb of God that takes away our sins because he's getting us to understand this sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And that means you can't just live the Christian life on your own terms.
SPEAKER_01: You can't just live it, fixing it and fitting it in with everything else and doing it as you want to.
SPEAKER_01: Your Christian life costs you your life because it costs Jesus his life.
SPEAKER_01: And we learn here from David what a sacrifice is.
SPEAKER_01: I will not offer to the Lord anything that has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And in our lives, we've got to understand that.
SPEAKER_01: Our life, our Christian life should cost us.
SPEAKER_01: Should cost us.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how we are transformed in the image of Jesus, as it says in verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've been around First Baptists, we use this as an illustration a lot of times, the transformation triangle.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the chemistry, so to speak, the spiritual chemistry.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really built on this principle.
SPEAKER_01: Sacrifice leads to transformation.
SPEAKER_01: It is when you have a sacrificed life and you give it to the Lord, and he accepts your sacrifice, and he begins to work and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: So we use this triangle to kind of talk about how that works.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's three legs.
SPEAKER_01: This is an equilateral triangle.
SPEAKER_01: All these legs grow together.
SPEAKER_01: Each leg represents a part of our spiritual life and a spiritual principle that they all three work together for how we grow to be like Jesus and how we're transformed in his image.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what it begins with identity.
SPEAKER_01: Our students have been studying the triangle on Wednesday nights, and they studied identity the other night.
SPEAKER_01: And I got a chance to get one of those bracelets that you guys had that had our scripture verse on it.
SPEAKER_01: And so our students have been studying that.
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
SPEAKER_01: So that bottom, let's go back to the triangle, please.
SPEAKER_01: The bottom leg is identity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: That means we're saved, we're in Christ, and we're part of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's our identity.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot separate those two things.
SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as a lone ranger Christian.
SPEAKER_01: If you're saved, then you are adopted into the family of God, and you now have brothers and sisters, and your identity is connected.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's what David understands.
SPEAKER_01: David has been given this incredible blessing by God.
SPEAKER_01: He's been called by God, provided he's been made the king, God is blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in the one sense, David stands in the blessings of God.
SPEAKER_01: But also David has disrespected the blessings of God, and he has thumbed his nose at the command of God, and he's taken this census, most likely from the pride of look at all what we've done and all that.
SPEAKER_01: And so now he's disrespecting his faith that's supposed to be in the Lord because he's taking credit for what God has done in fulfilling his promises to the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what you get: David is in both of those positions.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the way we are as believers.
SPEAKER_01: When you come to Jesus and you make him your Savior, you are a sinner saved by the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: Saved through the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do anything about your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You can't fix your guilt.
SPEAKER_01: You can't change anything.
SPEAKER_01: You can't earn your way to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It does not matter how good you've been, however good you were on your best day is still an affront to the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs to be saved because everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you come to Jesus, you are coming like David did, repenting of his lack of faith and his disrespect and offense to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And coming, he says, I know I sinned, and I am not going to offer an offering that has cost me nothing, because I am repenting of my sin before a holy God.
SPEAKER_01: And when we offer our lives as a sacrifice to him, we are saying, look, I know I'm a sinner saved by grace, and I could not have fixed my salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus saved me out of his grace, and thank you for saving me.
SPEAKER_01: At the same time, when you get saved, you're also a little bit like David, in that he has been in this position as the king, and God has blessed him, and he's been all this deal, and yet he disrespects that.
SPEAKER_01: But he has been blessed.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been reading Psalms as we read chronologically, and how many times is he praising the Lord for what he's done?
SPEAKER_01: And in our lives, when you give your life to Christ and you're saved, you are adopted into the family of God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says you can call the Lord your heavenly father in the most intimate terms, like daddy.
SPEAKER_01: He also says that you are joint heirs with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: When you give your life to Christ and He's purchased you with His blood, you are a blood-bought child of God.
