Jesus the Messiah - The Primary Teaching of the Old Testament - Pastor Greg Addison - August 2, 2026

Sermon from Pastor Greg Addison on Sunday morning, August 2, 2026.

Ministering to the heart of the Western Arkansas River Valley for over 165 years. Welcome to Chapter and First- the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church, you'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg Addison, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

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. You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah 53. And while you're turning, I want to brag on another group in our church today. As you're getting back ready to school, and you know, we're that's a big theme going to be the next couple weeks, getting ready for school. River Valley Education Solutions is a local educational support organization at Fort Smith. They do a lot of things, including creating backpacks and school supplies for at-risk kids. Jacob had an opportunity, Pastor Jacob did, to get us connected with them this year, and our choir stepped into the breach, and they took 30 names of kids and they bought backpacks and filled those with all the requests of those kids and served them on our behalf as a church. And so I'm very grateful for our worship ministry. They are a ministry and they minister in all kinds of ways. And so I'm grateful for our choir, and I wanted to take a minute to brag on them. If you want to be around some of the best folks in church, go check out the choir, right? Christmas is getting started, and it's great to be in there with them. All right, you're in Isaiah 53. As we continue to read through the Bible in chronological order, uh, this is one of those weeks where we hit a chapter that I just have to do that, right? Now, I've mentioned this before, but you think about the stress in preaching through this. It's not stressful, but the stress is three chapters a day, seven days a week. That's 21 chapters. That's about 46 sermons a week that I don't get to preach, right? Y'all with me? And so, you know, it's hard sometimes making those choices. This week, there was really no choice because we hit Isaiah 53, and it really is the linchpin in many ways in the Old Testament, and even Scripture, you can think about it as a hub on which all of Scripture turns. And what it tells us is the primary teaching of the Old Testament is Jesus the Messiah, Jesus our Savior. Uh, as I was studying this week, uh, these are just some of the kind of quotes I ran across from Bible scholars all the way back to Martin Luther. Uh, they describe Isaiah 53 as this incredibly significant book. Now, I want you to think about what that means. It was written 700 years before Jesus was born. And yet it's being described as this book that is the linchpin of Scripture. Isaiah gives prophecies for the entire ministry of Jesus. Prophecies for him coming, prophecies for his life, prophecies for his death, burial, and resurrection, and prophecies of the end times and eternity. It's incredible. It covers the entire ministry of Jesus. The book of Isaiah does. It is one of the most quoted books in the New Testament. Approximately 80 verses or pieces of verses quoted in the New Testament, and the majority of those come from this one chapter, Isaiah 53. Here are some of those quotes from scholars I ran across this week. They describe this one chapter this way: the most important text of the Old Testament. The Mount Everest of prophecy. I ran across this quote from a number of Bible scholars from the 18 and early 1900s. They began to repeat this phrase that it was written as if Isaiah was sitting beneath the cross of Jesus on the hill of Golgotha, which is one of the gospel's names that hill that. Now that's a pretty powerful statement. Many of them called it the Holy of Holies of Scripture because it is such a detailed and heart description of salvation and Jesus for us. And then a number of them described it as the fifth gospel, this chapter, because what you get is in detail the ministry, life, and crucifixion of Jesus, almost as if he was sitting at the foot of the cross, as that other group of scholars would say. Now I want you to read with me, and when you read chapter 53, it really you back up a couple of verses, and the three verses that head into Isaiah 53 really set it up for us. So I want you to see, beginning in 52, verse 13, these three verses are like a nutshell or a reader's digest version of the entire gospel right here in these three verses. Here's what he says See my servant. So this is God commanding the people to see the Messiah who would come, see my servant, will be successful. He will be raised, that's a picture of his resurrection. He'll be lifted up, that's being taken into heaven in Acts chapter 1, and greatly exalted, that is for eternity. He will be celebrated as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, those things we see in Revelation where they're singing at the throne. That's Jesus. This is salvation. And he says, look at the salvation that comes through my servant. Just as many were appalled at you, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man, and his form did not resemble a human being. We know the Bible tells us that Jesus was beaten beyond being able to recognize who he was. Like his face was that beaten. And this is a nutshell version of those beatings with a cat of nine tails and all that stuff, the crown of thorns and all that, Jesus on the way to the cross, describing his death. But because of his death, burial, and resurrection, and because he is lifted up for eternity and all that, here's what he said, here's what the Bible says, so he will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of him, for they will see what had not been told them, and they will understand what they had not heard. In other words, when he shakes the world, and that world sprinkle is really an awkward translation, it would be better translated a word like startle, which fits in with that startle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of him. Jesus shakes the world, and the gospel explodes through the world because of what Jesus did. And now then he begins in chapter 53. And it starts with a rhetorical question. