Telling Your Jesus Story (Part 2) - A Jesus Built Church - Philippians 1:5-6 Pastor Greg Addison

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.

Thank you, Jacob, and choir and praise team, and we appreciate our students leading us in worship this morning.

That was awesome to hear them as well.

And uh so if you will, turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians chapter one this morning.

We're gonna continue our study this month.

We're talking about telling your Jesus story and uh learning to share your testimony and share the gospel and being a part of that.

And one of the things, one of the number numerous reasons that I'm honored to be a part of the First Baptist family, but one of those is the incredible heritage of evangelism in this church.

And all throughout the decades and the generations of all the different ways that this church has been a lighthouse in the River Valley and has shared the gospel, has been a part of missions and sending people around the world to share the gospel.

This church has a heritage.

It was birthed uh decades and decades and generations ago by people who came to this area and planted a church.

They said there needed to be a church here, and they invited people to come to Jesus and they started a church, and now here we are many generations later, preaching the gospel this morning.

The church at Philippi is actually a church that has that testimony as well.

The Bible tells us in the book of Acts about the founding and the beginning of the church in the city of Philippi.

It was in Paul's second missionary journey.

He was with some a mission team and they were headed to an area.

And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit told them, No, you're not going to go there.

And then later on, Paul, in a dream, has God speak to him, and he sees a man who is calling out for help, and he's in the area that Philippi is a city in that geographic area.

And he receives a call to come to that area to preach the gospel.

The Bible talks about he collected his mission team, they headed in that direction, and they landed in this city of Philippi.

And there they began to discover people who were hungry, who were searching.

They led them to Christ, and in the process of that, brought them together and birthed a church.

There are some famous people and moments of evangelism in that birthing of this city.

When he arrived in the city, there's a lady whose name was Lydia, and she was teaching people from the Word, and there were people who were hungry, and they were trying to find out who God is and what does all that look like.

And Paul showed up and God led him to that moment, and he stepped into her life, and the people that they were teaching, and he told them Jesus is the answer for which you are searching.

And they were saved.

And then there was a young girl who was being manipulated, and there was a demon in her, and they were using her to fortune tell and make money on her and all of that.

Paul cast out the demon to make a long story short, and uh she was saved, and all kinds of chaos broke out, and they put Paul and his team in jail.

And while they were in jail, God, that was not his plan.

So he rattled the jail and opened the doors, and there was a jailer in that jail who was afraid for his life because he thought, I don't know what's going on, but all these doors are open, all these prisoners are going to escape, and uh this is not gonna go well for me.

They're gonna put me in jail or whatever.

And the Bible says he was literally about to take his life.

And Paul hollers out to him in that moment and says, Do not take your life.

We are all still here.

And God creates the opportunity for him to step into that hall and lead that man to trust Jesus as his savior.

Then the Bible tells us that Paul went home with him and his entire family was saved.

So you had Lydia was saved, then the Bible says her whole family was saved.

Then you have the people in that Bible study were saved, and then you have the Philippian jailer was saved, and his whole family was saved.

And in that moment, God birthed this church in Philippi that became this incredible evangelistic opportunity and lighthouse for that area and that region.

With that in mind, I want you to read with me in Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

What I've entitled the message today is A Jesus Built Church.

And hopefully, from going back to the beginnings of a church, it can grab your idea and get in your mind that listen, there was a day when this church was not here, but there were believers who came together and they shared Jesus in this area, and people got saved, and a church was birthed.

And when you go back into those moments of Scripture, like the church at Antioch or the church at Philippi, you see that that is how a church begins.

Now I want you to just read with me real quickly here, and we'll go back and get context later.

But Philippians chapter 5 or chapter 1, verses 5 and 6 say this.

Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

First day of what?

In the birthing of that church in the city of Philippi.

I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

In other words, Paul is writing them and saying, Listen, you and I have been partnering in the gospel since I came to your city and you got saved and came together as a church.

