Discover Jesus Series Pt. 15 - Pastor to 60+ Dave Skorupa - March 23, 2025

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, oh man, we can do that in church.

That is fantastic.

Oh, come on, people.

Let's have some smiles.

That was a lot of fun, wasn't it?

There's no reason why worship music can't be fun and lively.

We serve a risen God, not a God still in the grave.

Brother Jacob, fantastic.

Wonderful choir and instrumentalists.

What a wonderful worship of our Lord.

I'm Pastor Dave.

I pastor the 60 Plus group.

How many 60 Plus do I have in the house today?

I'm all right.

We're in good number.

And I'm also privileged and honored to help work with the communications team here at the church.

We have, as a church since, I guess since Christmas time, we've been going through a series called Discover Jesus.

And our pastor's been leading us in that.

Pastor Matt, have you had a Discover Jesus message since Oh, I'm ahead of you?

Wow, okay.

And I was talking with Pastor Greg, who's out of town today.

He said, Pastor Dave, you know, you do what you think the Lord has called you to do.

And I said, Well, I don't want to step into your territory, but I do have a message that fits in with the discover Jesus.

And he said, Oh, absolutely.

By all means, bring that to us.

So today we're going to be in the Gospel of Luke, and I'm already dropping some papers.

We're going to be in the Gospel of Luke today if you brought your Bibles.

We will be in Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

And a few weeks ago, Pastor Greg was talking about Jesus and parables.

Many of you may have been here for that message.

And I really liked the way that Pastor Greg broke down why Jesus often used parables when he was talking in the Gospels.

And one of the points that he made, and it's one of those things that you know it, but then when you hear someone say it, you're like, that's exactly what is going on.

Pastor Greg said that every time Jesus shared a parable, he was using a story to deliver a spiritual fact.

Do you remember that?

We're going to use that model a little bit today.

A lot of what we're going to talk about today is going to have to do with using abundance Jesus' way.

Using abundance Jesus' way.

We had an abundance of worship going on here a few minutes ago.

There was joy, there was gladness, there was happiness.

I saw smiles as I was getting, as I was sitting there, but then when I got up here, everyone would stop smiling.

I didn't like that very much.

But we were enjoying an abundance of worship a few minutes ago.

And these are days where a lot of people say, well, Pastor Dave, have you seen the economy in the past few years?

I don't know if there's a whole lot of abundance out there.

But there is abundance in a lot of things in life aside from money and aside from financial resources.

Many people in here have recovered from periods of sickness.

You now have an abundance of health going on in your life.

Many people here have been blessed with the ability to pursue higher education, and you have an abundance of education in your life.

Maybe today you just feel good because it's springtime and the wind is manageable today.

I don't know about you, but for a while there we were getting an abundance of dust coming out of Texas, going through, getting cleaned up in Oklahoma a little bit, and then getting blasted right in here to Fort Smith.

We've had an abundance of wind of late.

But when we talk about abundance and we're looking at Scripture, what we really are talking about, another word for abundance, is blessings.

Blessings.

So today we're going to spend some time in God's Word.

We're going to look at what Jesus had to say about blessings and the proper way to respond to them.

We'll take a little bit of a detour into the Old Testament and talk about one of my favorite historical characters from the Old Testament, King David.

And then hopefully, by going through this exercise of studying and meditating and praying as we're in God's Word, God will reveal something that will cause us to examine our own minds and hearts and spirits.

And through that process, we will grow closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bow with me as we pray before we go into God's Word.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time.

We thank you for this wonderful time of worship.

I thank you for each person who is here, each family that is represented.

Lord, I pray that as we now go into your word, a word that you have inspired and preserved through the power of your Holy Spirit, that for all who are here who are saved, and therefore have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in their lives, that your inspired word will interact with the Holy Spirit in our lives in such a way that we would be touched, that we would have a part of that power of transformation put into our lives, and we would leave here today thanking you that you have reminded us of things we've forgotten.

