Faith Forward 2026 Pt. 1 - Pastor Greg Addison - March 1, 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.

Now, today, as we enter into March, uh we are entering into our Faith Forward Emphasis for 2026.

You know, Chase Garrett, our architect, gave you a great update on what's happening at on the utility project, construction project on our property in the Chaffee area, and we're very excited.

That's going to be finished this spring.

And so we're we're going to be done with that.

It's awesome to know it's gone so well.

Last year we uh voted as a congregation to take the 2025 and the 2026 Faith Forward offerings and apply the bulk of both of those to the construction project to make sure we were paying for as much of that uh towards a cash basis as we could.

And so this is the second year of that.

Our finance committee and our deacons have approved the structure of this offering as well.

And so this comes as a recommendation from them.

Now, as we say here a lot of times, we have a 60-year-old campus and 60 acres of dirt.

So we're going to be building stuff and fixing stuff till Jesus comes back, right?

And so, as a part of this, we did this last year, and you responded incredibly well, and it was incredibly helpful.

We uh took a similar amount off the top of the offering to repair the security system and some of the attendant uh computers and all of that system that went with that.

This year, we're gonna take 40,000 off the top to repair a lot of the brick and parapet work around the roof system on the campus.

Roofs have been replaced last year, but on those brick walls that stand up so you don't see the flat roofs, those are 60 years old or more, many of them, and they leak and just over time they have to be maintained and all of that.

We also have some work on the steeple that we need to do.

And so that's what that 40,000 is for.

There's just a list of those repairs, and we need to get that done.

But the bulk of that offering is going to go towards our Chaffee Property Utility Project.

Now, as you know, we operate the church on the weekly tithes and gifts that we receive, and then we have just a few special offerings.

We don't come and do lots of offerings all the time and all that.

We want you as a family to be able to pray about and plan your giving.

And so we had at Christmas time, for example, the missions offering, the Lottie Moon Christmas offering.

We will have the Easter Annie Armstrong offering, which goes through the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board to plant churches around the country.

This each year is a capital offering that does profit this projects just like we talked about.

It is over and above our regular operating giving, which needs to continue so we can continue to do the things we do, and this is over and above that.

Now there are a couple of ways to give.

If you have the envelopes, they'll be available in the back, I believe, and we'll be passing them out throughout the next three weeks.

You can give a cash offering.

You can give either online or in person, whatever you prefer.

We make both of those available.

You can give a cash offering, you can give a pledge.

There's a card in the envelope, you can pledge a certain amount.

If you fail to meet your pledge one month, we send Matt to your house with a brick and a no, I'm kidding.

We don't we don't do that.

The pledging is good, and it's good for us to learn as a church because it helps us plan.

And then just me as a as a person, Janet and I have done both of these, and you'll see the combination of that.

We've done both of those.

And it's really nice to know that pledge and set that up online, and we give that, and it allows us to give more than just the cash gift, and it allows us to really participate throughout the year in that process, and it keeps it in our forefront.

So, however you choose to do that's great.

We're gonna ask you and your family to pray over those offerings and give what you would give.

These have been great offerings every year, and this year, as you know, we we are trying to finish paying for that$1.4 million project at the uh on the utility project.

So this offering is important, it's significant.

We'll finish it, we'll celebrate that piece being finished, and then we'll uh continue to pay for that throughout the year.

So we we have that emphasis this year.

And so today, what I want to do, we've taken that faith forward idea that this offering, that this time of focus points us forward as a church with all the things we need to do and that we can do, but I've also taken that as a theme for the message today.

You know, we've used the word forward as that call to ministry this year to really deepen what we're doing, to deepen our walks of faith.

And so today, what I want to do is talk about this the standard of a forward faith.

You see, God is always calling us forward in our walk.

The very nature of stepping out in faith is moving in a direction that God has placed in front of us to do something He's called us or led us to do as a church.

God has led us in advancing how we're doing ministry, advancing how we're reaching our community and in missions around the world to share the gospel.

Missions partnerships, the amazing chemistry show, events like that that we invite people to.

