Jesus is ALWAYS Available for Your Questions - Pastor Greg Addison - October 11, 2026

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.

Man, you guys sound awesome and you look good in orange.

I just want to tell you that.

Good morning.

Good to see you all this morning.

And uh it's great to come and worship the Lord and spend this time together.

Uh I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

And that's the topic that we're going to talk about today.

Uh John 3.16.

So just in a minute, we're going to do our prayer time.

But I wanted to show you what we're going to pray through today.

John 3.16 is one of those famous verses that most people know and all of that.

Uh, but they don't, we don't spend enough time talking about the context in which it occurs and how important it is to recognize why Jesus said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will never perish, but have everlasting life.

And so it is an incredible story where we see how Jesus is always open to answer our questions.

And so, as our prayer time this morning, I just want you to pray with me for a moment.

And let's ask the Lord to give us a fresh picture of who Jesus is this morning.

So I want you to bow your heads with me.

And we're going to ask the Lord, just there in your spot, in your heart and mind, talk to him, and just say, Lord, help me to see you who you are today.

And then all of us have questions in life.

We have journeys and things that go on.

What I'd like for you to do is just sort of listen to the Lord for a minute.

And if he points out in your life a question or a doubt or something you need to learn or something that you've been working through with him, I want you to just talk to him about that for a minute and ask him to show you just how open he is to that conversation and to receive you and to talk through those things with you.

Lord Jesus, we come to you this morning, and that's our prayer.

You've given us this incredibly beautiful picture where a man comes to you, and we can literally see in a physical, tangible, humanly way how open you are for us to come and to ask you questions and to talk through things with you and how you receive us and how you talk straight with us and you answer the things that we need to hear, but you do it communicating how much you love us.

And so I pray as we study through this passage of Scripture today, Father, that you'll help us to really see you and who you are.

It's in your name we pray, and everybody said.

Okay, we are reading through the Bible chronologically this year, and you guys have been doing an incredible job.

And so here we are as we walk through the life of Jesus.

This story came up early in the week, but I just couldn't get past it because it's such a beautiful, tangible picture of Jesus and what it means to have a conversation with him, how to walk with him, how to talk with him.

Now, sometimes I hear folks will tell me, Pastor, I I have trouble reading my Bible.

I just I just don't understand it.

I'm just not good at it.

I don't understand it.

It's just written in a way that I can't, I really can't get my mind around it.

Well, let me give you just a couple of ways that are good ways to read the scripture.

So the first one we talk about a lot, brew.

I won't spend a lot of time on that.

You that if you're visiting with us, basically what that means, this is how you would meditate on a verse or how you break apart a verse of scripture.

You believe that God has something to say to you, B, R, you read the verse over and over again.

You just keep repeating the verse till it becomes familiar with you.

It feels familiar.

E means each word.

So you slow down and then you just sort of define each word in your mind what it means, and it just slows you down to read carefully, and as you do that, you will find God will break that open and help you understand it, and then you write down what he teaches you.

Brew.

Now there's another way that is a really good way to study scripture, and that is to read it out loud.

Many of us are audible learners, a lot of people are.

Also, scripture, when you read it out loud, it hits your brain in a different way.

It opens up things in a different way.

And so listen to yourself.

I mean, you sing in the shower and you talk to yourself, so read God's word together, right?

Read it with yourself.

You, yourself, and I.

Read it out loud.

Now, this has been kind of fun as people have been reading through chronologically, they'll tell me that you go on the Bible app and as you're reading it, or maybe you're walking or exercising, you're on the treadmill or whatever, and and you're listening to scripture read to you, and that's a great way to do it.

And then somebody about a couple of weeks ago introduced me to an app that's even better than that.

How many of you have heard of the singing Bible?

Raise your hand.

No?

Okay, you're gonna learn something today.

This is good.

And it's totally messed me up, so this is all I'm stuck on this right here.

It's awesome.