Perhaps you will introduce us to something that we haven't heard before.

But Lord, we would give you the honor, the credit, and the glory for making us more like your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is in his mighty and matchless name that we pray, and God's people said, Amen.

We are in Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

We're going to begin reading in verse 13 in just a few moments.

I am reading this morning using the New King James Version of the Scriptures.

The main reason I chose that is there's two or three words.

I just kind of preferred the way that they translated it out in there, and I'll get to that when we get into those verses.

Luke chapter 12 begins, Jesus is conducting his ministry, and in verse 13 we read, Then one from the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?

And he said to them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.

We'll stop here for just a moment.

Jesus is teaching, and the sense that we get from the from the writing here is that as Jesus was teaching, this man more or less interrupts what it is that Jesus is doing.

He sort of shouts out to Jesus and says, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

And it's interesting because this man is hearing Jesus speak.

Perhaps he has heard about the miracles that Jesus has worked.

Perhaps in hearing Jesus' teaching, he thinks this man is not a teacher like the regular teachers are.

Maybe I can get him to take my side in this legal affair of the inheritance that I have with my brother.

And so he just kind of shouts out, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

And I don't want to be too mean on this man because we don't know exactly where his heart was, but when I think of all the things that I would like to shout out to the Lord Jesus, and all of the questions that I would like to ask, and all if I'm watching Jesus during the time of the Gospels, all of the things I want to ask him about him himself, this man chose his moment.

He chose his opportunity to shout something to Jesus, and he decided to shout something about an inheritance that was in dispute.

It reveals something about the heart of that man.

That man was very focused upon this matter of money.

We don't know why he felt that he needed Jesus to settle this dispute.

Maybe this man had been disinherited.

Maybe he was trying to get his older brother to give him a little bit more of that birthright money that he was receiving.

We really don't know.

But he wanted to Jesus, and he calls Jesus teacher, so at least he understood Jesus was a teacher, to settle the inheritance.

Jesus' response in verse 4, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?

Some of your Bibles might translate that out as friend who made me a judge or arbitrator over you.

Jesus' response is in the form of a question.

And what Jesus is trying to do is to get this man to think a little bit.

Who made me the judge or arbitrator over you?

That should cause this man to think, well, who is this man, Jesus?

What is his authority?

Where does it come from?

Why do I feel as though he can settle this for me?

It should begin a process where this man begins realizing that the man he's talking to is more than just a teacher, more than just someone who can go into a courtroom and make his argument sound good.

He should start thinking of the things that Jesus has been preaching and teaching up to this time.

Perhaps he should be thinking about the miracles that people are talking about that have been attributed to Jesus.

He should begin a process of thinking differently about the man that he's interrupted with this matter of his inheritance.

Verse 5, Jesus said to them, take heed and beware of covetousness.

I'm probably going to mispronounce covetousness somewhere along the way.

So just forgive me when I do that in advance.

You know, we use the word covetousness in a lot of different ways, we use different words for that these days.

We say that a person is perhaps hyper-focused on money.

We might say the person's just flat out greedy.

The idea that they see someone else has money, they do not have money, and therefore they think that they should have that person's money.

They covet that money.

But then Jesus adds something.

He says, one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.

I'm just going to let that one sit for a minute.

Because I do think, this is my personal opinion, I do think that there are far too many people in America today who look at their lives simply through a lens of, do I have a lot or do I have a little?

If I have a little, my life isn't worth much.

If I have a lot, God must be blessing me, I must be okay.

If you would agree with that statement, that a lot of people in America think that way, just give me a small nod.

Okay, okay.

That's most everyone who wasn't asleep in the room.

That's nice.

All right.

A person's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.

Now, in Jesus' day, there was a popular worldview that people had.

It was flawed, but it was very popular.

And it was the idea that if you were rich, you were rich because God had blessed you, and God had blessed you because you had already found favor with God.

And therefore, to be rich during the time of Jesus meant in the eyes of many people that you were favored by God and you had nothing to worry about spiritually.

