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: Thank you, Jessica Inquir.
SPEAKER_01: That song is why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus changes lives.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 17, and we're going to look at that very thing in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Someone's life who has been changed by the Lord through the promise of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: I've been giving you the last few weeks some helpful tools.
SPEAKER_01: I hope they're helpful and enjoyable as you head into this week of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you two more references today.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is a movie.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if many of you have seen this.
SPEAKER_01: This is an incredible movie.
SPEAKER_01: It is really, it's a documentary style, but it is not boring.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's not your grandfather's documentary, I promise.
SPEAKER_01: It's really good.
SPEAKER_01: It's done by Kirk Cameron and his team.
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he does a lot of uh he's a man of faith, and he does a lot of uh apologetics and marriage conferences and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We had him uh when I was the pastor at First Baptist and Cabot did a marriage conference, did a great job, just a just a neat guy, and this is an incredible deal.
SPEAKER_01: It's a story of some uh of the people who came over because of religious persecution, and they landed on American shores and began to establish uh uh that part of the country.
SPEAKER_01: And there it's called monumental because there's a monument that a lot of people never heard of.
SPEAKER_01: I never heard of it until we saw this movie, and then when Janet and I were on a trip in the northeastern United States, we went and saw it.
SPEAKER_01: And this is all about how their faith shaped the structure of the society that they were creating as they landed on American shores, and it's one of those things that establishes a biblical sort of foundation for how we go about doing government and those things.
SPEAKER_01: So it's really an incredible movie if you haven't seen it.
SPEAKER_01: The next resource I want to give you uh is from Love Worth Finding, which is the uh intellectual property uh preaching ministry of Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Adrian Rogers, which is where I grew up at church.
SPEAKER_01: He was my pastor uh my whole almost my whole life.
SPEAKER_01: He came when I was seven and a half, and he was still the pastor when I moved to Arkansas to begin pastoring on my own.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm on the board of directors there, as many of you know, and we created a resource, or we had them create a resource from his teaching and all of that that is about citizenship in America, faith and freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and in this time, you can tap onto that, and there's resources there, like our role as a citizen, how we pray for America, and there's some incredible things on there uh that are really worth your time if you're driving or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be great for you to give that a listen, and I think we'll really help you as you pray for our country and all those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to share those with you.
SPEAKER_01: And then let's get back to that point of Jesus changes lives.
SPEAKER_01: Here in 1 Kings 17, we see what I believe is a journey to salvation from a person in this story.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's interesting as we're reading through 1 Kings uh and the corresponding passages, we have ended this terrible time where there's a civil war in Israel and it's breaking apart, and all the kings are evil, and you got all this worshiping false gods and all this other chaos going on.
SPEAKER_01: You think, really, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_01: And then God tucks this story right in here using the prophet Elijah, and it's a Jesus salvation story in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe God puts it here to remind us that even in the middle of that chaos, nothing can stop the work of God to bring the Redeemer into the world.
SPEAKER_01: It reminds us that from Genesis to Revelation, it is all about Jesus, it is all about salvation in his name, and that is the work that God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a lot of times my dad would tell me uh when he was teaching me sort of management things or how to lead, that sort of deal, he'd say, use this phrase, son, begin with the end in mind.
SPEAKER_01: And many of you have heard that.
SPEAKER_01: You begin with the end in mind.
SPEAKER_01: And what he'd say is, if you want to know how to get somewhere, then you figure out where you are, you figure out where you're going, and then you draw a straight line.
SPEAKER_01: And he'd say, son, that's true whether you're going on a trip or that's true in life issues.
SPEAKER_01: You figure out where you're going and you draw a straight line.
SPEAKER_01: And so he'd say you begin with the end in mind, that's where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to show you the end of the story to illustrate what this is about.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to take the journey knowing what this is about.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says at the end of this story, now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the statement of the woman at the end of this story, who basically places her faith and trust in the God of Israel and the provision of life that only he can bring.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let's uh begin at the very beginning and let's draw a straight line to that end.