It's an app, it's the singing Bible.

We'll put it on the screen.

And just like your UVersion app, Bible app, you it tracks the scripture and it reads it out loud and you follow the verses.

The Singing Bible does exactly the same thing, only it sings it to you.

And you can actually choose the passage of Scripture, you can watch it read it, and there's like 20-something different styles of music that you can read the scripture in.

So let me share with you my favorite way to read scripture from the singing Bible.

Now you feel more spiritual, don't you?

Isn't that awesome?

That's way better than Pastor Greg reading it to you, right?

And you can literally pick from I 20-something different styles.

So we're we're gonna keep reading in John 3.

Uh, it's obviously the first couple verses of John 3.

So we'll read and we'll play them with two styles for you.

One of them is the children's style.

So, parents, it's for you to do this with your kids.

And the last one is for all us Arkansans out here, it's country music style.

Go, Bobby.

Jesus replied, Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

How can a man be born when he is old?

Nicodemus asked, can he enter your life?

That is so much better than Miss Rachel.

Let me tell you, just as Moses lifted up the wilderness.

For God told up the world that he gave us one and only his son.

That everyone who believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Okay, that's good.

That has totally messed me up now.

I can't even read it anymore.

I just have to get the singing Bible now and do it, right?

I was gonna play for you the sea shanty pirate version, but Bobby wouldn't let me do it.

He said, Pastor, that's just not where some things we're not gonna do.

Right?

But I would encourage you, that's a great, it's really fun.

Like if you're on a walk or you're on the elliptical or whatever, that's a great way to do.

And literally, just like your Bible app, you can click on the thing, it says view the text, and it'll show you the words of Scripture as it sings it to you.

So it's a lot of fun.

There's a third way to read scripture, and that's what we're gonna do today.

And the third reason, uh a third way to do this, and somebody taught me this a few years ago, and I think it's incredibly helpful.

When you read a story passage like we're reading today, like a real event that happens with real people unpacking it, picture in your mind a movie of that happening.

Use your sanctified imagination and picture what's happening, because there are a lot of these stories that Jesus, that Scripture gives us, especially in the life of Jesus, where this is a real moment where you can see who Jesus is and how he does what he does.

And that is uh a beautiful picture in the context of here when you see this man named Nicodemus come to Jesus and ask these questions and how Jesus answers those questions and walks through them with him.

So I want you to sort of picture in your mind because Scripture gives you details that help you get the context of what's happening.

So I want you to read with me here in John chapter 3, verse 1.

John 3:1

I'm not gonna sing it to you, I promise.

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to him at night.

Now, here's where you get this context.

As you're reading up to this point, we already know that the Pharisees are already mad at Jesus.

They already believe he's a heretic, they already see he's causing trouble, he's already cutting at their power base, people are following him.

He is challenging how they've taught the Old Testament and the law and all of that.

And so we already know this guy is coming to Jesus, and he's got serious questions because Jesus has blown up his world.

And then you see he's coming at night, which tells you he did not want other people to know he was doing this.

So he's got questions, but he's also worried about the consequences of this.

And so here you have this guy come to Jesus.

Now you could have Jesus get mad and say, What are you, a coward?

Why don't you come ask, you know?

Or what are you afraid of everybody else?

I mean, all these answers could have happened, but you see Jesus receive him and answer his questions.

This man came to Jesus at night and he said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.

So right then he is trying to be respectful of Jesus, but it is very clear he does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.

I mean, he knows this is a thing because, like, he's Jesus and making lame people walk and blind people see and all that, turn the water into wine and all that stuff, but he hasn't yet made the decision that he's willing to think that Jesus is the Son of God.

So he's trying to respect him and he calls him rabbi and you're a teacher from God.

But imagine how blasphemous that was to Jesus, that he is rejecting him as the Son of God, right?

And yet Jesus does not turn him away, Jesus accepts him and talks with him.