And he says, I am confident of this thing.

This I know to be a fact, that what God began and has continued, he will continue until Jesus comes back again.

You see, when God starts in that work in a church, and that church is founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is filled with people who have trusted Christ as their Savior.

And then they join in partnership, sharing the good news of Jesus, God continues to work in that church.

It's why, after all of those generations, we are still here this morning preaching the gospel.

Can you imagine what a shock it would be for those early fathers of our church to walk in today and see what exists from their prayer meeting when they started?

And can you imagine the encouragement to them as believers to know that all of these generations later, we are continuing to share Jesus in Fort Smith in the River Valley.

That is the picture here in this story.

Now I want you to start back and let's get a little context here in verse 3.

What is what we know from this, if you put all the scriptures together to make it a little bit shorter, this church has been in existence, scholars will uh estimate about 10 years.

And in that 10-year period, they have been investing in Paul, and you'll see later where we realize they are providing gospel ministry to him in his ministry as a missionary.

They are giving funds to pay his way and to meet his expenses and to fund him.

They are praying over him and constantly covering him in their prayers.

And they are participating in the advance of the gospel in all these different ways that we still do today.

The Bible says in verse 3, I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you.

And so Paul is writing a letter back to the church to thank them and to encourage them and to guide them as they continue to share the gospel forward.

We know from this letter and from other places that Paul at this point is in prison.

In fact, he is being heavily guarded by Roman guards, and he makes reference to that later on in this chapter.

And so he is taking this time to write back to the church to encourage them.

I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, and now we pick up that verse because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

This church was birthed through the preaching of the gospel.

People were saved through the preaching of the gospel.

The church grew through the preaching of the gospel.

The church developed a heart for the advance of the gospel and began to support and participate with the missionary who planted this church through the gospel.

He says, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer because of your partnership in the gospel from this day until now.

I am sure of this that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I have you in my heart, and you are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and establishment of the gospel.

And so let's think about that for a minute.

Here is the calling card of this church.

This church was important to Paul.

This church was important in the expansion of the gospel because this church was built and founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ and on sharing the gospel.

In fact, in the book of 2 Corinthians, there is a moment where all of the churches around outside of Jerusalem understood there were great needs and struggles in Jerusalem, and they all took a missions offering.

Churches from all over the world at that time, as they were known, as they've been planted by Paul, as they were connected through these mission networks, they all committed to take an offering.

And the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians, when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he said, Listen, the churches in the area of Philippi have committed themselves to Jesus, and they are so deeply committed that even in times of struggle, they have begged us to participate in the advance of the gospel by joining in this offering.

And so God used this church in Philippi to encourage other churches.

And the Bible says there in 2 Corinthians that the other churches were encouraged by the zeal of the church in Philippi, the gospel zeal.

Listen, when Jesus builds a church, he builds it on the foundation of the gospel, he builds it through the gospel, he builds into the church the DNA of the gospel, it grows through the advance of the gospel, and it is committed to the gospel until Jesus returns again.

It is what makes a church a church, is a commitment in the gospel.

In fact, here's what he says: this word partnership in my version, if you trace that back, it is the word that we get fellowship from.

It is the word, you may have heard the term koinania, heard that phrase or that word used.

What he says is that our partnership, our fellowship in the gospel, it is literally what binds us together as Christians.

It is the foundation of the gospel.

It is our partnering on the advance of the gospel.

It is a singular mindset that we all have, that we are here gratefully advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, what is the gospel?

That word means good news.

And it means the salvation that comes only through Jesus, our Savior.

It means that all mankind has sinned.

Every person is a sinner by birth, by nature, and by choice.

And death entered into the world as God's judgment for sin.

And we are facing death in this life, and then after our bodies die, we face an eternal separation from God.

The Bible uses the term hell, and it is a separation eternally from the presence of God.

It is because our sin must be judged.

As a holy God, he cannot allow sin to be in his presence.

And the only way to change that is that someone must pay that death price for our sin.