SPEAKER_01: Beginning in verse 8, we find ourselves, the word of the Lord came to him, Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the prophet Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm just gonna tell you, Elijah is one of my absolute all-time favorite characters in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously, Jesus is our favorite person in the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_01: So don't come afterwards and tell me sound all spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jesus is my favorite hero in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I got it.
SPEAKER_01: We all are there, right?
SPEAKER_01: After Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody got that?
SPEAKER_01: Don't send me an email tomorrow, okay?
SPEAKER_01: After Jesus, we all have these favorite heroes in Scripture, and Elijah is one of my favorite heroes.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah's an incredible, incredible man of God.
SPEAKER_01: You and I love, though, the journey that God gives us because he not only gives us these incredible faith things that Elijah does, but he also shows us times in life when Elijah's faith struggles and how you work through that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really a, he's just a he's just an incredible man.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that heaven is eternal, which means I'm gonna get some time with Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go have coffee together because they have coffee in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And so, you people that don't drink coffee, you'll either be perfected in heaven or you'll have a long eternity, one or the other, right?
SPEAKER_01: So Elijah and I are gonna go have coffee together, and I'm gonna learn all about these things.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this passage of scripture was the second sermon that I've preached ever in ministry as a young minister.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, this one is better, and I have improved over 30 years of ministry, right?
SPEAKER_01: But that's how much I love this story and one of those things.
SPEAKER_01: So, where we find ourselves, all of these kings and all this chaos, and kings are evil, and they're all evil, and the next one is worse than the other one.
SPEAKER_01: And so many of these kings, it ends with this description.
SPEAKER_01: They did evil in the sight of the Lord, and then a lot of times it'll say, and led the people to do also.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get to the king who is now the king right now, Ahab, and the Bible says about him, he was so evil that he did more evil in the sight of the Lord than all the other kings combined.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's pretty terrible, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just you can't get any worse than that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so that's who Ahab is.
SPEAKER_01: I want to uh let you know there is a great sermon from one of the longtime incredible preachers in the Southern Baptist life named R.
SPEAKER_01: G.
SPEAKER_01: Lee, who preached a famous sermon called Payday Someday.
SPEAKER_01: It was actually when Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Bennett, I think, was the pastor who moved into this sanctuary and the service where they dedicated that uh this building to the Lord and the preaching of the gospel, they had R.
SPEAKER_01: G.
SPEAKER_01: Lee come and preach Payday Sunday here in this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: We have it listed on our chapter and first podcast.
SPEAKER_01: It comes from the life of Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_01: But so here's where we are.
SPEAKER_01: So God tells Elijah to go to Ahab because of their evil and because of the sin and pronounce a drought on the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So he pronounces a drought.
SPEAKER_01: Then God leads him to protect him to a wadi somewhere off hidden to protect him from the evil king and you know, retribution for claiming the drought.
SPEAKER_01: And he's there, and it's the story where he's fed by ravens that bring him food and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we find ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Bible says the word of the Lord came to Elijah, and he says, get up and go to Zarephath.
SPEAKER_01: So we're now moving from that time, and he's beginning to move Elijah forward.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says here in verse uh in verse 8, the word of the Lord came to him, Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Get up and go to Zarephath that belongs to Sidon and stay there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just to give you a sense of geography, this is leaving the nation of Israel at that time, leaving its boundaries, going into what we would call in modern day time Lebanon, and this is a city in Lebanon.
SPEAKER_01: When you read Sidon, you know that this is a lost place, a pagan area that he's going into.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, uh, I look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you there.
SPEAKER_01: And so God is working in both Elijah's life and a widow that we've not met yet.
SPEAKER_01: And God's already spoken to her, a lost person in a non-Israel nation out there where they worship false gods and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And God has said, I'm working there and I want you to go there.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, so, and I love that word, so, because, because God is at work, because God has commanded him, so Elijah got up and went to Zarephath.
SPEAKER_01: When he arrived at the city gate, there was indeed a widow gathering wood.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah called to her and said, Please bring me a little water in a cup and let me drink.
SPEAKER_01: And as she went to get it, he called her to her and said, Also, will you please bring me a piece of bread?