And so here's what he says.

Verse 3 Truly, I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now here's what I think happens.

Jesus recognizes that this man does not understand the spiritual ramifications of what he's teaching from the Old Testament scriptures.

And so what you have here is he says, you're doing miracles.

I'm seeing these things physically happening, but I'm not making the jump to the spiritual reality of who you are and why you came on behalf of the Lord, why he sent you.

And so he's not making that jump.

So Jesus jumps right in and goes, listen, you got to understand that there's a spiritual part of life, not just a physical part of life.

So he says in verse 4, he asks Jesus, how can anyone be born when he is old?

Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born?

Now I don't think he's necessarily being disrespectful to Jesus, but he's looked, he's struggling with this because he is focused on his teaching of the law is you do these things because you're an Israelite and you earn God's, you know, place.

You earn your place before him.

It's all about legalistic, it's all about obeying the law, and they feel like they are accepted by God because they have lived so well under the law and all that.

And Jesus is trying to say, it's not about what you think you're doing.

There's a spiritual reality to life that you've not accepted, and he is struggling with that.

So Jesus now begins to teach.

Truly I tell you, verse 5, unless someone is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Whatever is born of flesh is flesh.

In other words, humanity, human.

And whatever is born of the spirit is spirit.

And he's drawing the distinction between physical life and spiritual life.

Verse 7, do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.

I mean, you can see the look on Nicodemus' face, apparently.

He says the wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

In other words, there is a part of life that's every bit as real, and you can't see it physically, but that does not mean it's not every bit as real.

And he uses that tangible picture of the wind.

Nicodemus verse 9, his mind is blown, and he says, How can these things be?

Verse 10, Jesus says, Are you a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things?

Like, how can you not know this?

I mean, what's wrong with you?

Supposedly teaching scripture.

I mean, don't you know you don't run the ball on third and thirteen and fourth down at the end of the game, you have to go for it, right?

Like you don't know what you're doing.

What's going on?

Some of y'all get that.

Some of y'all texted that on a website after the game yesterday.

Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony.

If I have told you about earthly things and you don't believe, that, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

See, he's trying to get him to shift.

There's more to life than just this physical part.

No one has ascended into the heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Now, you may or may not know what that reference is to, but Nicodemus would have been intimately familiar with the rec with the reference that Jesus made about Moses lifting up the serpent.

So here's what's happened.

If you'll remember in the Old Testament, when we're reading chronologically, the children of Israel in bonded in Egypt, and God sends Moses, he pulls the people out of Egypt, brings them up to the Jordan River, they park there, God tells them to go in.

They say, We're not going in, we're scared of all those people, we can't take that land.

Your generation that has no faith will die off.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and as you guys die off, I'm gonna teach the next generation that comes up how to walk by faith.

And in that 40 years, all these things happen that are faith journeys.

And so one of them is this incident that Jesus refers to.

So they have had this great victory as the children of Israel, they've conquered some evil, whatever, and then they start walking again, and they get all mad, they're tired of walking, they're complaining, they're tired of eating manna.

So they start chewing on Moses, they start chewing on God, they're rebelling all of that, they're angry, they're all this you brought us out of Egypt just to die out here and all this.

We're sick of manna, they're complaining, and they complain so badly that God judges it as sin that needs to be judged.

And so he sends poisonous snakes into the camp where the Israelites are.

And they're biting people, and people are dying, and when all this judgment happens, they cry out to the Lord and they say, Listen, we're sorry.

We know.

They go to Moses, we know we've sinned against God.

We've sinned against you.

Please forgive us.

Please ask tell the Lord to forgive us.

And so God tells Moses, here's what I want you to do.

This is a faith moment, and Moses, we're going to teach them to make a faith decision.

So I want you to make a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, raise the pole up in the center of the camp, and when someone who has bitten, if they will look at that pole and trust in me as a choice of faith, then they will be healed.