And Paul has repeatedly taught, and we share here regularly, but it is what brings us together, that the good news of Jesus Christ is that salvation is available through him.

Look at what Paul says.

He says in verse 1, Paul and Timothy slaves of Christ Jesus.

Verse 1 continues, to all the saints in Christ Jesus.

Verse 2, grace to you, the forgiveness of our sins from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 6, he says again, He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

If you continue to read through this chapter, every verse, it is over and over and over in Christ Jesus, through Christ Jesus.

It is all about him.

And so the gospel, the good news is salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

All of us had sinned.

God looks down out of heaven and he's not satisfied with that as a result.

From the very beginning of humankind, when man sinned, God designed a plan of salvation to save us from our sins.

And so Jesus, he began to prophesy through the Old Testament, and then Jesus came in person, lived a sinless life.

He would have never had to die because sin never touched him.

His heart, his body, his soul, he had never sinned.

And yet he voluntarily went to the cross, and there he died a death that had no judgment attached to it, so it could be a substitute for ours.

He rose again, conquering death and sin to create new life in Christ.

And when you come and you recognize you're a sinner, you believe what Jesus did for us on the cross, you surrender your life to him, you repent of your sin, you give him your life, it is all his lock, stock, and barrel.

You have given it all to him as a matter of faith and trusted what he did on the cross to forgive your sins.

Jesus becomes your Savior and you experience forgiveness and salvation.

He steps into your life and he walks with you in this life.

And then, as verse 6 talks about, one day Jesus has promised to come home and to redeem all of us, to come here and redeem all of us, and take us to be with the Lord forever in eternity.

It is the good news of salvation.

That is what makes it good news.

You do not have to pay the price for your sin.

Jesus paid it for you if you will trust him as your Savior.

But here's what this passage is telling us.

Paul is not writing to lost people in this chapter.

He is writing to the church.

And he says, I am grateful for you, and I thank God every time I pray and sit down and pray for you and thank God for you because you have that very same mindset of participating in the advance of the gospel.

It is all about taking the good news to people who've not heard it or trusted or experienced it yet.

All throughout this book, he is saying, listen, this is about evangelism.

This is about seeing people saved.

This is about sharing the Jesus story of each person in that church, and it is about the Jesus story of the church and the testimony of it as a whole.

Now, here's what's fascinating about this as you continue to read it.

The question is, who is he writing to?

Who's he writing to?

Is he writing to the church as a whole?

Or is he writing to an individual in the church?

And the answer is both.

Both.

You see, here's the deal.

We understand that the church, the people in this room, our homebound folks who are a part of our church family, who are watching us on television or online, who are a part of our church family, the heritage of who we are as people.

This building is not the church.

The pastor where I grew up used to say all the time, this is nothing but premature rubble.

Now it's a great place, and we're blessed to come here because in the River Valley, in July and August, praise the Lord, we have air conditioning.

Y'all, if you want to do a tent revival, fine, but we're not doing it until at least November.

It's just too hot.

It is us, it is the people, it is all of us.

But here's the question: stuff doesn't happen because First Baptist Church did it.

Stuff happens because you and you and you and me and you and you and you and you and you and you and you did it.

The only hands and feet of First Baptist Church are the hands and feet sitting in the seat that you're sitting in.

The only voice in First Baptist Church, it's not my voice.

I'm simply a spokesman of all of us, and all of us are to speak the gospel.

Look at what he says here in verse 1, to all the saints in Philippi.

All the saints.

He's talking about each and everybody in the church, everyone who was listening to that day, to the sermon, and the letter as it was read from Paul, and they all showed up because they heard they knew they had a new letter from Paul, and they all began to read it, and what they understand is it is all of us, but it is each one of us.

I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you.

He is grateful to the church for the offering that they take as a group.

He is grateful for Lydia, who was the first one who was saved in her family.