SPEAKER_01: But she said, As the Lord your God lives.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, this is not an Israelite woman.
SPEAKER_01: She says, Your God.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't recognize the God of Israel as God.
SPEAKER_01: Your God, but she knows he's an Israelite, and so she says, As your God lives, I don't have anything baked.
SPEAKER_01: Only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the jug.
SPEAKER_01: Just now, as I am gathering a couple of sticks, in order to go and prepare it for myself and my son so we can eat it and die.
SPEAKER_01: She is completely without hope.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she is literally about to eat her last meal.
SPEAKER_01: Then Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah recognizes this is a God moment and why he sent me here.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Go and do as you have said, but first make me a small loaf and bring it out to me.
SPEAKER_01: Afterward you may make some for yourself and your son.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's not being obnoxious and taking food, the food, away from her son on his last meal.
SPEAKER_01: He recognizes what's happening, and we know that because he continues to speak, and he says this for this is what the Lord God of Israel says the flour jar will not become empty, and the oil jug will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the surface of the land.
SPEAKER_01: Now, my first sermon that I ever preached, I told you about, the title of that sermon was The Miracle of the Martha White.
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to one of the staff guys this week, and he said, Greg, if you say that, half the room ain't gonna know what Martha White is.
SPEAKER_01: So it's flour.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you know.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: So she proceeded to do according to the word of Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Then the woman, Elijah, and her whole household ate for many days.
SPEAKER_01: The flour jar did not become empty, and the oil jug did not run dry, according to the word of the Lord he had spoken through Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: So this miracle happens in her life.
SPEAKER_01: After this, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill.
SPEAKER_01: His illness got worse until he stopped breathing.
SPEAKER_01: She said to Elijah, Man of God, there's derision in this.
SPEAKER_01: She is attacking him because her son has died.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you here?
SPEAKER_01: Have you come to call attention to my iniquity?
SPEAKER_01: Or this version says, What do we have in common?
SPEAKER_01: And I like that version we put on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Because what she's saying is, What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_01: We don't believe the same thing, we don't function the same way, our culture's not the same.
SPEAKER_01: Why did you even come here when we're so different?
SPEAKER_01: Have you come to remind me of my guilt and to kill my son?
SPEAKER_01: That is her picture of this moment.
SPEAKER_01: But Elijah said to her, Give me your son.
SPEAKER_01: So he took him from her arms, he brought him to the upper room in the house where he was staying, that's where she was boarding him, and he laid the boy on his own bed.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20, the Bible says that he cried out to the Lord and said, My Lord God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow I am staying with by killing her son?
SPEAKER_01: Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times.
SPEAKER_01: He cried out to the Lord, and he said, My Lord God, please let this boy's life return to him.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord listened to Elijah's voice.
SPEAKER_01: And the boy's life returned to him, and he lived.
SPEAKER_01: And then Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah said, Look, your son is alive.
SPEAKER_01: And now we get to the end.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know that you are a man of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord's word from your mouth is true.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's break this down, look at some of the details here.
SPEAKER_01: This, I believe, is a story of two people with two journeys.
SPEAKER_01: It's the journey of the man of God as God is working through him, and it is the journey of this woman who doesn't know the Lord and God working in her life to bring her to a knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to look at both those journeys.
SPEAKER_01: You have to start out with the story of the flour and the oil, and she says, We are without hope.
SPEAKER_01: I'm about to cook my son the last meal that we'll ever eat because we have run out of food, and food is the sustenance of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a Baptist church.
SPEAKER_01: There should have been an amen right there.
SPEAKER_01: Food is the sustenance of life, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so this, they are run out of it.
SPEAKER_01: They have run out of the source of life.
SPEAKER_01: She knows she's going to die because they do not have the sustenance of life.
SPEAKER_01: And then there is this moment of decision.
SPEAKER_01: What have you against me because of you're going to bring my guilt?
SPEAKER_01: My son has died.
SPEAKER_01: You've come to kill my son.
SPEAKER_01: And now that God has been working through this miracle to show he is the God of life.