And that's a story that Nicodemus would have completely understood, no telling how many times he's taught that, and he doesn't understand the spiritual reality of what's happening.

They couldn't fix their poison, they couldn't take medicine, they couldn't bleed the medicine, poison out, none of that.

They died.

God still required of them to make a choice of faith.

Just because the pole was in the middle of the camp did not mean that the people were healed.

God wanted them to choose to trust him, and so they had to look at the pole and believe in him, and then they were healed.

And Jesus is setting this up, and he's saying, Listen, how can you be a teacher in Israel and you don't understand what God has been trying to teach all along?

And he brings up this story, and he says, It's just like what you've been taught already.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.

The serpent is a picture of sin and wrongdoing.

If you'll think back to Genesis chapter 3, it was the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to sin.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And so here he makes this image of sin, hangs it on a pole, and God is giving a prophecy of Jesus one day, who the sins of the world will be placed on, and he will be raised up or lifted up on a cross to die for our sin.

And he's explaining to him that's what happened, just as the snake was lifted up, and they placed their faith in the snake, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world in this way that he gave his one and only son, that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

And then he tells them this.

How's that a loving God?

Listen, it's not God that sends people to hell.

It is our sin that sends us to hell.

We choose to sin, and because of that, our sin is punished.

And yes, God is a holy God, and he must judge our sin, but it is the same God who loved us so much that he took on the person of a man, he stepped out of heaven, and he went to the cross, and he himself paid the price for our sin.

For God so loved the world that he loved it in this way, that he sent his son into the world.

And so Jesus makes it very clear in case Nicodemus or us miss it.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Anyone who believes in him is not condemned.

But anyone who does not believe is already condemned.

God is not condemning you for not accepting Jesus.

He's condemning you for your sin.

Your choice to not accept Jesus means you're paying the price instead of trusting Jesus to pay the price for your sin.

He is anyone who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.

You did not trust Jesus when he paid the price for your sin.

This is the judgment.

The light has come into the world, and people love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

In other words, here's Jesus, he's the light of the world.

He uses this illustration.

He's used it often, and he uses it here, I think, in Nicodemus' life for another purpose.

Remember, Nicodemus came at night in the dark.

And Jesus is drawing a contrast.

When you step into the light, you have given your light to Jesus, you have allowed him to convict you of your sin, you've given it all to him.

You've trusted him to save you, and you're now living before him as his follower.

But people who love the darkness, I'm going into the darkness because I don't think anybody can see my sin.

And I'm hiding it and I'm putting it there, and I'm choosing to live there.

That's a choice to love the darkness rather than the light.

And he draws that illustration.

Now, since this is a real life story, we've painted this movie of it as we've read it together.

Let me give you three real life truths that you see illustrated in this moment.

The first one is this Jesus always, always accepts honest seekers asking honest questions.

This story at the beginning of John sets the stage for us to understand that this is who Jesus is, and this is what he came to do, and this is why he came.

And he gives us a story at the beginning, and you see repeated in all four of the Gospels multiple times that people come to Jesus and Jesus never, ever turns away an honest seeker with honest questions.

Never.

He never turns that person away.

And that's why he gives us a real life moment so that when you're facing some decision in your life, it begins with, Am I going to accept Christ as my Savior?

Begins with that decision.

Am I going to trust him?

Do I believe in this?

Jesus says, Come and let's talk about it.

Come and let me show myself to you.

Come to me and ask.

Well, I have doubts.

Fine, bring them, let's talk about it.

Jesus is not afraid of that.

He is always accommodating and welcoming.

The only time that you see Jesus push back on someone who asks questions are when the Pharisees come and they attack Jesus using a question as a weapon.

And in that moment, that's their arrogance and their pride trying to attack Jesus or disprove Jesus or prove themselves great in front of people instead of asking an honest question.

So in reality, the only obstacle to asking a question is our own pride.

That's the only thing that keeps Jesus from answering these questions.