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And so now we ask the question who is he writing to? What's happening here as he begins this rhetorical question? Who has believed what he's heard? And now he begins to then describe those prophecies of Jesus. But look, it's written in past tense. He grew up before him like a young plant and a root out of dry ground. He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. Now, why is it written in past tense? Well, here's what most scholars believe, and I think this is true. It makes perfect sense when you break it down. The book of Isaiah, as we said a minute ago, gives the full orbed prophecy of the gospel. Prediction of Jesus' birth, his life, his death, burial, and resurrection, and all of eternity. We also know from Isaiah, and then specifically prophecies like Zechariah, that while we know the Jewish people walked away from Jesus and they walked away from the promise of the Messiah. One of the prophecies at the end times, as we begin all of that stuff and we begin to walk into eternity, that there will be a great revival that occurs within the Jewish people, the race of Jewish people, and many of them realize that Jesus was the Messiah. There is a revival of salvation, and they turn back to Jesus. And so when you look at this, what happens is he's asking this rhetorical question, and this is a prophecy not of Jesus coming, but a prophecy of that revival in the Jewish people. And what he's prophesying is that they will look back in the midst of that revival and realize that they missed Jesus when he came. That they missed salvation through the Messiah. And so now he's prophesying out not just what Jesus did and who he was and how to identify him as the Savior, but he is looking at it from the perspective of this remnant of Jewish people that revival breaks out, and they look back and they are acknowledging factually that Jesus was who God said he would be, and that he accomplished all of these prophecies. Now, as we start to read through here, you're going to recognize some verses, and there's a lot of prophecies that speak of specificities of Jesus and his ministry and his sacrifice and all of that. Statisticians that stubborn that study these things, a couple of them have taken these prophecies we're about to read, and they've done a statistical study. What's the probability that one man could have fulfilled all of these specific prophecies? And if you just asked what person could one man fill half of these prophecies, it is statistically impossible. But Jesus fulfilled every one of them in great specificity. And you're looking back and they're pointing out how Jesus did accomplish these things. Now let's read. A man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him. That's a beautiful phrase right there. What's it talking about? Peace. Peace that comes through salvation. He was punished for our sins and took our sins on the cross so that when we're saved, we might know the peace of God that only comes through salvation in Jesus. We all, verse 6, we all went astray like sheep. We have all turned to our own way. And the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment. And who considered his fate? For he was cut off from the land of the living, he was struck because of my people's rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. Now that's a weird phrase, isn't it? It pleased God to do that. Well, listen to the rest of the verse and get the full picture of that. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand the Lord's pleasure will be accomplished. If you underline your Bibles, that's a great verse to underline right there. What pleased God and what was his pleasure that was accomplished? It was salvation. It was not just the sacrifice of Jesus, but it was the fact that Jesus took our sins on the cross as the Messiah, just as God had prophesied from the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, and he planned salvation out. His purpose, his pleasure, his accomplishment was to complete salvation for us. And when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, conquering death and sin, he created salvation. He accomplished that plan for God. God's pleasure was accomplished. What an incredible verse right there in the middle of the Old Testament, telling us what God's purpose is. He says in verse 11, after his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted to death and was counted among the rebels, yet bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels. This incredible picture of Jesus. Now, what the big idea in this message, and the big idea in this chapter, and the point of this is to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. And he is