SPEAKER_01: We now come to this crisis of belief and this moment of decision that once again is God the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Bible says that Elijah stretched himself upon the child three times, and this is a clear Old Testament picture of the New Testament salvation that comes through Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: So many times, three times, we see that God works in threes, and it's the number of God.
SPEAKER_01: The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus went to the cross, and there he died in our place.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says he rose again on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: Elisha is stretching himself out over the child, praying for him, and that's a picture of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: When he was stretched out on that cross and he died for us, the Bible says that salvation is the blood of Jesus covers our sins and turns us white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: And this is an Old Testament picture of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I love one of the reasons I love the story and I love the beauty of God's word, Jesus is engaged in a very, very similar circumstance twice in his ministry as recorded in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We know the story of the woman at the well, right?
SPEAKER_01: She was living in Samaria, which is an area that the Jews would never go in.
SPEAKER_01: The Samaritans were a nation that grew up, a people group that grew up for from Israelites intermarrying with the pagan nations of Canaan against God's command.
SPEAKER_01: And so they hated them.
SPEAKER_01: There was great racism against them as a race of people.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus told his disciples, I have need to go through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: Now they probably lost their minds because there was never a reason for a Jewish man to go through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus did, and he met this woman at the well who was a pagan woman from a different background and religion, and he led her to faith in him as the Savior.
SPEAKER_01: There's another story where the disciples are meeting in a place, and a woman the Bible refers to as a Syrophoenician woman, which means she is from a people group and a nation outside of Israel, and she comes to Jesus and is lost hope and needs Jesus to heal her son who has been demon-possessed.
SPEAKER_01: And so here you get Jesus and Elijah in parallel doing these things.
SPEAKER_01: And opening salvation and faith in the Lord up to people who are outside of the Jewish faith.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus said in John 3, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, God so loves the world.
SPEAKER_01: Every person, God loved and sent Jesus to die for them on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Even though Jesus is a Jewish Messiah and God is using the Jewish people to bring Jesus into the world, he grafts people from outside the nation of Israel into the flow of redemption and into his people to show us that Jesus may have come through the Jewish line, but he came for everyone, including this woman who lives in a city called Zarephath.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the two journeys.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the two journeys.
SPEAKER_01: And first I want to start with this woman and her journey to faith because I really believe that's what this is.
SPEAKER_01: It is a journey to faith.
SPEAKER_01: And God puts this story of salvation and redemption right in the middle of all this chaos to remind us that God's purpose is always about bringing people to forgiveness and redemption through his provided Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And nothing can, Ahab nor all the evil in the world cannot stop God's work in bringing about redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: This is a woman who is outside the promises of God, she is outside the worship of God, and so she may know who that Israel God is because they've heard these stories and all the things that God has done.
SPEAKER_01: But she's also seen all the chaos that goes on there.
SPEAKER_01: And so she does not know him, she does not recognize him, but she is a woman without hope.
SPEAKER_01: She's without hope because she doesn't have a family provide.
SPEAKER_01: She's a widow.
SPEAKER_01: She is poor, she's not in control of her circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: She's literally about to give up life.
SPEAKER_01: She is without hope.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't have an answer.
SPEAKER_01: There's not an answer in the false gods of her nation or people, and she can't find hope anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the journey of every person who does not yet know Jesus as their Savior.
SPEAKER_01: It is a journey of searching.
SPEAKER_01: Searching for hope, searching for answers, searching for meaning, searching for joy.
SPEAKER_01: And so people who have not yet made Christ their Savior have this journey where they are trying to determine why do I have this hole and this question mark in my life and why will the things I'm doing not fill it?
SPEAKER_01: And when I hit a moment of crisis or struggle and I can't find an answer, why can't I find an answer?
SPEAKER_01: People everywhere are searching.
SPEAKER_01: Don't believe they're not searching.
SPEAKER_01: I listened to another podcast of pastors today learning how to relate in our culture and all that, and they keep saying this AI thing is getting worse and getting worse and getting worse.
SPEAKER_01: I know I talked about some of that before, but listen to what people are doing.