We send people off to support missions around the world, starting a campus in the Chaffee area, making sure we're strong here, doing more efforts to reach into Oklahoma.

We love our Oklahoma families and we want to see more, uh reaching more folks in Oklahoma.

Uh come and be a part of our campus here.

We're excited about all those things.

God has given us a plan and called us forward, and it requires us as his people to step forward in our faith.

That's exactly the moment that we find the children of Israel here in our chronological reading.

Now, here we are at Numbers 13 and 14.

The children of Israel have been out of Egypt for a year.

In your reading over the last few days, you've seen the first annual Passover Supper that is a year following the Passover when the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt.

So for 12 months, God has been casting vision towards Canaan.

He's been casting vision towards his promise and set aside a land to make that his land for his people.

He has made promises and has a plan.

For twelve months, he has been training them to go, and we're going to go and we're going to inhabit this land that I've promised you.

Now, he has brought them to that jumping off point.

He has brought them to the place where they need to make that choice of faith, right?

And so that's what we find in Numbers 13 and 14.

Now I'm going to tell you, if you'll turn to Numbers 13, this is one of my absolute top five favorite moments in all of Scripture.

One of my heroes, spiritual heroes from Scripture is the man Caleb, who shows up in this story.

In fact, when I did my father's celebration, life celebration service, funeral service, whatever you want to call it, I preached on Caleb and how my dad modeled those characteristics from Caleb.

I love this moment here.

This is one of those where you think, can't we just stop for a month and camp on this?

So there's a lot in this passage of scripture, but I have sort of woven through one thread that is inherent in this story that I want you to see.

And it is that call to how we take a step of faith forward and how God trains us and puts us in front of us as a part of his children.

Now, this is gonna, we're gonna do some excerpted readings here to kind of set up this story.

So, Numbers chapter 13, verse 1, the Bible says the Lord spoke to Moses, and here's what he tells them.

Numbers 13:1

I want you to see the Lord spoke to Moses, right?

He spoke to him and he sent him out.

And he says, Send men to scout out the land of Canaan.

I am giving to the Israelites.

That's verse 1.

So we see that this is God's plan.

He's pointing them towards the plan.

Verse 2 tells him, Take men who are leaders.

And what God is trying to do is he's going to send them in.

And these are leaders, these are men of faith.

They're supposed to be.

They get the plan, they get what they're doing, they scope out the land, they come back and they tell everyone it's just like God told us.

So let's see what happens.

Moses, in verse 17, Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan.

He told them, go up this way to the Negev, then go up into the hill country, see what the land is like, and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.

Verse 19.

Is the land they live in good or bad?

You see, he's got joint kind of ideas.

They're getting this picture to understand militarily where they're going, but Moses is constantly weaving in.

Has God described the land to us correctly?

Does it look like he says?

And he wants them to come back and validate to the people God is faithful as he promised.

Then he says, are the cities they live in, encampments or fortifications?

He goes back.

Is the land fertile or unproductive?

Are there trees in it or not?

And then he tells them, Be courageous.

That is, go with faith, believe in what God is doing.

He says, Bring back some fruit from the land.

It was the season for the first ripe grapes.

So they went up and scouted out the land from the wilderness of Zen as far as Rehobe near the entrance to Hamath.

And then they went up to all these places, and we'll skip ahead.

Verse 23.

Uh he's kind of giving you the map of how they mapped their way through.

When they came to the village of Eskol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes.

Now get this picture.

Single cluster of grapes, right?

Which was carried on a pole by two men.

Like, get this image.

Like these dudes, these grapes are so big.

This is so awesome.

They went and cut down some tree deal, stripped the limbs off, made a pole.

One guy's here, one guy's here with it on their shoulder, and I just believe it was probably sagging in the middle.

I mean, they're showing that sure enough, God has even under-described how awesome the land is.

Now, you know it's a blessing of God because of this.

They also took some pomegranates and figs.

Now, figs are a blessing from God.

Now, my wife loves them and eats them raw.

Like you peel them, but it look, they gross me out.