And so when Jesus shares this parable beginning in verse 16, let's go to that.

Verse 16, Jesus spoke a parable to them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?

We'll stop here for a minute.

What a wonderful problem to have.

I think the slang for that is first world problems.

The man has so much crops.

It says the ground has yielded so much crops that the man doesn't know what to do.

And in verse 17, he begins a dialogue within himself.

When I think about this, I always picture him looking in a mirror for some reason.

And he says to himself, he says, I don't know what to do.

I have no room to store my crops.

Verse 18, he said, I'll do this.

I'll pull down my barns and I'll build greater, and there I will store all my crops and all my goods.

Verse 19, I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.

Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

Let's keep this right here for a while.

I want you to notice something that's happening here.

In the earlier verses, the Bible tells us that he was talking to himself.

You ever talk to yourself?

Don't nod.

You ever talk to yourself?

My wife knows that I talk to myself.

And not just when I'm asleep.

There are times where I will be thinking some problem through, or I'll be thinking some riddle through, and I will just begin talking a little bit.

And she married me anyway, it's amazing.

But, you know, you will begin that process and you're talking to yourself.

And for me, sometimes speaking the words aloud allows me to solve the problem quicker.

I don't know why.

But there's a difference between talking to yourself and what the man begins to do in verse 19.

Because in verse 19, he says to his soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.

Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

Now, this is not the translation in every Bible translation that's out there.

That's the reason why I chose this particular translation.

This, I believe, the ESV, a few others, they show this division between talking to yourself and talking to your soul.

You see, what this man has done is he is revealing not just a habit of talking to himself, but what we begin to see here in verses 18 and 19 is we begin to see the thoughts of his spirit.

His spirit.

Now you may ask me, Pastor Dave, what's the difference between talking to yourself and talking to your spirit?

I can't completely explain it, which is why there's so many translations that don't bother to explain it.

But I think what we're seeing here is this man, we are seeing the core of his understanding of his situation.

In his heart of hearts, to use the Southern expression.

He is saying to himself, I've got everything that I need for the rest of my life.

I'm just going to build a bigger barn, store it all there, and I'm going to take my ease.

I'm going to retire early.

Nothing wrong with early retirement.

I serve a lot of retired folks.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with early retirement, especially if you start attending the 60 plus things here at the church immediately after you retire.

But this man says, I'm going to retire early.

I'm going to take my ease.

I'm going to eat, drink, and be merry.

Let's go to the next slide.

Verse 20.

But God said to him, You fool, this night your soul will be required of you.

Then whose will those things be which you have provided?

So is he who laves up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Let's keep that on the screen for a moment.

Isn't it amazing how quickly this parable turns?

We go from a man who has seems to have it all.

He, in his heart of hearts and mind of minds, in his very spirit, he is saying, I am set.

There is nothing I need to worry about.

And then in verse 20, the Lord says to him, You fool.

Now that word fool is very, very interesting.

Let's bring up the passage from Psalms chapter 14.

Psalms 14 · chapter mention

The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.

But I have yet to stumble across a place where the Bible says the word fool that this definition does not fit.

When you see the word fool in Scripture, you have someone who is acting, behaving, they're doing something in such a way that they're acting as if there is no God.

When I was in high school, I went to an all-boys private high school in Memphis, Tennessee.

We learned lots of interesting and colorful insults for each other in that environment.

Many of which, thankfully, God is merciful, and those have been removed from my brain.

But I will say that on the list of mean things to say to a guy, fool was not really high on the list.

Fool was pretty low on the list.

But you realize when God uses the word fool in Scripture, it is an extremely harsh word.

It is the most harsh word, perhaps, that one human being can call another.

Because what you're saying to that human being is, you are acting like a lost person who does not believe that there is a God that you eventually have to answer to.

That is very harsh, ladies and gentlemen.