both recognized as the Messiah because of the prophecy and because of the fulfilled prophecies. And again, they are looking back at what God accomplished in identifying Jesus and showing and accomplishing what he did as the Messiah. Now, I want to structure kind of the thoughts in this in two points. There is both a command and a question here in this passage. First, I want you to see the command. Beginning in that little reader's digest version that sets up chapter 53, Isaiah 52, verse 13, he says, See my servant. Or your version may say, Behold my servant. It's a command. It's look, look and see at Jesus. Look and see at the Savior. Look and see who he is and what he's done. And then you have here in this chapter two kinds of ideas. First, the factual prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus, and then the spiritual accomplishment of salvation that's realized through him. And so we know that he's the Savior because of the identified specific prophecies that are fulfilled. And when you read through here, it's simply amazing to think. Written 700 years before the life of Jesus, and yet it is incredible in its specificity. I want you to just skim through some of these with me. Time doesn't allow us to go through all of them, but I want you to just think through a few of these with me. Verse 2, he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. That's an illustration there. It's a word picture. And there was like a 400-ish period of time in between the Old Testament and the coming of Jesus when God did not speak in a formal or official fashion. There's no prophet, there's no letter written in Scripture. Now, doesn't mean God wasn't active, doesn't mean there weren't people who were walking with God, worshiping God. We see pictures of that, like the priest and his wife, Elizabeth and Zechariah, when you start to move into that time. You get people like Simeon and Anna who show up and they've been looking for the Savior and all of that. So it doesn't mean that God didn't wasn't active in the lives of people, but it means he hasn't spoken officially into the Jewish people in that whole period of time. So it's a dry period. They're not looking for him en masse. And they've been conquered and all of that, and yet Jesus comes during this time, like a shoot that comes up out of dry ground. It says about him, about Jesus, the Messiah, that verse 3, uh verse 2, he did not have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. And so we talk about at Christmas time, the humble birth and setting of Jesus. He was born to a simple young couple who was about to get married. He was born in a backward little outside of Jerusalem of Jerusalem town called Bethlehem. They weren't rich, they weren't special, there wasn't anything that pointed Jesus out to them. In fact, as we talk about at Christmas, when the birth of Jesus was celebrated, angels went to shepherds, the most humble people that you could go to in culture, right? And so all of that is this picture of the humble birth of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There was no majesty attached to his birth, and nothing in that that would inherently proclaim him as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, as the Messiah. Just a simple birth in a simple family, in a simple town. And yet we know that Jesus was born that way, so we would understand that salvation is for everyone. But it's a beautiful picture of his birth and all of that. Then it says in verse 3, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. And every time it talks about sickness and healing, we're talking about spiritual sickness and spiritual healing. And we know that Jesus was rejected. The Bible tells us that even in the town and the area where he grew up, like he couldn't even perform miracles there because of the lack of faith of the people. We know that the Pharisees, almost early on in his three-year ministry, started to attack him, and they were frustrated by him, and they were threatened by him, and he thought he was going to take their power, and some of them thought he was a heretic. And how many times does it say in that final year of ministry that they plotted to cause Jesus death, but they couldn't for whatever reason? But they kept plotting and eventually got there. He was rejected. He was rejected. And he says in verse 5, but he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. He came to die on the cross to accomplish salvation, to die there, to take the full wrath and punishment of God, to pay for our sins, and then rose again, conquering death and sin to offer us salvation. Now I want you to look at verse 4. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, our sins, and he carried our pains, because we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. Now that bore, when it talks about he bore our sins or our sicknesses, he bore those failures that we call sin in our life. That's a picture that most Jewish people would understand. You see, when John the Baptist saw Jesus, he identified him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And that's that reference that all Jewish people knew to that day when they would bring that spotless lamb to the priest and the temple or tabernacle, and that lamb would have its throat slit, the blood would come out, they would pour it on the altar, and that was a prophecy of Jesus whose blood would be shed for us. But there are other aspects to that day that we don't talk about a lot. So usually