SPEAKER_01: That is the position of who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And so when David sins, he has sinned knowing that he was blessed of God as one of his children.
SPEAKER_01: And in our lives, we are blessed of God.
SPEAKER_01: We are both a sinner saved by grace, and we are a blood-bought child of God and heir, joint heir with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that's to be our identity, and we're supposed to walk in both of those.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to sin because I'm not going to disrespect the salvation that God has given me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to sacrifice my life to him because I know there's nothing I could have done about my sin, and I'm repentant of my sin, and I give my life to Jesus because he gave his life for me.
SPEAKER_01: And then I know I'm a blood-bought child of God.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the right to drag God's purchased life through sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's my identity.
SPEAKER_01: I'm also a part of the body of Christ, and so I'm connected with all of you.
SPEAKER_01: And you have the same issues in your life, and I have the same issues in my life, and we're responsible to each other to help each other grow in that.
SPEAKER_01: That's our identity.
SPEAKER_01: The other leg of that, another piece that works in this, is our relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: We grow our relationship just like you grow any other relationship.
SPEAKER_01: You spend time together and you communicate.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, Bible study, faith choices.
SPEAKER_01: You get in God's Word, you study God's Word, you listen to Him teach you, and then when He puts something in your life that He wants to make you a choice, He wants you to make a choice of faith, you make it.
SPEAKER_01: And then ministry.
SPEAKER_01: We serve because we're being transformed to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in a very simple, clear way, Jesus went about doing good.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And we are to serve in that way.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's how the triangle works.
SPEAKER_01: Just to reiterate it for our folks, if you're new, want you to see how this works.
SPEAKER_01: It's an equilateral triangle.
SPEAKER_01: And so all three of those legs work together.
SPEAKER_01: They work in concert together and they grow together.
SPEAKER_01: Identity is the foundation, but all three grow together.
SPEAKER_01: And so as your identity grows, your relationship grows.
SPEAKER_01: The more you realize I'm a blood-bought son of God or a daughter of God, and he is my heavenly father, then I'm going to want to get to know him better.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be in relationship more.
SPEAKER_01: And then the more I realize that, man, I am, it is special to be a part of the body of Christ because Jesus purchased my right to be here in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God adopted me and He adopted you and we're connected together.
SPEAKER_01: Then I'm going to serve in ministry together.
SPEAKER_01: The corners of those legs are all connected.
SPEAKER_01: That's how an equilateral triangle grows in the same way.
SPEAKER_01: So as you're serving and growing in your identity, your triangle is growing.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you're transformed.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what we need to learn from the lesson today.
SPEAKER_01: David said, I will not offer an offering to the Lord, which has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: For each leg to grow in our lives, the command is to present your identity as a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not going to run through all kinds of things that people don't do and try to make it guilty and all that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the point of this.
SPEAKER_01: The point is learning how the growth happens.
SPEAKER_01: And in this lesson, in this sacrifice picture from David's life, we really get insight for us in Romans 12, 1 and 2, what it means for us to present our bodies a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Our identity in Christ, I belong to Jesus because He purchased my life.
SPEAKER_01: It is not mine to do with as I want.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I come to Him and I recognize my identity in Christ, I am not going to offer a sacrifice for which I've paid nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to live a Christian life that just sort of fits in with everything else I want to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to pursue what I want to do when my life doesn't belong to me.
SPEAKER_01: When I come to Jesus every morning in my quiet time and I recognize, Lord, thank you for saving me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for making me a bloodballed child of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for adopting me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for allowing me to come to you and say, Abba, Father, Daddy, Father, as it says in Romans 8 leading up to Romans 12, thank you for that relationship.
SPEAKER_01: It is your life today.
SPEAKER_01: What do you want to do with it?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not going to go through the day presenting a sacrifice which has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And our relationship time.
SPEAKER_01: I was talking with one of the guys on staff this week.