That looks like you plucked an eyeball out of somebody's head and tried to eat that.

It's nasty.

But there's a spiritual thing that happens when you preserve these figs.

When they become fig preserves and fig jam, we understand the blessing of God, right?

Can I have an amen right there?

I mean, it's awesome.

And they are bringing these figs back, and grandmothers all over the camp of the Israelites are going to be canning these figs, and they're going to be saying, God is awesome to his people, right?

That's the picture, you get?

Now, let's continue to read.

As we continue to read in Numbers 13, I think we're still in Numbers 13.

There you go.

They reported to Moses.

Now they've come back.

They've brought back all these pomegranates, all these figs.

They brought these grapes on this pole.

I just have this picture.

They trotted them right through the camp, headed up towards the tabernacle where everybody gathers.

People are ooing and on all over that.

They're welcoming them back.

There were 12 men that went.

Twelve men.

Bible says they reported to Moses.

And check out this fruit.

It is awesome.

They're saying God described it exactly like it is.

It is awesome.

But we hate that word.

But the men who had gone up with him responded.

Now, as you read through this, you understand it's ten of the twelve that said this.

We can't go up against the people because they are stronger than we are.

So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted.

The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size.

Now listen, here you have just reported that God's word is true.

When he described it as a land flowing in milk and honey, you said, indeed it is, just like God said.

And then you back up and say, we're afraid to go in?

Are you kidding me?

He says, we even saw the Nephilim there, the sins of Anak came from Nephilim.

We know those are men, they're huge, giant type, whatever.

We read about that earlier.

To ourselves we seem like grasshoppers.

That's important.

And we must have seemed the same to them.

They assume, because of their own self-image, that they look like grasshoppers, then the Canaanites must see us the same way.

Now we actually know from our study last summer of Joshua, they were wrong.

If you'll remember the story of Rahab, when the spies went in the second time, 40 years later, with the next generation, they went in.

Rahab told them clearly, everyone here is terrified of you.

They saw your God dump the Red Sea on top of the Egyptians and defeat all of them, and everyone here in Canaan is terrified of you.

So these men are flat out wrong.

They make an assumption that is false.

So get this picture.

God was right in his description, but we're just looking at what we see in our own mind.

We're ignoring the promise of God, and we're guessing about other stuff that we don't know.

And so, because of that, they give a negative report to the children of Israel.

It's incredible.

Now, we skip to chapter 14, and we see this begin to unfold.

The whole community broke into loud cries and the people wept that night.

All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron and the whole community, and they told them, I mean, listen to this.

If we'd only died in the land of Egypt, if he'd only had us die in the wilderness.

I mean, why is God bringing us into this land just to die by the sword?

You mean the same God that killed a whole army in the Red Sea?

Why is he bringing us here?

Our wives and children will become like blood.

Wouldn't it be better if we went back to Egypt?

You mean the Egypt where you were slaves?

That's the Egypt you're talking about.

I mean, you get this?

So they said to one another, let's appoint a different leader and let's go back to Egypt.

And ignore the land filled with milk and honey that is exactly like God promised it would be.

Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground in front of the whole assembly of the Israelite community.

Now here's the other two.

Joshua, son of Nun and Caleb, son of Jephunah, who were among those who scouted out the land, they tore their clothes in grief at the response of the people.

And they said to the entire community, the land we passed through and explored is an extremely good land.

If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land.

A land flowing with milk and honey, just like he promised, and he'll give it to us.

Only don't rebel against the Lord.

And don't be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them.

Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us.

Don't be afraid of them.

And they're calling to the people to place their faith in the promises of God.

Now I want you to get this picture right here.

There's two verses that I want you to see in this story for purposes of this theme that I want you to spend some time with this week.

Get this picture.

This is a physical picture.

This is a painting of what's going on.

While the whole community threatened to stone the leaders, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tent of meeting.

Now you remember, let's go back to that verse.

I want you to just see that for a minute.

You remember God has set up his presence above the tabernacle, the cloud and the pillar of fire, and we saw all that.