we talk about they brought that lamb and it was spotless and all that. They actually brought two lambs on that day. And the second one was called the scapegoat. And both of them are pictures of Jesus. And so the first one, its throat was slit and the blood was shed, and the that's that picture that Jesus would have to die to pay the price for our sins, to take the punishment for our sin on the cross. But here what you have this boar, that's this picture of the scapegoat. And so what would happen as a part of that religious worship experience and ceremony, they would Ceremoniously act and do in such a way that they proverbially put the sins of the people on the scapegoat. And then someone would take that scapegoat and they would take it outside of the city, out into the wilderness, and they would let it go out there. It was another symbol of this scapegoat, it was a prophecy of the Messiah, Jesus who would come, and he bore our sins and took them away. He bore our sins out. Sin separates us from God. Jesus takes those sins and bore them out. When Jesus was crucified, he was crucified just like the scapegoat. He was taken outside of the city and there was crucified for our sins. These are incredibly beautiful pictures of salvation and the description of what Jesus would do for us and how they were accomplished, how it was accomplished. He was pierced because of our rebellion. Jesus was pierced at least five times on the cross. He was peered in his ankles, he was pierced in his wrists, and the Bible tells us that in order to make sure that he was dead, a Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear. Crucifixion was not a known form of capital punishment 700 years before Jesus. And yet you see another reference and picture of the cross, he talks about all of us are sinners. Verse 6, we all went astray like sheep. We have all turned to our own way. That all of us are sinners, as it says in Romans, all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We're all sinners by birth, by nature, and by choice. All of us, if you're old enough to be in this room, unless you're one of the babies and moms holding you, which is awesome. That's good. It's their church too, right? All their kids, it's their church too. But unless you're one of those, you're old enough to know, to feel guilt and to know that they are things that you've done wrong and know that they're things for which you must be forgiven. And most of us have lived enough life to realize we can't really do away with our guilt ourselves. That's why Jesus stepped out of heaven, as the Bible says, because we have all turned to our own way. The essence of sin is my pride in doing it my way, and the Lord punished him for the iniquity of us all. Verse 7, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her hear her shearers, he did not open his mouth. In other words, that's a prophecy that actually occurred in that trumped-up trial, that bogus trial that they brought, trying to uh try Jesus for the for the crime of heresy. Um defend himself. He would not defend himself. He would not argue with them. He didn't get a lawyer, he didn't go in there trying to prove that he was holy. Why? Because he wasn't there to vindicate his integrity. He was there to take his holiness to the cross and take our sins on himself and die on the cross in our place. If you remember, Pilate was frustrated. He couldn't get him to respond, and he couldn't, and he couldn't find any sin in him and that whole thing. And so, and so it it is an incredibly specific picture of the journey of Jesus to the cross. Look at what he says in verse 9. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Again, not spoken deceitfully. Pilate looked at Jesus and he said, I find no fault in this man. And he's thinking, What are you crazy people doing? I don't understand this whole thing. And uh and so what you get is Jesus then taken to the cross, and the Bible is very specific in his prophecy, and it's fulfilled in Jesus. He was taken outside the city like the scapegoat, and when they hung him on that cross and they drove that cross into the ground, the Bible tells us that there was a convicted criminal, a thief on either side of him. And so he was crucified amongst the wicked, those who had been convicted and hung there for a reason. In fact, you'll remember one of them was accusing Jesus and ridiculing Jesus and mocking Jesus, and then he said, If you're the Son of God, why don't you get us off these crosses? And the other thief, who trusted in Christ in that moment, hollered at the other guy and he said, Listen, we deserve to be here. He does not. He was crucified among the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death. What's that prophecy? Well, when Jesus had died for our sins on the cross, and that moment was accomplished, and they took his body down, there was a man named Joseph of Arimathea, who was a rich man who had a newly hewn tomb that he had created for himself, and probably his family had things around there. And the Bible says that Jesus allowed them to take his body and they buried Jesus in a rich man's tomb he had created for himself. Now, it's incredible the amount of specificity. And that's why when they tell us, even half of these it's statistically impossible to accomplish. And you go on and on and on through this passage and seeing that Jesus was identified. And now what you have is this remnant of the Jewish people looking backwards, and they're saying, All of this we should