SPEAKER_01: It's just hard sometimes as a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I believe a couple things I just want to share.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I believe.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, we can't really do much at all if you guys are not in the word growing in your relationship.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't have the capacity to grow the church, and I wouldn't even try if I thought I did.
SPEAKER_01: I would end up like David trying to take a census.
SPEAKER_01: It's a body, it's a church, and it depends on you guys having your quiet times and your relationship flourishing with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is dependent on you guys.
SPEAKER_01: We can't do anything without you guys flourishing in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so that means your relationship time, prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes we get so just afraid it's not going to happen that we put out a reading plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: And if you guys check the box on the reading plan, we go, woohoo, everybody read.
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: They read their Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Just checking the box of your three chapters a day is not a sacrifice that costs you nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Relationship time is supposed to be this.
SPEAKER_01: And because we're concerned and because we want people to be in their quiet time, we just sometimes lower the bar until you got the reading done.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to just make sure we're clear, we understand what this looks like.
SPEAKER_01: When you present your relationship to the Lord and you present it in a way that did not cost you, you're not going to give him something that hasn't cost you anything.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what happens: you get your Bible out and you get a pen and a pad and you sit down and you say, Lord, I am ready for you to transform me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here, I'm going to study, I'm going to read, I'm going to pay attention to this, and I'm going to listen to you.
SPEAKER_01: And when a verse strikes me that I need to know, Lord, here I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am ready.
SPEAKER_01: I am submitting myself to you.
SPEAKER_01: And here is the pen, here's the pad.
SPEAKER_01: You speak to me, and I will listen and obey.
SPEAKER_01: And you get to a verse like this where David says, I will not offer to the Lord anything that has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit goes, and you go, Okay, I get it.
SPEAKER_01: You're speaking to me now.
SPEAKER_01: I heard that hurt.
SPEAKER_01: That hurt.
SPEAKER_01: Like I felt that.
SPEAKER_01: Living powerful word of God, which is sharper than a two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: I got the cut, God, I heard that.
SPEAKER_01: Now what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_01: Where in my life am I not sacrificing?
SPEAKER_01: Where have I offered you a sacrifice that cost me nothing?
SPEAKER_01: Where is it that you want to grow me?
SPEAKER_01: Where is it that you're trying to draw to me?
SPEAKER_01: That's what our relationship time looks like.
SPEAKER_01: It is the willingness when God speaks to us to say, okay, that's a choice of faith.
SPEAKER_01: You asked me to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's amazing to me how often we just weave in our Christian life in with everything else.
SPEAKER_01: I was, we were talking a little bit this week about language.
SPEAKER_01: About language.
SPEAKER_01: People use language, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing to me that nobody can speak personally on television, anywhere else, without cursing.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: I can't get through a podcast now without cursing.
SPEAKER_01: People curse.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it used to be when I was growing up, people had enough sense to know you don't curse at church, you only curse at work.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay at work, but you don't do it in front of your kids.
SPEAKER_01: And now you go to Walmart and everybody's curse in front of their kids and everybody else's kids and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: Christians.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, godly people that I know.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes I have to remind church people I'm a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: We only talk like that on Fridays.
SPEAKER_01: That's our day off.
SPEAKER_01: How are we going into our relationship time saying, God, I surrender to you, and then we just walk around and talk like the world.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: How is it they're going to change to be different than the world?
SPEAKER_01: It is by in our relationship time, I am not going to offer this time to the Lord in a way that costs me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to present myself for God to speak, and whatever change he requires, I'm going to take that choice of faith.
SPEAKER_01: And if he challenges me to change my language, which he will if you're having any kind of quiet time at all, fix it.
SPEAKER_01: I know what it sounds like and functions like in the world.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in locker rooms.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to talk like that.
SPEAKER_01: If we are presenting ourselves in our relationship time before the Lord, he will change things like that and fix them.
SPEAKER_01: Ministry.