SPEAKER_01: It serves this point.
SPEAKER_01: There are people everywhere now who have a loved one that has died, and they go to AI and they feed it a picture and they feed it information about this loved one, and they create a virtual loved one that they interact with as if they are there, or that is a fair representation of them.
SPEAKER_01: Teenagers are telling us 70% of them are you have used AI as a friend and 50% of them tell them they like their AI companion better than the real life people that they interact with.
SPEAKER_01: People are now looking for this to eliminate death.
SPEAKER_01: Forward-thinking scientific people are saying there is a point, this sounds like a science fiction movie, but there's a point where they can create this Android kind of a thing and they can take your knowledge base and all of that and download it in there, and your some version of you is represented and remains.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is like not future, it's not like a movie.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the Terminator or something weird.
SPEAKER_01: This is like people are doing this in 2026.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not slamming AI and I know it's a tool and do it at work.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't.
SPEAKER_01: I know that.
SPEAKER_01: But just like the internet and other stuff, you know, we talk about internet and search algorithms and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Also, listen to it this week.
SPEAKER_01: The average American is on the internet between 45 and 49, between 45 and 49 hours a week.
SPEAKER_01: A week.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so what you get is you're doing all this stuff, you're searching all these things, you're doing all these things, and the algorithm, you're feeding the algorithm, and then it's kicking in and it's figuring out this is what you like or this is what you need to hear, or that kind of a deal, and it's feeding you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not giving you the access to all the things that are out in the universe, it's giving you the access of what it wants you to see and have.
SPEAKER_01: And so he used this.
SPEAKER_01: Our people are being discipled by the algorithm.
SPEAKER_01: So all these questions in life, the search of hope, how we define who God is, and all of that is being defined by some other stuff that's feeding people and it's compounding things like depression and poor self-image and struggles and lack of truth and lack of trust in things, because now I don't know if this is an AI-created, generated thing, or if this is a real thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so now we are losing trust in truth and that sort of deal.
SPEAKER_01: There is this ongoing struggle, and people are looking for hope and they can't find it anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: That's the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01: And that's people who are such, now I'm not being critical about it.
SPEAKER_01: This is where people are living, just like this woman is living, and life is struggling, and you hit these moments, and where do I turn for truth?
SPEAKER_01: And then Elijah shows up because God is working in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: He sees her, he knows what her struggle is, he brings Elijah to this moment, and she is open to this ministry that Elijah gives her.
SPEAKER_01: That does not mean that she has trusted in Jesus yet, but it does mean that she's open to this service, and he provides this food and this ongoing, and it ministers to her and her family.
SPEAKER_01: But then you have when life is not functioning and the food is not enough, and the son dies, and now you have this struggle, it creates a moment of decision in her life.
SPEAKER_01: And she understands the spiritual significance of this.
SPEAKER_01: She has some idea of who the God of Israel is and the struggle of all that.
SPEAKER_01: She has some understanding of that, and you know that because she says, Have you just come here to remind me of my guilt?
SPEAKER_01: Every Christian under, I mean, every person who's not a Christian has some idea that we talk about sin in Baptist churches.
SPEAKER_01: They accuse us of being judgmental and hypocritical.
SPEAKER_01: You invite somebody to church, I don't want to go there because all hypocrites.
SPEAKER_01: So they have this idea that this stuff is about like sin somewhere in that judgment or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody has that idea, and she does too.
SPEAKER_01: You have come here just to make us feel guilty.
SPEAKER_01: And she reaches this moment where she has to make this decision.
SPEAKER_01: If God has been ministering to your family and providing the sustenance of life, he is the God of life and the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: Can he provide life for your son?
SPEAKER_01: And she is faced with a decision.
SPEAKER_01: And every person who encounters Jesus, who encounters the gospel, has a choice placed in front of them.
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to recognize Jesus as the Son of God?
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to recognize God as the author of life?
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to recognize God as the one who so loved the world that he gave his only son?
SPEAKER_01: That whosoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life?
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to come to that moment where you realize that Jesus was stretched out on the cross for us and he died in our place?