And we talked about how that points out to the people that God is here in our midst.

So what you have is this whole community screaming at each other, threatening to stone the leaders and all this kind of stuff because we don't believe in God when God is showing up in all his glory in the middle of their whining and crying.

I am here.

Why don't we go back to Egypt?

Why don't we go backwards?

Why are we going in there?

Those people are scary.

And the Shekinah glory of God is in the midst of that calling to his people to trust him.

That's an incredible picture, right there, isn't it?

It's a beautiful picture.

Alright, let's keep reading.

What happens is the people reject.

Moses goes back as a leader before the Lord, and they begin this conversation.

The Lord says to Moses, this is the voice of God about his people.

How long will these people despise me?

How long will they not trust in me despite all the signs I have performed among them?

I will strike them with a plague and destroy them.

Then I will make you Moses like the new Abraham, and I will make you into a greater and mightier nation than they are.

Now, Moses gets into this prayer time with the Lord, and he says, Lord, if you kill them all, then all the people in Egypt are going to think they're right.

And this is your testimony, and you do all that, and so God says, Okay, here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna have this entire generation, and all these people whining and griping and not having faith.

We're just gonna wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and when that generation dies off, I will have had 40 years to train their children to have faith, and when they are adults, we'll come back to the Jordan River and we'll try this again.

And that's what he did with Joshua, and that's when the children of Israel are going to land.

But I want you to get this picture right here.

Here is God's presence in amongst all of this.

Nobody can be heard.

Now I think Job, maybe Caleb or Moses or Aaron, or somebody did, but in the whining of all those people, they couldn't hear somebody go, hey, look, look, God is with us.

Look, the presence of God is here.

We can trust him.

And that's why God's so frustrated with them in verse 11.

When are they gonna trust me?

And that is a question that every child of God, whether you live in the Old Testament period or you live in the New Testament period, we deal with.

All of us are constantly living in that position of are we going to trust God and move forward in what He's doing in our lives, in our church?

Ministry that you're involved in, that you're invested in, choir, your Sunday school group, student ministry, whatever it is.

Are we going to stand back or are we going to go forward with what God is calling us to do?

Are we going to advance in the gospel?

Are we going to find more ways to see more people saved?

It's to call in front of every one of us.

The scripture verse that we've been using to set up that forward idea in Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Paul says, I've forgotten everything that was behind.

I am pressing forward to what God saved me for.

And then he says, if you remember that verse, every person who is mature will think this way.

If there's an area of your life that you don't think this way, God will show it to you.

Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

So this decision point that they're in right here is incredibly applicable to every one of us in our life, every one of us in our ministry.

And it is certainly important for us as a church.

We have this land.

God has a plan.

He's put it out there.

He's called us to this process.

Are we invested in reaching the river valley?

I want to show you three things, just three truths that I'm pulling.

Now, again, I could preach this passage of scripture for a month.

It is so filled with so much incredible practical truth, but we're just going to pull this one thread right here.

Remember what God said.

How long will they despise me and why will they not trust in me?

God calls us to trust Him in His work and His plans.

God is not making stuff up.

He is not winging it.

We're not just kind of going with the flow or whatever.

God has a very clear and distinct plan.

He has told the children of Israel what his plan is, he has set it before them for an entire year.

They have been looking forward to this.

He has described the land as a land that flows with milk and honey.

We saw that a couple weeks ago in Leviticus.

He promises them that land.

He brings them to this point.

He's been training them for a year to have the faith to walk forward.

And now we're there, and here's the plan.

And the plan looks exactly like God said it was.

It is a man, land flowing in milk and honey, just like God said.

Look at all this stuff.

It looks just like God said it is.

Listen, God is not up there making up stuff.

God has a plan.

At a macro level, it's always been the same plan.

The children of Israel, he's making them the nation to make them the funnel to bring Jesus into the world as the Redeemer.

In the Old Testament, they are the funnel and the process to bring Jesus here so that man can be saved from his sin.

And then in the Gospels, we see that God fulfilled that, just like the land of Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey.