SPEAKER_01: I will not reject opportunities.
SPEAKER_01: I will not step past needs.
SPEAKER_01: I will invest in the lives of the people in my Sunday school class.
SPEAKER_01: I will go to a Sunday school class so I can build relationships, so I can be connected to the body of Christ, because I will not offer to the Lord a sacrifice which has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I present your bodies a living sacrifice, which has voluntarily cost us what we've given to the Lord because of what Jesus gave for us, holy and acceptable to the Lord, which is my spiritual worship.
SPEAKER_01: I will not be conformed to this world, but I will be transformed by the renewing of your mind because of that sacrificial process, so that I may prove what is the perfect and acceptable will of God.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do is I want you to grasp in a positive way stepping into your transformation process.
SPEAKER_01: Present to the Lord, Lord, here's my sense of my identity.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, here's my time with you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I'm going to serve my brothers and sisters in this way.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I know to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Help me know what else you want me to give to you.
SPEAKER_01: Because my identity is you gave your life for me.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you bow your heads and we close?
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, listen, sometimes a message like this can be a little off-putting, but you need to hear this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're going to give your life to Jesus, you need to give all of it to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If somebody this morning came down the aisle and they said, Man, Pastor Matt or Pastor Eli down here or Pastor Dave or whoever's down here, or you catch me after church and you go, Pastor, man, I'm ready to give 98% of my life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I got that whole cost me nothing, and I've been giving him about 10%.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm going to give him 98%.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm really up in my game.
SPEAKER_01: God's going to go.
SPEAKER_01: Where's the other 2%?
SPEAKER_01: And so you need to know when you give your life to Jesus, the Bible says you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, but it also says you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That means you give him all of your life.
SPEAKER_01: You sacrifice your life to him.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, you are giving your life to Jesus who sacrificed his life for you.
SPEAKER_01: He loved you first, he died on the cross for your sins.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to save you.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to walk in relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you give your life to him, just as the Bible says that God accepted David's sacrifice and prayer, when you give your life to Jesus, he has promised to accept your sacrifice and to love you and to adopt you and you become what we talked about that blood-bought child of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens when you give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, as he transforms you, God will do more with your life you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to ask this morning: if you've never given your life to Christ, I'm going to ask you to give your life to Jesus this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Give your life to him because he gave his life for you.
SPEAKER_01: Give your life to him because he will receive your sacrifice of your life because he died on the cross to do that for you.
SPEAKER_01: Give your life to him today.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have Pastor at the head of our aisles.
SPEAKER_01: We have people in the wings waiting.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we're not going to arm twist you.
SPEAKER_01: If you come, you don't have to worry about time.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: We'll stay as long as you want.
SPEAKER_01: If you got family, we'll set up another meeting.
SPEAKER_01: But you need to take a step into the journey.
SPEAKER_01: You need to take a step of faith.
SPEAKER_01: You need to tell, just as David did, I will not offer a worship that has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And church family, this week, man, the first cost I'm going to ask you to pay is I'm going to ask you to pray every day for a vacation Bible school.
SPEAKER_01: Even if you're not here working, I'm going to ask you to pray every day.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to ask God to bless your relationship time to grow you closer to Him in ways you've never known when you take your relationship time and you offer your life to Him.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I do want to pray that for our church family.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I pray as we all grapple with that, I'm not going to offer something that has cost me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: As our church family goes before you in their quiet time this week, their relationship time, and they surrender themselves to you and they make that sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Bless them in their quiet times.
SPEAKER_01: Give them a sense of your presence.
SPEAKER_01: Work in their lives in ways that draw them closer to you, that are exciting and thrilling and overwhelming, and represent that joy that's in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, I pray this morning if there's someone who's never given their life to Christ, I pray, Father, today will be the day.
SPEAKER_01: We won't wait for Thursday to see salvations.
SPEAKER_01: We'll begin salvation decisions and VBS week on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.