SPEAKER_01: And his blood pays the sacrifice for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: And if you trust him as your Savior, when he rose again on the third day, conquering death and sin, he offers us new life.
SPEAKER_01: He offers us the chance to trust him, and his blood washes away our sin as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And in this moment, this woman recognizes the God who has been providing food and the sustenance of life is so much more than just some spiritual Walmart.
SPEAKER_01: He is the author of life, and he has brought my son back to life.
SPEAKER_01: And so she recognizes the truth of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the journey that a person goes through.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to do this.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads where you are.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to just take a minute for your love list.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to ask the Lord to give you a sensitivity to your love list.
SPEAKER_01: Every person you're praying, we all have a love list.
SPEAKER_01: That's three people who are lost, God's place in our lives, just like you put this person in Elijah's path.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to ask the Lord to give you some sensitivity to their journey.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I want you to just think about your journey for a moment and how it relates to the journey of this woman.
SPEAKER_01: You've seen people love you or care for you, you've seen people, you've heard us talk about the hope that is in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Have you come to that place where you have trusted Christ as your Savior?
SPEAKER_01: If not, I want to give you a moment to place your faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Just right there where you are.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have an invitation at the end, a moment, an opportunity for you to pray.
SPEAKER_01: For us to pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: But just right there where you are this moment.
SPEAKER_01: If this journey, if this woman's journey, if you can recognize and relate to it, I want you to give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: All right, we've thought about our love list.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to pray for our love list.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think just for a moment with me about the journey of Elijah in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen that widow's journey, her faith, searching for the Lord, coming to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to think about Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Because in our world today, Elijah, I think, represents us.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like us.
SPEAKER_01: We are the people of God, and Jesus has commanded us to take the truth of hope in him to a world that needs him.
SPEAKER_01: Before he went, the bot went to heaven and went there, you know, after he was resurrected, he goes to heaven, he's there praying for us.
SPEAKER_01: We're waiting on him to return.
SPEAKER_01: Twice the Bible records things that he said to us.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Matthew, chapter 28, the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, just like it said, so, Elijah got up and went.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, go into all the world, baptizing the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe whatever I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 1, verse 8, the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: They're asking Jesus, he's about to ascend.
SPEAKER_01: When are you coming back?
SPEAKER_01: It's not for you to know.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you need to know.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to wait here until you get the power of the Holy Spirit, and then with power from him, you are going to be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the other most part of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: So in the New Testament, we are in that role of God's people who bring the hope of redemption to the world around us.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see here, Elijah has been in one place, and God puts him in another, and he puts him in proximity to a person in whose life he is working.
SPEAKER_01: I've commanded this widow, I want you to go there and do this.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that Elijah went.
SPEAKER_01: We all have people in our lives, in our walk of life, in the place where we are, that God has put us in that place.
SPEAKER_01: When he gets there, he recognizes God's work there.
SPEAKER_01: As we talked about, he's not taking her last meal, right?
SPEAKER_01: He is recognizing if she's out and God told her to provide for me, then this is where God wants me to be, and I need to recognize the significance of this moment, and I need to step into this with the word of the Lord and let him do what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in July, after the 4th and 5th and all that, we're going to do a study on Wednesday nights as a church family where we're going to talk about personal evangelism and how we do these things.
SPEAKER_01: And we're also going to make it available, so even if you can't come on Wednesday nights, what are due?
SPEAKER_01: We're going to use the Love Worth Finding and EE training model that's on the Love Worth Finding website.
SPEAKER_01: We will have information for you how to do that.
SPEAKER_01: You can log on there.
SPEAKER_01: And it's an incredibly easy and powerful tool to use to learn.
SPEAKER_01: And then Pastor Matt and I are going to be teaching on Wednesday nights how to do that and put that into practice so that we can be who Elijah is in this story.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to take those lessons and put them on our chapter and first podcast.
SPEAKER_01: So even if you can't be here on Wednesday nights or you're serving in another area, you can get online and do the training and you can follow with Matt and I'm teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Why are we doing that?