And so really the only question is not about Jesus' character, but about ours.

Am I an honest seeker?

Number two, the spiritual reality of life is every bit as real as our physical existence.

We must deal with spiritual matters.

Spiritual matters.

You have to realize when I make these choices in life, what job, person I date, who am I going to marry?

Am I going to let my kids do this or that?

Am I going to take that job?

What am I going to do with my money?

What am I going to do with my time?

We make all these decisions and we make them in a physical human experience, doing whatever that is.

And many times we don't focus on the fact that there is a spiritual component in every one of those decisions.

There is a spiritual reality in every one of those decisions.

Jesus comes at Nicodemus in a very clear way, trying to give him a paradigm shift to understand you have got to understand the spiritual reality, and it is every bit as real as the physical life that we're in.

And we live in a world today where the pace and the tools that we have at our disposal and the wealth that America has as a first world country, and you think, well, I'm not participating in that.

Yeah, you are.

Go look at the parking lot.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

And so what happens is we have this life and all these opportunities and all these options and all this stuff, and we're pursuing all that, and we're overwhelmed with choices, and we're not understanding our identity in Christ, and that there is a spiritual aspect to life, and we have to make that every bit as much a priority as the physical part of our life.

Faith choices are real in life.

The first one that you must make is am I going to accept Christ as my Savior?

And after that, every other decision has a faith component in it as well.

And then number three.

And that is such an important paradigm because when people push back against Jesus or they push back against salvation, they are pushing back from a place of pride and they are mischaracterizing Jesus out of being, for God so loved the world that he gave his son, and he did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, and they are trying to change him into some harbinger of judgment, and somehow he's awful and unfair and all this kind of stuff.

And it is so important that we always remember that Jesus is a love and loving.

And so that relates to do I view Jesus as being welcoming to my questions, my journey, my doubts, whatever it is.

Yes, he is welcoming because he came to welcome you into forgiveness and eternal life.

It's important to get those real-life truths.

And you see those illustrated in this moment.

Even though this guy does not understand what he ought to understand, Jesus does not get frustrated with him.

He talks to him straight, he shoots him straight, he puts his finger on the guy's questions and struggles, but he reaffirms in the conversation how much he loves him and that he came in love.

Now, since this is a real life story that has real life moments pictured here, so we will understand in a real way who Jesus is, what are the applications for us that flow from this?

Because that's really why we read Scripture.

It's about the applications, it's not about the information.

The information is important and it's holy, but God gave us the information not to be an encyclopedia, but to change our lives.

And so the question is the question of faith that we make when we see this.

And so here's what he says.

Here's the first thing I want you to see.

Are you an honest seeker?

If Jesus always accepts honest seekers with honest questions, are you asking Jesus real, authentic spiritual questions in your life?

A lot of people ask questions, but they ask them as dummy questions and they set them up so that they can answer the question themselves in a way that in their pride they want the answer to come out.

Are you asking questions to argue your position or to defend yourself?

Or are you willing to come to Jesus and say, here's my question, what's the answer?

And I'm willing to listen to what he says the answer is.

Are your questions, the way that you ask them, excuses?

Remember, Nicodemus had the same struggles we did.

Professionally, he couldn't be seen talking to Jesus.

The persecution that he might take from coming and being willing to listen to Jesus teach and share what he's sharing when all these other guys are attacking him in public.

He has all these excuses that he could have made, and yet he came to Jesus anyway with real questions.

Are you an honest seeker?

Or number two, is your pride keeping you from Jesus?

I'm too busy, I can't do that, my background is this, I can't read scripture, I don't understand.

All these things that we come up with, those are excuses that keep us from facing the honest question.

It's important for us to understand that I told the campus at Chaffee, I believe in the accountability of the mirror.

When you get up in the morning and you're brushing your teeth, or you're putting on your makeup, or you're doing your hair, or shaving, or whatever it is you're doing.