God provided the plan of redemption just like he promised.

And then ever since then, we have all been a part of advancing the gospel.

That is our purpose for being.

It's why we're saved.

It's a part of what we're doing.

It's our purpose as a church.

We are spreading the gospel as much as we can.

That's why we work hard to have these mission trips and missions partners, and we give to buy Bibles in Nigeria, and we're building a campus to spread out our influence and reach more people in the River Valley.

This is a plan that God has placed in front of our church.

Our church bought this land 14 years ago.

And people have been praying for it, working towards it, saving towards it.

Leaders have been praying over it, working towards it.

God has been opening doors for us in this journey.

It's incredible what God's doing.

And this is a plan.

We are in the midst of a plan moving forward.

The events in this deal right here, this is a plan right here.

These are events, students, young adults, children, families, that are opportunities to invite someone to church to help them see the body of Christ and the love of Jesus that's here and hear the gospel and have hope for salvation.

That's what we're doing.

This is a plan.

We are moving forward.

And we can trust in God and follow his plans because we know he is working according to his plan.

You share Jesus with somebody.

You start being committed to pray for your love list and share Jesus and you watch God turn you into a soul owner.

Why do I know that?

Because that's God's plan.

Jesus literally died on the cross for people to be saved.

How's he not going to answer our prayers for people to be saved?

He gave himself for that purpose.

And so when we step out in faith, whether it's this offering project or whether it's your family and you're trying to sort your finances and you're praying through how that works, or whether you are praying about getting involved and teaching Sunday school or whatever, it's for the incredible people that have gone out to help us start the campus so successfully at Chaffee.

They stepped out in faith and went out there because they believed God had a plan, that he was working in our midst.

And in your life, you can know that God has a plan for you.

We say it often, but Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 talks about how we're saved by grace through faith, that step of faith.

And then it says in verse 10, because we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, he has planned beforehand for us to walk in.

It's not just preacher talk that God has a plan for your life, it is the work of God in our lives.

And when you step out in faith and trust him in your finances, by witnessing, by getting involved in ministry, by investing yourself and whatever, when you step out according to that plan, God is working and you can trust that it will work and God will be faithful because it's his plan to do that.

Second of all, second truth, this verse right here is incredible.

God teaches us and shows us how to trust him.

He says to Moses, when will they trust me?

They despise me and don't trust me, despite all the signs I have performed among them.

Listen, God didn't just take them out of Egypt and then just go throw them out there in Canaan and y'all go try it out.

I mean, my dad was one of those guys that would take a baby and throw them in a swimming pool in the deep end and just say, learn to swim, right?

I mean, he was that kind of a guy.

God's not doing that.

He is teaching them for a solid year after he redeemed them.

He has built a process of worship to train them how to worship him so they can follow him and know who he is.

He's given offerings and offerings and offerings and offerings.

I mean, I'm telling you what, offering is one of the most stated words in all of Leviticus and Numbers.

Why is God doing all that?

He's reminding them, I made y'all rich coming out of Egypt.

I have provided everything you have.

Trust me as you move forward in Canaan.

I will provide as I've been providing.

Right?

When we take offerings, that's not how we build a church.

It's how God builds Christians.

It is our faithfulness in giving and stepping forward in those things where I am trusting in the Lord and He is blessing and guiding in that process.

Listen, we want everyone to participate.

We don't ever put out a goal, we don't ever put out a mount, we don't ever want to run the risk of putting something in front of you that you think this is what we got to do.

What we do is put an opportunity in front of all of us to pray over it and ask what step of faith does God want us to do in our family, in our life.

And when everybody in the church is asking God, what should we do?

Man, that's way better than any number Pastor Gregg would come up with.

It's deep, it's spiritual, it's real.

Whatever it is, is because God's people are stepping forward in faith.

He is rehearsing for us how we place our faith in him.

Listen, they are standing there griping, backing up in faith on the very land that every morning they pick up manna from heaven.

Are you kidding me?

God's giving them manna.

He's providing for their every meal.