He is grateful for the memory of that Philippian jailer, and he remembers that moment, and and God shaking the walls and all of the chaos and everybody was happening, and realizing then that guy was about to kill himself, and he goes, No, there's good news in Jesus.

He's rehearsing that story.

And he's grateful the last time somebody showed up with an offering and he thinks, I love all those people.

Man, one person couldn't have given this.

Everybody did this.

And he thinks about being in prison and God shaking the walls and all of that.

And he's thinking, God had a plan for that church and all those people.

And when he says, God will continue to work, he's thinking, man, when those people are fired up for Jesus, they are awesome and people get saved.

Not because of the whole, but because all of them working made a whole.

And in that work.

And so it's got to be each of us and all of us.

That's why we've started this month and we're encouraging you about your love list.

We're reminding you again about your love list.

You have these cards, they're available to you.

If you didn't pick one up, or if you lost yours, or you used it, you were driving home and you were chewing gum and you needed something to like.

Again or whatever.

Get another one, okay?

Get another one.

And here's what I need you to understand the church can't do a love list.

Six hundred people can't make a collective love list of three people.

But you can, and you can, and you can, and you can, and you can, and you can, and I can, and you can, and I can, and you can't, and you can, and you can, and you can, and even folks in the balcony in the back row can make a love list.

Even the crazy people weird enough to sit on the front row can make a love list.

And all of us, and so this is how it works.

And here's what I want you to see: a Jesus-built church is built on the gospel, it is wired into the advance of the gospel, the DNA of the church is the advance of the gospel, the future is the advance of the gospel, the work of God in the church is the advance of the gospel, and it never stops until the truth of the gospel is completed and Jesus comes to reunite us to be with the Lord forever.

And so we don't ever stop.

That's why we've encouraged you.

You'll find on that love list card, you'll find it on our website.

If you need help, let us know.

Sign up for that evangelism training.

Each and every person.

We had a good start this week.

We had more than 50 of us who have signed up to be a part, and the numbers are growing every day.

I ran out of about 50, about halfway back on this first section.

To all the saints, Paul says in Christ Jesus, he who started a good work in you.

And so I want to encourage you, Pastor, I've already been trained.

Well, then do it as an encouragement to someone else.

Paul says, He is grateful, verse 5, because of their partnership in the gospel, fellowship in the gospel.

The encouragement of everyone being a part of that together.

You may not think you need the training, but everybody else needs to know that we're all doing this together.

And so if you've already been trained, you ought to be the first one to sign up because you're more excited about anybody else because you know what it means for you.

You sign up, take a part, be a part, join into it.

Well, Pastor, I already know how to do that.

Well, when's the last time you got through a gospel conversation with someone?

Maybe what you need is have that fire stoked again.

Listen, we have folks in our church because of the heritage of evangelism here who have been through EE.

They've led people to Christ from that, they're trained, and if you need, if you want someone to be a mentor to walk through that with you or to practice with or whatever, you call me, you email me, you catch me in the hall.

We have people in our church who would love to be and join you in fellowship in the gospel.

They'll pray with you, they'll talk with you, answer your questions, you can practice your testimony with them and all of that.

I had one of our ladies this morning stop me in a hall and say, Pastor Greg, going through that training program taught me how to lead people to Christ.

And if you need someone for me to encourage and pray with and practice with, I'll be glad to do it.

Is that awesome?

That's fellowship in the gospel.

I want you to sign up and to go through it and start working your three love lists.

Your love list is three people, and you're praying three things.

I'm praying for an opportunity to invite them to church.

I'm praying for an opportunity to share my testimony.

This training will help you do that.

Learn how to do that, and we are praying for them to be saved.

Listen, here's the deal.

If we've got 150 people going through that training and they're practicing telling people about Jesus, somebody's going to get saved.

That's kind of exciting, isn't it?

I am praying for, I mean, praying for, when we look up into that baptistry, and the testimony is they were on my love list.

And God opened a door, just like with Lydia, just like with a Philippian jailer, and they got saved.