When you look in that mirror and it's just you and yourself, and you look each other in the eye, you know who you are.

And you know what you struggle with, and you know what you did, and you know what's wrong.

You can't hide from the fact that there are things that you know that you've done that are wrong.

The Bible calls that sin.

The question is, are you gonna let your pride keep you from Jesus?

I don't want to face it, I don't want to be embarrassed with it, I don't want to admit it, I don't want to whatever, or are you willing to look at Jesus and go, this is what I did?

What does this mean?

Are you still gonna love me?

Are you still gonna forgive me?

Are you still gonna guide me?

Are you letting your pride keep you from Jesus?

Nicodemus did not, or you, are we?

Number three, are you ignoring the spiritual reality of your life?

Are you living it, doing what you're doing, and living by the tyranny of the urgent, or taking every opportunity you have to do whatever you think you have the freedom to do and all that, or do you actually design your life around spiritual priorities?

If you've never been saved, if you're asking that question, have you grappled with the fact that heaven and hell are real?

And that there is judgment for our sin?

As Jesus said, our sin has condemned us already.

Are you dealing with the reality of heaven and hell?

And that someone is gonna pay the price for your sins and you can do it, or you can trust Jesus to do it.

When you face the decisions that you make, I'm gonna choose this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna date this person, I'm gonna marry this person, I'm gonna do this with my kids, I'm not gonna go to church, I'm not gonna whatever, I'm gonna do this how I want to, I'm gonna structure life how I want to.

Are you making human life decisions, as Jesus would say, flesh decisions or earthly decisions, or are you realizing the heavenly component in life and designing spiritual decisions and choices of faith to guide what you're doing?

I've shared this before, and you know my testimony.

This is not my first career actually as a lawyer for six years before I was called in ministry, and this is kind of how that works, and a lesson that I learned early in life, and it's been repeated multiple times.

Um I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was a lifelong Memphis Tiger basketball fan, and so it was awesome.

When I graduated from high school, I never looked at another college, I didn't consider anything, I didn't really care about college because I had wanted to be a lawyer since I was a seventh grader.

So college didn't really matter to me because all I needed was a piece of paper to get into law school.

But I was a lifelong Tiger fan, and so what I knew college was was four years of free tickets.

That's what college was for me.

I'm gonna just shoot you straight.

Kids, don't listen to this.

This is not how this works, right?

And so that's what I did.

I played golf, I played racquetball, I chased Janet Trailer until she agreed to be Janet Addison, and I pretty much skipped class 70% of the time.

Pastor Dave and I went to college together.

He's better than I was.

He probably only skipped 50% of the time, but I skipped a lot more than that.

We were laughing the other day, we went to have pizza for lunch, and I we were laughing like we spent four years eating at Pizza Hut instead of going to class.

It was great.

So we loved it.

And then I went to law school, and somebody that knew me and talked to me and was coaching me about that, they said, listen, Greg, here's the deal.

I know you've sort of fluffed your way through college and it wasn't important and all that kind of a deal, but here's what I'm gonna tell you.

You're gonna go and you're gonna study and you're gonna be reading cases and studying for 12 hours a day until your eyes bleed.

But here's what I want you to do.

You are not too busy for Jesus while you're in law school.

And he said, you've got to understand that you're gonna think you're busy and you're gonna think you're in this process.

And I've had this conversation with young men and women going into the military, going into being teachers, all kinds of, all kinds of stuff, setting that direction of life as a young adult.

And he said, Greg, it doesn't matter how busy you are, how much your tests are and how difficult it is, you need to be in church and you need to have your quiet time.

You cannot afford to not do that.

You must build the DNA in your spiritual life from the beginning as an adult to look at the spiritual side of life and balance those things together because when you get out of school and you start doing life and all of that, you think you're swamped in law school.

You ain't never known busy until you get out.