SPEAKER_01: Because we need to recognize as a people that God places us in the proximity of people who do not have hope and they need the hope that only Jesus brings.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to learn how to step into that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Then, this is particularly important, I think, for us right here in our modern culture.
SPEAKER_01: In her crisis, when she comes to him and she says, You just came here to point out our sin and kill my son.
SPEAKER_01: You came here and you're just trying to wreak havoc and be judgmental, and you're being one of those Jewish people that does that to us.
SPEAKER_01: And that's how she approaches this moment of crisis.
SPEAKER_01: And in our workplace, for example, how many of us have had this argument?
SPEAKER_01: Somebody starts slamming the church or Jesus or they come up with some bogus thing, and we think it's our job to right the informational wrongs of all people everywhere, and we argue with them about how they're wrong and we're right.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what happens?
SPEAKER_01: It happens.
SPEAKER_01: We are defenders of the faith when we are called to be sharers of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: She comes at him hard with all of this passion.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's gone through already grieving.
SPEAKER_01: She's going to make the last meal for her son, he's going to die.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah shows up, all of a sudden they're fed.
SPEAKER_01: We have hope again, things are working again, and then he dies.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine the struggle and the crisis in this moment?
SPEAKER_01: And she comes at him with all of the vitriol of a mother who has had hope, had it taken away from them.
SPEAKER_01: Her son dies, and she comes at him hard and vicious.
SPEAKER_01: She's accusing him of coming here to kill her son.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I've been feeding your son for weeks.
SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't defend himself, he doesn't lecture her, he doesn't react, he doesn't go into some apologetics lecture, he didn't go into any of that.
SPEAKER_01: First thing he does is he just stands there and receives it.
SPEAKER_01: There's no response from here, there's no argument here.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't get into that kind of stuff with her.
SPEAKER_01: He loves her, he recognizes her struggle.
SPEAKER_01: This is a person who needs the ministry of God.
SPEAKER_01: This is a person who needs to recognize God has been at work in her life, and now I can see why God has worked out this whole sustenance of light thing, and he's doing this in her life.
SPEAKER_01: And I've got to be the person of hope in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: He's not a defender or arguer, he receives it.
SPEAKER_01: Think of this model.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Peter chapter 2, the Bible says that when Jesus was beaten and bruised for our sins, he did not offer a word in his defense.
SPEAKER_01: But he went to the cross, and there he died for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so Elijah steps into the moment.
SPEAKER_01: He receives her grief and her struggle.
SPEAKER_01: He takes the boy and he prays for her and he acts with faith as a representative of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This is a representative story that shows here that he is, God has put him in a moment to be an example of the love of him and to point out that he is the redeemer and the giver of life.
SPEAKER_01: This is one scenario, but in all kinds of scenarios, God puts us in the lives of people who need someone to model who God is as the giver of life.
SPEAKER_01: He needs someone to step in who knows that God answers prayer because God has saved them and pray over that person and step into their grief with the love of Jesus, not to argue, not to challenge, but to love them the way Jesus loved them, to point out that Jesus loved them so much.
SPEAKER_01: As the giver of life, he died for their sins so he could save them and they could be born again.
SPEAKER_01: And that's who Elijah is in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: You have a woman who is searching and has no hope, and she is looking for the answers and she doesn't know where to find them, and God takes a person of God and he places and prepares him and puts him in her path to give him the answers, and that's the journey of two people and how most people come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you a question: where are you in these journeys?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you in the journeys?
SPEAKER_01: Have you accepted Christ as your Savior or are you still searching?
SPEAKER_01: Can you relate to this woman's journey and the questions and the moments where you fight back?
SPEAKER_01: The misunderstanding, this whole thing about your sin will be judged and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Do you wrankle at that and do you fight back and say, no, you're just here to judge me?
SPEAKER_01: You Baptist preachers are all the same?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you recognize here that the only reason that God is bringing that to your path is for you to understand the tragedy of being judged for that sin when the author of life has sent his son to die on the cross for you and to conquer death and sin so that your sin can be covered in his blood and you can be redeemed and saved and forgiven and be given eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_01: That whosoever, it doesn't matter how far you might think you are outside of the promises or people of God, you're no different than this woman or the woman at the well or the Syrophoenician mother.