Let me give you a couple of key thoughts.

Just to take with you as you're praying through this process.

Four key principles in this verse I want you to carry with you.

Paul said, I am sure of this.

I am sure of this.

One version says, I am confident of this.

Listen, Paul knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that when they share the gospel, people get saved because he was there when they got saved.

He was there when Lydia got saved.

He was there at her Bible study when other people got saved.

He was in that prison when that man was about to kill himself, and Paul called out and Jesus saved him, and his life was so changed.

Paul said, You take me home with you, and we're going to share Jesus with your life, your wife, and your kids, and even your mother-in-law is going to get saved.

Now, some of y'all get that joke at lunch.

I mean, people are getting saved, and Paul is remembering that, and listen, he goes, I know God did not start you that way to stop using you in the future.

He did not save you miraculously, and he didn't bring you together miraculously as a church and give you this foundational testimony.

He didn't do that to stop using you 12 years down the road.

We have an even greater testimony of that.

We are decades of decades older than this church, and God is still working and people are being saved.

You see, Paul says, I know and I am confident.

Why is Paul so confident in that?

Because he knows Jesus is the builder.

How many times he refers to Jesus and Jesus and Jesus?

And look at what he says.

I am sure of this, that he who started a good work, he will carry it on until he comes back again as he has promised.

Paul is confident because he knows nobody's that smart, only Jesus is that smart.

He knows that it is Jesus who does that work.

He knows that it is Jesus who builds his church.

In fact, in two of the Gospels, the Bible tells us this story that he starts talking with Peter, and he's trying to prepare them for the time when he is going to be gone, and they are going to be the pastors and the evangelists and the missionaries.

And Jesus is trying to coach them through that and help them understand that.

And as he begins in this discourse with Peter, at one point he says, I will build my church.

Now here's the key of that: it's Jesus' church, it's not our church.

Jesus said, I will build my church.

Look at what Paul said.

He understood this to be true.

I'm sure of this, that he who started a good work in you.

We can't save anybody.

We can't save ourselves.

We can't save the river valley.

Only Jesus can do that.

When you give your life to Christ, you acknowledge that, you come and you say, I can't do anything to affect my forgiveness, my salvation, my eternity.

Only Jesus can do that.

And you surrender your life to him and trust him by faith as the one who saves us.

That's why in church we sing Jesus paid it all, and all to him I owe.

But we as a church can't do it any more than each one of us can't do it.

This is Jesus' church, and he's the one that builds the church.

We are partnering in the gospel because we know that only Jesus can save.

And it is Jesus who makes it good news.

And so we are surrendered to him and we are following him in his direction.

And his direction is always the advance of the gospel.

When you got saved, you were drafted into the flow of the gospel.

Paul is confident, Jesus is the builder, because he knew Peter had likely told him that story at some point.

When they're sitting around drinking coffee, and he says, Tell me again about Jesus.

What was it like to walk with him?

And Peter said, Man, Jesus said, I will build my church.

And Paul, you know, we've seen stuff.

There's no way anybody but Jesus could do that.

I will build my church.

Jesus builds it because he's the one who builds.

It's his church.

He's the one who died for it.

I love it that, you know, we have a sense of ownership in each other and in our fellowship and partnership.

And we'll say, My church, that's my church.

And I know what we mean, and that's good, and keep saying it.

That's my church.

Tell people, I go to First Baptist, that's my church.

But we really understand Jesus owns the church and owns us.

We don't own the church.

That's funny, people.

We were laughing in that little video when the lights turned out.

Somebody in some other hallway who's being helpful because they love their church, turn the lights out.

Because people take care of stuff in their church, right?

Dr.

Rogers used to tell us all the time, if you find something on the ground, pick it up.

It's your church.

And I used to walk past stuff and I'd see some gum ramper and I'd be busy and I'd think, it'd be just my luck.

Dr.

Rogers would come up behind me and I'd turn back around and I'd pick that up just in case, right?