And when the Lord Himself, in that in that parable, if we go back to the previous slide, that man who thinks he has everything, he's perhaps lying down on his pillow at night and he's thinking, well, everything is going to be great, and the Lord comes to him and says, You fool, this night your life is going to be required of you.

Then who's going to enjoy all of that plentiful blessing abundance that you've received?

The Lord is, if the Lord says that he's acting like he's living as if there is no God, then he's living as if there is no God.

The Lord puts his finger right on the heart of the problem.

You are acting as if God does not exist.

And guess what?

You're going to find out differently this very night.

Because your soul that you've been talking to, that inner part of who you are, is not going to enjoy all these things that you've put away.

Instead, you have an appointment in eternity.

So what's going to happen to all of those things that you had your focus on, all those abundant blessings?

And then Jesus delivers the fact of the parable.

Jesus goes ahead and tells us what that fact is there in verse 21.

The fact of the parable is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God is acting like a fool.

Now let's go to that next slide.

So, what was the rich fool's reaction to a blessing of abundance?

He focused on himself alone.

What shall I do since I have no Room to store my crops.

I will do this.

I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.

Do you see the I and the my?

He's so focused on himself that he doesn't for a minute think, where did all this abundance come from?

If you remember the beginning of the parable, Jesus says the ground produced an abundance of crop.

This man was blessed because God allowed the ground and the rain and everything else that goes into the crops.

God allowed that to come to pass.

This man's reaction, all of this is mine.

It's all mine to do whatever I choose to do with.

Let's go to the next slide.

Even when this man is talking to himself, and then we see him talking to his soul and to his spirit, he's still focused only on himself.

I will say to my soul, soul you, that's another version of my, have many goods laid up for many years, take our ease, your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

So the way that this man acts is totally about himself.

I'm going to tear down my barns, build some new ones.

The way that this man thinks is totally about himself.

I will say to my soul, we've got it made.

Let's go to the next slide.

So the rich fool, in his selfishness, never acknowledges God at all.

He never says, Lord, thank you for this blessing of extra crops.

Lord, thank you that we had good soil and great rain so that these crops would grow.

Lord, thank you for my workers who picked all of these crops, and we've got such a great harvest this year.

Thank you, Lord, for what it is that you have blessed me with.

No, instead it's I, I, my, my, me, me.

He saw his abundance, he saw the blessing that God had given him only as a way to bless himself.

He had received God's favor, but he gave no thoughts of expressing thanks.

Matt, thank you earlier that when you came up, you pointed out to us that Luke Lewis is here.

I don't know where Luke is, but Luke, wherever you are, great to have you back.

There you are.

Okay.

Great to have you back.

And we had that blessing about Kaysen being home for the first time in a year.

If you had a dry eye hearing that and you've been following that, then you need something.

I don't know.

Because that's just that is some amaz that's an amazing blessing of God that Kasen is back and that Luke is with us.

And if we were to go around the room, we could probably collect hundreds of blessings about things that God has done in our lives.

When those things happen, when those things happen, when we receive an abundance, are we only thinking in terms of ourselves, or are we thinking in terms of, I need to thank God for what it is that He's done?

We thanked God for Luke, we thanked God for Caseon.

We started this service in the right direction with thanksgiving for the abundance of blessings that God provides.

The rich fool, though, even though he'd received enough to retire, even though he'd received enough that he could never have to worry about working another day in his life, never bothered to express thanks or to acknowledge Almighty God.

Let's go to the next slide.

Because I don't want to end on that bad example.

I want to show you a good example, a good example from the Old Testament.

One of my favorite historical characters from the Old Testament is King David.

Not only because I share his name, but I've done a lot of study on the man.

And he King David, he has his ups, he has his downs, he has the times where he's loyal to the Lord, he has his times where he's acting against what the Lord would have him do.

And yet, David is a man that the Bible tells us is a man after God's own heart.

And so when King David was coming near the end of his reign, near the end of his days, he had just a few more years active in public life as king.

He wanted to build a giant temple to honor God, to thank God for all that God had done in keeping him safe, for all that God had done in allowing him to become king.