have known. And all of this was proven in the person of Jesus. And he was our Savior. And then the spiritual accomplishment that is described here. Verse 10, as we looked at a minute ago, yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, and he will prolong his days, and by his hand the Lord's pleasure will be accomplished. That's the spiritual accomplishment of salvation realized. He has met the pleasure and accomplished the pleasure of God, and that is the fulfillment of his promise of salvation. And look what it says. What is he talking about there? The seed of salvation that's birthed in those who give their life to Jesus. Because of what Jesus did on the cross and fulfilled the gospel, the gospel goes out and people are saved all throughout human history and until the moment when Jesus returns again. And what he's saying is there is a great seed to the gospel that is birthed in the new life of people who've trusted him as their Savior. And Jesus, because of what he's done, because he accomplished what God had called him to do and planned for him to do, people will be saved and they will be the seed of the gospel. Look at what he says. After, in verse 11, after his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. When you come and place your faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible explains how to do that. If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so what happens is we are justified when we come to Jesus and we realize and we place our faith in the historical fact that Jesus lived a sinless life. He went to the cross. He died in our place, he rose again. And when I confess him as Lord, I surrender my life to him because he gave his life for me. There is a spiritual exchange that occurs. The price for my sin is paid for. I am justified because of the work of Jesus. There's a spiritual exchange that occurs, and my sins are paid for on the cross, and God looks down out of heaven and he sees me through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and I am righteous, not because I deserve it, because I am justified by Jesus and his work on the cross. It's incredible the pictures here. Now look at what he says in verse 12. Therefore I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil because he willingly submitted to death. In other words, the Bible talks about how we as Christians are the portion given to Jesus as the Savior. And he's making that prophecy that in heaven there will be many, there will be many, many, many who are saved because they have come to Jesus and we will be his reward. And when we come to the throne, just as it describes in Revelation, and they ask who's able to open the book, who's able to accomplish salvation, who's able to read the Lamb's Book of Life and all of that, Jesus is able to do that. And we come to him and we are his because he paid the price for our sin. And it is another prophecy of the gospel and how people will be saved. Now there's an interesting truth that happens here. We started off pointing out that this was a fact of this rhetorical question and this command to see Jesus. And if you come down the corridors of time, here's the remnant of Israel after this revival is broken out, and they look back at what had happened. And that's why it's written in past tense. But it's interesting because in verse 10 we shift to the future. We shift back to the future. And so what happens is up to this point you have the prophecies that were fulfilled, but now we have this prophecy of eternity and the advance of the gospel and people who will be saved and be given to him as a perfor as his portion, and we look to the impact of salvation that will come. Pastor Greg, how do you know that heaven's real? How do you know that we'll spend an eternity with him? Well, everything that God promised in Jesus was fulfilled already in these fulfilled prophecies. So why would I not believe the future ones? Because I can look back and see the ones that were accomplished already. My faith is not made up. And you see this incredible picture. Now, there's a command, but there's a question. We saw the command, behold and see my servant. And we looked at all that fulfilled prophecy and what he accomplished and the promise of the future and all of that. But here's a question. Who has believed? Chapter 3, chapter 53 begins with this question: Who has believed what we have heard? In other words, there were some people that heard it that didn't believe. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? There were people, clearly, Jesus was revealed as the Messiah because of all of the fulfilled prophecies. And it's we're looking down the quarters of time and we're seeing people who are looking back, realizing with regret and remorse they missed the message of Jesus and the power of God in salvation. And so here's a question: Who has believed? Have you believed? All of us have lived enough life to know there are things in the past we wish we had done differently, right? I mean, there's a whole lot of stuff I could spend a lot of time up here that I won't tell you because it's embarrassing about stuff I said and shouldn't have. Or things I did and shouldn't have, right? We all have those regrets, and at times they come up and they are there for us. And we look back and we think, hmm, and some regrets are greater than others. Some of them are missed opportunities. We could have done this and we didn't. And we look back and we see those things, and that's really this