You ain't ever known anything until you have responsibility and kids and family and bills and life and everything else.

And you need to make a priority from the beginning of your lot of adult life to make a spiritual life and worldview a part of what you're doing.

You cannot afford not to do it now because every stage of life that you hit that is busier, all of life is pushing you away from spiritual decisions.

And it's worse every year and it's more difficult the more life stacks up.

And I was glad.

I don't listen very well to a lot of advice, but I did.

And I can tell you at times as a young lawyer, I remember, man, we got kids, we got babies, and we're swamped, and I got notes I'm trying to pay for law school, and I got all that, and the responsibility gets to be difficult.

Man, there were times I was so panicked I would get up at three in the morning and drive to the office to go count days and found out if I met 30-day deadlines, or to rego over some brief because I thought I may have messed it up or something like that.

And then Janet's like, where are you?

And the kids had a rough morning, and I got all this going on.

Y'all feeling this?

Like this is life, right?

And then you get to be 40 and like you got real responsibilities, or you get to be 40 and you get promotions or a new job, and all of a sudden you got money that you didn't have before, and it opens up a lot of decisions you never had before.

Listen, as young adults, you have this much responsibility.

It just grows.

And you have got to set in your life a commitment to spiritual matters and build that in, or as life does this, it will crush your thought process about spiritual matters.

Listen, what do you do?

Why do you think God puts tithing in the structure of a Christian life?

It's because he's trying to intervene into some physical human part of life to remind us of the spiritual components of life.

Everything you have, God provided.

And every decision that you make is a spiritual decision as well as a financial decision or a human decision or a house decision or a car decision.

He's trying to intervene in a consistent part of our lives to get us to be reminded that He is there and we are to worship Him and walk with Him, and these decisions have spiritual components.

That's how it's supposed to work.

Why you think marriage is a picture of salvation?

Because every time your wife does whatever makes you mad, or every time your husband does whatever makes you mad, you're confronted with a spiritual decision.

Am I going to treat this like Jesus would?

Or am I going to do it the way everybody else would do it?

Church life.

Man, it's just killing us in modern church life.

Man, everything I read with pastors now is like this constant refrain of people are not engaged, they're not invested, they don't get it, all this kind of 50% or less pattern and stuff.

I'm not trying to make you feel guilty about skipping church, but listen, you've got to understand, you can't do this without each other.

Period.

You've got to be here.

In fact, God has gerrymandered it where we are necessary for each other.

There are certain things that happen when you get saved, and they are spiritual.

They are not human.

When you get saved, your sins are forgiven, and you're given eternal life, and he's prepared a place and a home for you in heaven.

The next thing that happens is you are adopted into the body of Christ, and we are now brothers and sisters with the same Heavenly Father, and we are stuck together where we want to or not.

And then the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you, and that's how we learn to walk with him.

It's how we have power in this.

Galatians 2.20 says, it's no longer me living a physical life in Greg's brain understanding and having wisdom to know how to do this.

But now I'm living by faith in the presence and the work of God that happens in my life through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

That's what happens.

Romans 8 says, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're a child of God.

And when the Holy Spirit comes in, and now you can't get away from the Holy Spirit, he is there with you, he is walking through all this with you.

Another thing that happens the moment that he comes in, he births in you something in church life we call a spiritual gift.

What that is, is a talent, a skill, a passion, a heart for something that he births in you, and that's how he's gerrymandered us to need each other.

He gave me one, he gave you one, he gave you one, he gave y'all one, he gave you one up in the balcony.

My people in the balcony have spiritual gifts.

And they're all scattered, and so if y'all are not here, this is not the body of Christ.

It's functioning with one, hopping on one leg with one arm tied behind his back.

And Jesus has given that illustration.

Multiple times he describes the body of Christ by being like a body and thumbs and eyes and noses and hands, and we're all tied to each other.

When I'm holding this Bible, it's an incredibly complex mechanism that happens.