He wanted to thank God, and he wanted to build a giant temple to honor the Lord.

He even started collecting different resources to get that temple project constructed.

He started making some plans and he received a word from the Lord that said, David, no.

No, you are not going to build this temple, because you are a man who has shed a lot of blood as a warrior down through the years, and I want the man who builds this temple not to be a man of violence.

So I'm going to have your son, Solomon, build the temple.

Now at that point, if we were sitting in David's shoes, we might think, well, okay, God has said, I'm not going to build the temple.

God has said my son is going to do that.

So I'll just step out of the way and I won't be involved, and I'll let that be Solomon's project, and that'll be fine.

And God probably wouldn't have been angry with David if that had been his attitude.

But David's attitude was 180 degrees opposite.

David, when he heard that his son was going to build the temple, David said, Okay, Solomon, my son, you are going to build the temple, but I want to be involved in that work.

Even though you're going to get the credit, even though God is using you to do this, I want to be involved.

And so I've collected a mountain of gold and silver to help fund that project.

If you go to 1 Chronicles chapter 22 and you look at verses 14 through 16, it talks about how much money David put into the project.

1 Chronicles 22 · chapter mention

It's the GDP of a large nation.

It's a huge fortune, a vast amount of money.

And David takes that treasure, he takes that abundance that God has put into his care, and he points it in the direction of building that temple that he knows his son is going to get credit for building, not him.

Why did David do this?

Because David had a desire to be involved in whatever it was that God was doing.

His desire was so great.

He didn't say, Solomon, here's the blueprints I worked up.

You may want to take a look at these.

He didn't say, Solomon, I know a few good architects here in Israel, Judah that you can talk to.

No, he wrote the check, if you will.

He spent a vast percentage of his personal fortune to be involved in the work of God.

Let's go to the next slide.

You see, here's the contrast between King David's heart and the heart of the man in Jesus' parable.

David's support of the temple project was a demonstration of his love for God.

David saw his abundance as just something, a tool that could be used to bring honor and glory to God.

David had experienced God's favor through the years, he'd experienced God's blessing.

And so in David's inner core, in his self, in his soul, in his spirit, he wanted to show thanksgiving for all that God had done for him.

And what a contrast we see between the heart of David and the heart of the man in Jesus' parable.

Because when we revisit that gentleman, the man who was the focus of Jesus' parable, we saw that that man was not about thanking God at all.

He was simply about using his abundance solely to make his life better.

In his heart of hearts, he couldn't wait to stop working so that he could take his ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

And so when it comes to this idea of blessing in our lives, when it comes to this idea of abundance, the question becomes: what do we do with the abundance that God has put into our lives?

Well, some of you might say, Pastor Dave, if you were to look at my checking account and savings account right now, you would know that abundance is not something that I have to worry about.

And to that I would say, you may have not have a financial abundance at this point, but you may have abundance in other areas of life.

If you'll remember, I was talking earlier about abundance of health, abundance of intellect.

Some of you just have abundance of energy.

I'm over here next to the students.

Some of you have abundance of energy.

Some of you can work harder than some of us simply because you've got more energy in you.

For some people, it's a case of abundance of time.

How many of you are familiar with the phrase spare time?

Okay.

I used to know what spare time was.

I don't have that much of it anymore.

Not complaining.

Not complaining.

I've had my times where I've had plenty of spare time.

But we have some people in this room that have lots of spare time.

You have an abundance of time.

How can you use your time to better bless and show thanksgiving to Almighty God for the things that He's done in your life?

Some of you have an abundance of skills.

Some of you are very, very skilled at working on things with your hands and creating things, and God has blessed you with an abundance of skill.

How are you using your abundance to bless God and to thank God?

How do we use our abundance?

David not only used his abundance, but he used such a great abundance that it goes down in history as one of the largest collections of resources simply to give thanks and honor and glory to God.

Let's go to the next slide.

Because where is your mind?

Where is your heart?