Yesterday we had manna, last week we had manna, last month we had manna.

When we got griped and complained about manna, he sent pheasant all over everywhere.

God's providing everything we need.

But we're not going to trust him.

If he can provide a honey-flavored wheat for us to make biscuits and donuts out of every single morning, you don't think he can take care of the enemies that he has already condemned?

Seriously?

I mean, you get this?

Every step of faith that you make, every time we come in worship, every time we come here and we sing praises to the Lord, we are rehearsing, placing our focus on him.

When you're doing your quiet time, I've been so blessed to see all of you dive into this reading.

I'm telling you what, I'm so proud of y'all.

I know pride is a sin, so we're going to give Jesus credit for it.

But you guys listen to them.

You guys are reading.

I'm telling my pastor buddies, like, your church is losers.

Like, our people are awesome.

Go ask one of them.

I'll really tell them that.

I mean, it's awesome.

You guys are awesome.

All of that.

Here's what we're rehearsing.

You guys are coming to the Word of God on your own.

It's not somebody else teaching you.

You're coming to God's word.

You're finding awesome things in it.

You're building this discipline of walking with God.

You're hearing God speak to you.

You're coming back and telling each other how excited you are and how much you love this.

And here's what I've read.

All of that.

All of that is rehearsing God teaching us faith.

So that when he brings you to that point that you give your offering, or you say yes to teaching that Sunday school class or yes to singing in the choir or yes to inviting that person on your love list to church after you've been praying for them.

Whatever that journey is, he has been training you that he is faithful.

And you can step out in faith and trust him because he has taught us how to do that.

And then finally, truth number three, God's going to do it anyway.

What's this whole conversation at the end of that with Moses?

Now, listen, I want you to get this picture.

I would get mad with my kids, right?

I mean, I'm a dad, I would get mad with my kids.

They would do this, they wouldn't do what I thought was going to do, and I'd get mad at them.

I get frustrated with my kids.

My dad got frustrated with me when I wouldn't do what he thought I should do.

Parents get frustrated, right?

This conversation with Moses and God, God does not get frustrated and lose his temper.

He is holy.

He is perfect.

Everything God does and says is right because he is holy God.

This is not God stomping around working out his anger before he came up with a plan.

No.

God is teaching Moses and teaching us.

There is a point to this lesson that he is teaching Moses.

He is training in Moses as a leader.

Do not get frustrated when they back up on you.

I am still going to do what I planned to do.

That's when he says to Moses, listen, I'm going to kill them all, and I'm going to make you Moses.

You're the next Abraham.

I'm reaffirming that covenant, and I'm going to make you even greater and mightier than them.

Now, if Moses has said, Yeah, okay, God, I like that plan, Moses would have been in trouble.

Moses didn't have the freedom to go, man, you're right about those rotten so-and-so's.

Man, those whiny, those, those, those whiny people in that tribe back there of Gad.

I mean, those people are worthless.

What's wrong with those people?

You're right, God.

Strike them down, you and I, man, we're going to go make a new nation.

God would have had to discipline Moses because Moses didn't understand what's happening.

God is training Moses as a leader, people back up.

Learning faith is a learned process.

And when Moses pled, if you go on to read, Moses pleads with him and says, God, you can't kill them because all those people in Egypt, you can't get your people here.

You told them you were going to take them here, and then you can't get them here, and all those people are going to think you lied and you're not God and all that.

Man, Moses is learning, and what he's learning is this lesson right here.

God is going to do his work.

He's going to do his work whether you dive in or not.

If you back up, God's going to do what he's going to do anyway.

If we back up as a church and we don't step out in faith and reach the river valley and lead people to Christ and bring them to these things, somebody else is going to get to see them baptized in their church.

That's what he's telling Moses right here.

I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

And this is one of the most important lessons.

There's a reason that God put this.

This is Moses and God in Moses' prayer time, right?

They are praying and he's pleading before God.

Why do we have any right to see this?

But there's got to be a reason that it is here.

And God opened up the window to this discourse between him and Moses.

And the reason is God is teaching all of us.