That kind of stuff happens.

People have ownership of their church.

I told some of the guys we were laughing about that at one of my other churches, everybody would go in because it was their church, and they would all change the temperature on the thermostats.

We had a new facilities guy at one of my churches, and he came in on a Wednesday night and he was all frustrated.

I said, What's the deal?

And he said, Man, I just don't understand, Pastor.

There's one fellowship hall.

How can in the same room at the same time, half of them are hot and half of them are cold, half of them think the lights are too bright, and half of them think there's too dark in there, and half of them think the music that we had playing was too loud.

Like, it's the same room.

How can they think?

I said, just the way we all are.

It's kind of what happens.

In that church, what we did was we hung dummy thermostats in all of the rooms.

Now don't tell them that we did that to them, right?

It's a dirty trick.

But that way everybody fiddled with it and they all wanted to fiddle with it, and they all wanted to do, right?

Because it's my church.

But we really know it's Jesus' church.

It's his church.

I'll talk with Jacob sometime.

I talked with Keith when we're doing music.

We sat down to staff meeting one time.

Keith said, Pastor, you really didn't like that song, did you?

I said, No, I really didn't like it at all.

And he said, Okay, well, I'll change it.

I said, No, no, no.

Did the church like it?

Yeah, the church liked it.

Well, sing it again.

It's not my church, it's Jesus' church.

We're all in this together.

Jesus said, I will build my church.

It's his church.

And if it's his church, then his work and his plan is what it is.

Jesus said, I will build my church.

And if Jesus is going to build the church, then his work is going to be what builds it.

And so the gospel builds it.

It is built on the foundation of the gospel.

Sharing the gospel is how people get saved and how there becomes a collection of believers and why there's a group of people that come together on a Sunday morning.

Because they all accepted the same Jesus, because they all believed in the same gospel.

And how are there more of us next week?

Because you went out and shared Jesus with somebody else and they got saved and they came and joined.

How is there a church hundreds of years later from those first people that got in that meeting and prayed over that and started a church because the gospel needed to be planted here?

It's because generation after generation after generation after generation, people called others to Christ.

Jesus built in the lives of the church members of First Baptist Church in every generation a passion to live for Jesus and a passion to share the gospel.

In every generation, people shared Jesus and people shared Jesus.

And they called pastors that preached the gospel.

And they had Sunday school teachers they trained who taught boys and girls about Jesus in the children's ministry and in the student ministry and in the young adult ministry.

And people who had been lifelong in the church, they started out as young people and they're teaching kids about the gospel in the children's ministry.

And then they get in their senior adult class and they're the prayer warriors and they're praying for people to be saved.

And they're praying over the gospel ministry of the church, and they're celebrating when people get saved.

And every generation, it was first Baptist Church people who had been given the DNA of gospel, who had been redeemed by the gospel, who wanted other people to know what it meant to be saved by the gospel.

But the first generation that that stops, First Baptist dies.

That's why part of Jesus' work is to call us to be dependent on it, on Him, to stir us into His work, to pull us into His work.

Because the promise that Jesus made was, I will build my church.

See, Jesus didn't die on the cross and conquer death and sin to just let us fool around and decide what we wanted to do or not.

He's the one at work.

And he says, I will.

And Paul says, I am confident of this very thing, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on.

And so here's what we need to understand, church family.

Jesus is going to do his work, and he's going to call us to the gospel, and he's going to prune us and shape us and empower us and guide us and discipline and prune us and guide us and shape us and empower us until people keep getting saved because that's the work that Jesus does.

And that means, are you sharing Jesus?

Have you identified people who are lost who need to be saved?

Are you a part of the you?

Are you an each that's adding to the all?

You see, if there's not someone praying over a love list of lost people where you sit in the church, there's a gospel dead spot in that spot.

Not a dead person, just a dead spot where it's not happening.

And here's what happens: the Bible tells us that God, what he does, when he works in us, he empowers us, he guides us, and if we're disobedient, he prunes us so we'll bear more fruit.