Where is your self, your spirit?

When you're having conversations with yourself about your resources, are you like the rich fool and you see your abundance as something that simply belongs to you and therefore is completely under your control, what you will do with it, how you will use it?

Or do you recognize that it is given to you by God?

The same God who one day will call your soul into account and ask you how you use this life that isn't even yours, it's been given to you by God.

How have you used that life that God has given you?

Do you see resources like the rich fool, or do you see him more like King David, an opportunity to be thankful?

And going back to the point of the parable, when we recognize our abundance, are we laying up treasure for ourselves, or have we made a decision that we're going to be rich toward God?

We have the faith forward campaign going next week.

And just as King David took a piece of land that used to be a threshing floor and made a plan that his son Solomon fulfilled in building a giant temple there, we've got a patch of land out there at the Chaffee area.

I haven't done a lot of walking through there, mainly because I don't like snakes.

But I have seen pictures, I've seen maps and the like.

I've driven past it.

The land needs a lot of work, and the land's work requires money.

And it would be real easy to say, well, you know, that that plot of land is there and God will do with it what he wishes to do with it.

God used King David to finance a massive percentage of the greatest temple that has ever been built in human history.

David used his abundance to glorify God.

If God is putting on your heart that you need to be involved in this project out at Chaffee with this piece of land, come and talk to one of the team about that.

We would love to talk to you about that further.

David, Pastor David, has this whole sermon been nothing but a commercial for faith forward?

No, no, no, no.

Because here's where the here's where the real center of what it is that I'm talking about comes into play.

So eyes here, look in.

If you have been saved by the power of Jesus Christ, you have been given the most important abundance of blessing that is available to all mankind.

You have had your sins, your sins, personally addressed and forgiven by the power of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice.

You did not deserve that.

What we received was a blessing.

And it is a blessing that doesn't just last for a little while.

It's not a blessing that lasts for just a few years, it's a blessing that lasts for all eternity.

It is the most abundant blessing that a person can be given in this life.

How are we going to use the abundance of blessing that we have received to honor and glorify God?

Are we going to live lives like that of the rich fool that make it seem to people that we don't even believe that there is a God?

Or are we going to be like King David, the man after God's own heart, who gave so abundantly of what he had that it's been recorded and saved, and we're even talking about it now thousands of years later.

Jesus and Abundance is the title of today's message.

I could have just as easily named it Jesus is Abundance.

Because when we have Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, when the Holy Spirit has come in and dwelt within us, our lives begin to change drastically.

And just as King David transformed that farm threshing floor into the magnificent temple with his plans, Jesus Christ, by coming and dwelling within you, has taken humble you and is transforming you to be more like him minute by minute, day by day, year by year.

Is that something that we should not acknowledge like the rich fool?

Or is that something that we should get excited about, that we should be joyful about, that we should want to respond to the abundance that we've been given in a way that blesses and thanks God?

The answer is in each of your minds, each of your hearts, and each of your spirits.

I'm gonna ask our singers and our pastors to come forward because we're gonna gather time of invitation now.

Because there's probably someone in this room that I lost over the last few minutes.

They didn't understand when I started talking about Jesus coming and saving them.

They may have understood the words that were coming out of my mouth.

They didn't understand the intent of what it was that I was saying.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have no abundance in your life at all, then I have to ask, have you been saved by the power of Jesus Christ?

Because for every man, woman, and child in this room who's been saved, we recognize, yes, I've been blessed.

Yes, I have an abundance of blessings in my life.

But if you could not say that, we would like you to come forward so that we can talk to you one-on-one and explain that to you in great detail, because we want you to be blessed.

We want you to have that abundance of life that only comes by being a part of the family of God, by being part of the kingdom of God, led by King Jesus Christ.

So I'm gonna ask Brother Jacob to lead us in song.

If God is working on you, if the Holy Spirit is working on you, you come and talk to one of these gentlemen right here.

They will be more than happy to share with you the good news of Jesus Christ.

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.