When you back up, you're the one that loses.

When you don't step forward in faith, you're the one that misses out because God's going to do what he's going to do anyway.

This is my greatest question as a pastor.

Why do churches always back up?

One of my greatest frustrations, I had some great mentors when I was going into pastoring, and they told me all kinds of great things.

Do this, don't do this, do this, and no one ever told me that the pastor's office is the place where dreams go to die.

Because churches always back up.

They're always backing up.

You always got the question we can't do that.

We can't afford that.

Why are we doing that?

Cut the budget there.

In fact, most churches, now remember, they're not as smart as you are.

I've already told you that, right?

Most churches, where's the first place they cut the budget to make the funds meet?

Missions.

Now, what does that tell us right there?

To me, that kind of looks like the picture of the children of Israel begging to go back to Egypt when God is showing his presence in their midst.

Isn't that true?

Why do churches always back up?

One day, before I retire, I want to be going forward.

I want to see more.

I want somebody to come up and say, Pastor, we do more.

We want to do more.

We want to do more.

Let's go faster.

Pastor, why are you so slow?

I never heard that in my entire ministry.

I've heard slow down.

I've never heard speed up.

Why do we go backwards?

Well, we learn the lesson in this event.

People are not looking at the promises or the plans of God.

They're looking at what they think is in front of them.

They're making assumptions about what God cannot do rather than trusting in the promises of what he will do.

We're thinking about, well, I'm just a grasshopper when no one else in the world sees us that way.

Why does Satan attack the church?

Because he thinks we're grasshoppers?

That doesn't make sense, does it?

He's a defeated enemy fighting an army that Jesus said the gates of hell cannot prevail against.

God's going to do what he's going to do.

Man, I want to be the church where we're watching them baptize.

I want to be the church on the ground with Pastor Joel when revival breaks out in London.

I want to be with Pastor Hugo in El Salvador when stuff breaks loose and you see the hand of God move.

I want to be there when we walk into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Amen?

We want to go forward.

I want to go forward.

So here's what I really want to be.

I want to be Caleb.

Not one of those other ten Yahoos.

I just want to step forward in faith.

I want you to bow your heads and clothes this morning.

This message has been a lot for us as believers, but listen, man, there's answers here for you if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior.

Your choice of faith is just like ours.

It's just your first step.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, listen, all of this stuff we're studying and all of the work of God is to bring Jesus in the world to be the Savior.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, this morning we want to invite you to take that step of faith.

Step forward.

God and all of His plans are there for your life.

We talked about, and I quoted the scripture, that God says He has a plan for your life.

But you've got to step to Him in faith and make Jesus your Savior.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior in a moment, God's people are going to stand.

We're going to worship, and we're going to say, thank you for saving us.

Man, when God's people are singing this morning, that's what we're doing.

We're saying, thank you, Jesus, for you saved us.

We're saying we believe you, God, and whatever it is you have in front of me, I want to take a step.

And that we hope encourages you to take a step to give your life to Jesus.

If you've never trusted Christ, pastors are here, our deacons are available to help us.

You come and you give your life to Christ.

If you're a believer, man, brother and sister in Christ, the altar is open for you to come pray.

If there's something in your life you know you hadn't been moving forward and you need to, you want one of us to pray with you and confirm that.

We're here.

This is a great time of prayer and response.

Wherever you are in your walk, this invitation time is not magic, but it is spiritual.

And it's a chance for you to make a commitment to leave here different than you were when you came in.

Lord Jesus, we love you and we thank you as the God of salvation.

We thank you for being a God that is always at work, always moving forward, and we thank you that in your grace you save us through Jesus, and you also give us the chance to participate in your plans.

Whatever that means for each person and family here, you know far better than we do.

You know and love each person, each family.

And Father, I pray that you'll just take this example from Scripture that you gave us and help us to see we can trust you because you have a plan and you've been teaching us how to walk by faith, and you're going to do your plan, and you've invited us to be a part.

And so I pray you give us the freedom to respond to you today.

In Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said.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.