Or if we're rebellious, he disciplines us.

And what we've got to get is an understanding that the work of Jesus is the advance of the gospel.

That's what the work is.

Paul understands that to such a degree.

Listen to what he says in verse 12.

Here he is in prison, and he's talking about his imprisonment.

Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has actually resulted in the advance of the gospel.

Being arrested, falsely accused, put in prison, all of that, Paul says, hey man, Jesus is being advanced.

What has happened to me has actually resulted in the advance of the gospel.

So that has become known throughout the entire imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is in the cause of Christ.

Now, how is that for a perspective?

He was put in prison for the advance of the gospel.

Most of the brothers, verse 14, in the Lord have gained confidence from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the message fearlessly.

And that's someone whose perspective is the work of Christ.

And whatever happens to me doesn't matter, it is advancing the gospel.

Whatever happens, it's all about that.

Why?

Because eternity is coming.

Eternity is coming.

Everyone will face the moment where they face eternity.

Scripture says that every person's days are numbered.

All of us face death.

And at some point, one generation won't die physically because Jesus will return and begin to usher in eternity.

And in that moment, our opportunity to advance the gospel or to trust Jesus as our Savior is gone.

It is only in this time frame where we can share Jesus and accept Jesus.

It should compel us to greater passions than sharing Jesus.

Now, as Christians, we live in light of eternity and we are looking forward to the day of Jesus' return.

And that is specifically what's happening here in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

Until the day of Christ Jesus.

He will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So here's what happens.

You know what?

We always continue to grow to be like Jesus.

We are always being transformed.

We are never completed or perfected until eternity.

And he finishes it when we get to heaven and we are changed forever.

But the process goes on from now until then.

And he works and he works and he works and we grow and we grow and he works and we grow and he works and we grow.

And then one day we are reunited with him forever.

And it is completed.

And so we've got to live in light of eternity.

We've got to understand the question is, first of all, where am I going to spend eternity?

If you face that moment where you're facing eternity and you come before Jesus as the judge, and he says, Why should I let you into my heaven?

What is your answer?

I was a good person.

Well, you weren't good enough.

Because the wages of sin is death.

Yeah, but I did this much good and that little sin.

The wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Have you trusted him as your Savior?

The only answer to get to eternity and to spend that with in the presence of God and not in judgment, eternally separated from him forever.

The only answer that gets you into heaven is this.

Jesus paid it all.

And all to him I owe.

When sin had left a crimson stain, Jesus made it white as snow.

But here's the next question.

He says, Come on in, Greg.

And he's going to say, Greg, how many folks are you bringing with you?

How many folks are you bringing with you?

And that's our call.

That's our partnership.

I'm sure of this that he who started a good work in you will carry it on until the day of Christ Jesus.

Who are you taking with you?

I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to know there is that question: how do you get into heaven?

And I want you to know Jesus loved you so much, as we talked about last week, that he stepped out of heaven and he died on the cross to pay the price for your sins.

He rose again conquering death and sin.

And if you will come and trust him as your Savior and give him your life as Lord of your life, he will save you and you will have the answer.

And the forgiveness that gets you into eternity with Jesus.

But you must make the choice of faith to ask for forgiveness and to trust him as your Savior.

The next question for us, those of us who are saved, how many folks are we taking with us?

I'm going to ask you in this invitation time to make a commitment, to make your love list.

Join us in partnership, in fellowship, in koinanea by all of us stirring our hearts towards that evangelism.

Start with this training online.

How awesome would it be for us to be able to tell the Lord, Jesus, man, our whole church did this, Lord.

How many people would get saved if all of us were moving in that direction?

Not that there's anything magic in this training, but it is the joining together and the intentional effort to prepare myself, engage myself, pray over that list.

And so I'm going to ask you in this invitation time, church family, be in fellowship with us and join in the journey of sharing Jesus.

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 First Baptist Church.