picture. I am looking back in regret, going, we should have believed and we didn't. It was revealed to us and we missed it as a people. We missed the opportunity, we missed the power of God. We rejected when we should have had faith. And we have this question who has believed, and this rhetorical question have you missed Jesus? Think about that for a minute. Have you believed? Or maybe you've trusted in him, but you have worked and taken control of your life back or tried to, and you have times and periods and decisions where you didn't live according to a resurrected Savior. You have times you could have done this spiritually and you didn't. You had opportunities that you missed. You had times you walked away and struggled. We all have those. And so this is posed in a beautiful way in this question who has believed and to whom has he revealed? What do we do with those? Well, here's the beauty of this passage. You have both the past and the future. You have the faith that acknowledges that Jesus came and did what he said he would do, but you have a future yet to be realized of trusting and walking with him, of being his portion in the future, of being a part of that eternity and all of that. If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, listen, this is the time to give your life to Jesus. Don't go forward and look back and think, what could have been? I was told, I saw, I read it, and I walked away. If you've never trusted Christ as your savior, in just a moment, I'm gonna pray and we're gonna stand and sing, and we call it an invitation, but really it's an opportunity for you to leave here different than you were when you came in. And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, we're gonna invite you to come and to trust in Him, and that is by exactly what we've described, recognizing that I'm like one of those sheep. I've gone away, I've followed my own way, I've walked away from God, and that is sin. And Jesus loved me so much, he stepped out of heaven, he went to the cross, and he died there in my place. He rose again, as it says in chapter 52. He was raised, and then he was lifted up, and he will be lifted up on high. And there is an eternity that waits for me. If I will place my faith in him, I will have the promise of the future, not the regrets and the sin and the guilt of the past. Place your faith in Jesus and trust him and a future with him. If you've already been saved, all of us have this walk and this struggle. We have times that we have just missed it. And I think this message applies to us as well. Listen, why do I want to look back and think I could have shared with that person, I could have been involved, I could have made a difference, I could have impacted lives, I could have served, I could have taken a stand for Jesus, I could have shared him. I was called to the ministry and I walked away and I did not respond. Don't look back and think who? Who heard. Look to the future. Allow those things in the past, place them under the blood, give them to Jesus. Look forward to the promise of walking with him, of salvation in relationship with him, where you're bearing fruit and you're a part of the advance of the gospel, and you can participate in the reaching of the many. Be a part of that. Make that choice. Go forward. Don't find yourself looking back. Why don't you bow your heads that we close? In a moment, I'm gonna pray and we're gonna stand and God's people are gonna sing a testimony of man, we trust in God's word and the truth of it, and we know Jesus saves. If you want to be saved, I want to invite you to come. We'll have pastors at the head of our aisles here. You just come. Listen, don't worry about the time. We're not gonna keep you a long time. If we need to schedule meetings afterwards, we'll do that. If you got questions and you want to sit down and have a cup of coffee this week, myself, Matt, Jacob, any of us, Pastor Dave, man, we'll be glad to sit down with you and pray with you and talk with you and walk that journey with you. But we do not want you to look back and wish you had. Lord, we love you and we thank you. And this beautiful picture here that gives insight into what it means when we miss you, but the hope that we don't have to continue to miss you, and we can look forward to salvation, and we know that Jesus accomplished salvation, and the promises are real, and the gospel's moving, and many will be saved, and we have an opportunity to be a part moving forward. Lord, I pray you'll help us this morning to look forward, to see you and the fulfilled promises that build our hope and our faith for the future. Father, someone struggling with regrets or sins or struggles, I pray from this passage they can see that those will be placed under the blood of Jesus and his saving work, and we can turn and look to an eternity with him. If there's someone who needs to be saved this morning, I pray they'll give their life to you. Someone's dealing with something spiritually, and I mean they just want somebody to pray with them or whatever. Open the doors. Give us the opportunity to walk alongside them and encourage them from your word. And Lord, we pray you will do your work this morning. In Jesus' name we pray.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

And all God's people said. We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus. Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you. 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's First Baptist Church.