There are muscles and nerves and all kinds of stuff.

There's a bone structure, there's five different fingers and a palm and a wrist and a forearm, and all this works together.

Man, I can tell you because we play golf on Friday, and there's this stinking muscle right here.

That man, I played golf in about the eighth, about the 15th hole, I start hurting right here.

Because I'm gripping that club and I'm hitting it fat and bouncing it into trees, and my partners were bailing me out.

It was awesome, and I'm hurting right now, and I can tell you, holding that golf club right here hurt up here in my elbow.

It's all attached together.

And so we are lesser when you're not here.

Period.

That is the spiritual reality of life.

And if you're not invested, if you just come and sit, great, I'm glad you did, but really, you're hurting yourself and you're hurting us.

There is a spiritual component to how we grow that we are connected to each other and we make these decisions.

I'm going there, I'm doing that, I'm doing this, I'm out of that, I'm only halfway that.

And it is affecting all of us spiritually because there is a spiritual reality to life, and that's what Jesus is telling him.

He spends eight verses trying to get him to understand and shift there's heavenly stuff and earthly stuff.

And only the one who has gone to heaven and descended from heaven can teach you the spiritual stuff.

It's just the reality of it.

And so are we making human choices on spiritual priorities or human priorities?

And if you come to Jesus like Nicodemus did, he's gonna accept you.

He's gonna tell you that he loves you, and he's gonna put his finger on what's going on in your life, and he's gonna shoot you straight.

And he's gonna tell you about the spiritual ramifications of the decisions and choices we make.

And finally, if you place your faith in Jesus, because that begins the whole thing.

And it begins and ends with this God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will never perish but of everlasting life.

As Jesus said, you were already condemned, your sin had already condemned you, and there's not anybody in this room who's not looked in that mirror and known you've done something wrong.

That's what guilt is.

But you know what?

Jesus came to save you from that, to forgive you, to build in your life, spiritual life, to walk with you, and to build a relationship with you that now every time you have a question, he accepts you just like this and guides you and speaks truth and reminds you that he loves you, gives you wisdom, walks through life with you.

That's what it means to be saved.

To have given your life to Jesus and trusted him that his life, dying on the cross, paid the price for your sins.

And this begins with that first decision.

And that's why when Nicodemus comes with questions, Jesus moves him first to an understanding of salvation.

Have you placed your faith in Jesus?

Whether you're watching on television or online or you're here in person, have you given your life to Jesus?

I want you to bow your heads as we close.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I'm gonna pray God's people are gonna stand and sing a hymn of testimony about Jesus, reminding you that, man, they love Jesus, and there are people in this room who would, they're saying amen when they sing this hymn.

They're saying amen to everything we said.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, we want to invite you to come.

We'll have pastors at the head of our aisles.

Listen, we're here to walk this journey with you.

Nobody's gonna manipulate you, nothing weird's gonna happen.

If you need more time to talk about it than this few moments, then you just come and make an appointment with us.

Like Jesus received Nicodemus at night.

We'll meet you anywhere, anytime, in any way we can to serve you as the hands and feet of Jesus so that you can know him and salvation in him.

You come.

Last week we talked about baptism.

If you've never trusted, if you've never stepped out in baptism, you've been saved, but you've never done that.

There's a spiritual component to that.

We talked about it last week, and we're recognizing it again.

Come and schedule your baptism.

If you need us to pray with you, we're here to pray with you.

Lord, we we thank you that you are always, always accepting.

Thank you for this tangible picture of what it looks like for Jesus to listen and to teach us, to receive us and to guide us.

And that we can hear from his own mouth how he loves us and he came to save us.

Father, if there's someone who needs to be saved, I pray you'll give them the faith and the freedom and the clarity from what they've seen today to come and give their life to Christ.

It's in his saving name we pray, and all God's people said, Let's stand and sing.

And this morning, if you need Jesus, come let us pray with you.

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.