SPEAKER_01: And God is working and bringing the truth into your life.
SPEAKER_01: Have you faced that decision moment?
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to invite you to place your faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: To recognize, just as this woman did, as she gets through her journey, the word of your Lord is true.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus said he had come to save you, if you'll believe in him, he spoke the truth.
SPEAKER_01: If you're already accepted Christ as your Savior, are you going to Zarephath?
SPEAKER_01: Are you looking for the widow that God has put in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Are you recognizing this moment where God has said, here's what I want you to do, and here's a person actually in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: And you can step in if you by faith are recognizing the significance of this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Are you stepping into that to be a person of faith?
SPEAKER_01: A person of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are in that journey, there is a moment of decision for you today.
SPEAKER_01: Some people ask me still, Pastor, why do we do an invitation?
SPEAKER_01: So many places are not doing it.
SPEAKER_01: Do it this way, do it that way.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why we do it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not for people to walk the aisles or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We do an invitation because this decision moment is real.
SPEAKER_01: It's real.
SPEAKER_01: And what we want to do is get to this moment where we realize I can leave here different than I was when I came in.
SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with aisles or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It has everything to do with what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And here you have these incredible journeys that every one of us can relate to.
SPEAKER_01: Which journey is yours and what decision has God placed in front of you?
SPEAKER_01: And this is an opportunity for you to just see that, for you to see that decision moment and make a decision of faith because you now believe that God's word is true.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been saved, we want to pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: We're not here to argue with you or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We want to do the same thing Elijah did.
SPEAKER_01: We want to love you where you are, and we just want to walk the journey with you.
SPEAKER_01: We are praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: We have answers from Scripture for your questions.
SPEAKER_01: We'll just point you to Jesus, and we just want to walk the journey with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you need to be saved this morning, you're watching online or by television, give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How do I do that?
SPEAKER_01: It's simple.
SPEAKER_01: You believe that what God's word says is true, that Jesus loves you, He died for you, He's been working in your life to bring you this moment, and He rose again, conquering death and sin, so that His blood can cover your sins.
SPEAKER_01: He can forgive you and you can begin in a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, how do I do that?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's no magic incantation.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to walk an aisle to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: In your heart, what you do is you talk to Jesus and you tell him that you believe him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I know that I've sinned.
SPEAKER_01: Please forgive me of my sin.
SPEAKER_01: However, you want to say that in your words.
SPEAKER_01: And then you tell him and acknowledge, I know that you died for me and you rose again.
SPEAKER_01: And I trust you with all of my life because I know your words are true.
SPEAKER_01: Your own words, how you say that, it's what happens in your heart that you make that choice of faith to trust in him, just as this woman did.
SPEAKER_01: And church family, we all have a love list.
SPEAKER_01: They are the sour Phoenician woman in your life.
SPEAKER_01: God has placed them there, and He has a job there.
SPEAKER_01: A ministry, a moment of decision.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to commit to step into that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Make that your prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you think, man, I don't know how to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Then I want you to take seriously the month of July as we learn to share our faith.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just beat on the Bible or pulpit somewhere and tell you you got to do this.
SPEAKER_01: We're in this journey together and we can learn to do this together.
SPEAKER_01: Join us.
SPEAKER_01: Make that commitment this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever God has spoken to your heart this morning, you respond to Him right now.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are going to stand and we're going to sing a testimony that we believe what we've talked about today and we believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be saved, you come.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like for someone to pray with you, you come.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to make an appointment to talk about it in a better setting where you can discourse, man, we're all about that.
SPEAKER_01: You come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you for this beautiful story in your word.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray, Father, even though I'm not eloquent enough to make it come alive, I pray the Holy Spirit does that in our hearts through the living, powerful word of God.
SPEAKER_01: You wrote this moment and passed it to us, and I pray, Father, you help us to seize it.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray, 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 First Baptist Church.