Discover Jesus Series Pt. 13 - Pastor Greg Addison - March 9, 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.

Thanks, Matt.

Thank you, choir.

Thank you, Congregation.

Beautiful morning of worship.

Each spring, uh, we have begun a journey that we now call Faith Forward.

And so it is time for Faith Forward 2025.

So let me give you just a little bit of details as we move through this time.

We're going to continue preaching through our Discover Jesus series, but it fits in very well over the next few weeks as we talk about the things that we talk about as a church in moving forward.

If you are visiting with us and you're kind of learning how we do church here, this is a great opportunity for you to see kind of what it looks like.

We operate the church on our weekly tithes and offerings, the things that come in every week.

And then we have uh two other ways that we do special offerings to invest in the vision, evangelism, and ministry of the church.

Uh the first one we talk about often is our missions offerings.

So we just did Lotti Moon and added sort of the Bible component uh onto the Lottie Moon offering in December.

And of course, God was great and you guys were incredible.

We gave 110,000-ish, best I remember approximately, to Lotie Moon, which all goes through the International Mission Board to put missionaries around the world.

And then we gave approximately$20,000 to buy Bibles for Pastor Fred and his evangelism ministry in Africa, a partnership that our church has had off and on through the years.

Easter time is the Annie Armstrong offering, which goes through our North American Mission Board to plant churches around the world.

And in the fall is our Dixie Jackson offering, which is our state missions offering that does things like disaster relief and BCMs and all the plant churches here in Arkansas, those things.

So that's how we give an extra amount to missions.

Then each spring we have now what we call Faith Forward, and this is a capital vision offering that we do each year.

And so this year it will happen in March.

Let me give you sort of the high points of those dates.

Last year's emphasis on our Faith Forward, God was wonderful, and you guys were incredible, and we gave to create a uh war chest, if you will, to plant a campus in the Chaffee area as a precursor to building on our property in the Chaffee area.

And you guys were incredible.

You gave well over$350,000 to our Faith Forward offering last year.

And when you put the house money in place, we have over$550,000 set aside now to begin that campus in the Chaffee area.

And so God has been good and we're so excited about that.

That uh Faith Forward 2024 ends this Sunday.

So all the things, all the things that you've been giving, the ones you've been giving through Faith Forward, has gone into that process of helping us plant that church in Chaffee.

Starting tomorrow, our Faith Forward offering moving forward will be to the 2025 Faith Forward offering.

And so that emphasis begins today.

Next week in the morning service, I'll give you a before the sermon, I will give you a brief overview of what the focus will be.

As you know, uh summer is coming and we need to deal with the chiller issue that died last year.

So we'll be talking next week about the chiller and about that information and what you need to know.

We also have a lot of information about the property in Chaffee and how we need to begin to proceed to that next phase.

We've given you some information as we've worked an arrangement with uh FCRA about the property and all of that.

So we're ready.

We have estimates and all of those things.

We're ready to begin presenting that.

So I'll give you an overview of that next week.

And then next Sunday evening, we'll have a family meeting, a QA time.

No vote yet, just a chance after that morning to get some information there on the table in front of you.

That evening we'll have a chance to work through that and unpack that in more detail, give you a sense of what's happening out and all of that.

Then our proposal will be that this year's offering go towards those projects.

Then we will have spring break intervening there, which gives us a couple of weeks for that information to float out there with you as a church, ask questions, pray through it, all that kind of stuff.

Then on the morning of March the 30th, we'll vote on the chiller, but we'll also vote on the Faith Forward project itself.

So, kind of want to give you that, uh give you that overview.

Next Sunday, be a big Sunday.

Make sure you're here, make sure you bring folks.

Uh, we want everybody to know what's happening and be a part of that so they can pray through how to participate in our Faith Forward offering.

And so we are working towards that vote on March 30th on how we will utilize that money.

We will also uh vote on uh purchasing the chiller that day as well.

Those are two different things, but we will and we'll separate those and we'll vote on that as well because the summer is coming and we love air conditioning.

Amen.

It's a fact that we love air conditioning, right?

Now, here's uh I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to uh Matthew chapter 25 as we move forward in our Discover Jesus series.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

And today we're going to talk about a parable.

Understanding the parable of expectations.

The parable of expectations.

Now, you may have heard this parable when we get into it in a moment under some different names, but that's the name that we're going to work with.

Now, let me just kind of talk to you a little bit about parables.

Remember, last week we unpacked for you some helps in understanding parables.

Now, here's what's important it is a simple story that communicates a single specific truth using an earthly picture.

Now, Jesus, as we looked at last week, takes a story that we can relate to, and then he is on a mission to tell one specific truth in that parable.

Now, sometimes in our English language, we sort of take things and we'll get one word and we'll use it for lots of different things we're explaining.

Right?

And so, parable, sometimes we get that word and we think parable, and we think it's a little story.

We almost treat it like a fable or or an allegorical type of story.

What's a fable?

Well, you remember the uh there are a lot of those that we've all dealt with as we grow up in life.

One of those, if you think about the boy uh who uh would say the sky's falling in, or if you may have heard it as the chicken little story, the sky's gonna fall, the sky's gonna fall.

And everybody hears the sky's gonna fall, the sky's gonna fall, and it never falls, and it never falls, and it never falls, and so they end up not believing in it anymore because he keeps crying, the sky's gonna fall.

And so we tell that as a fable, and that's like a general sort of proposition, it's a general principle of life that we tell.

That is not a parable.

As Jesus was told a parable.

A parable is much more grounded in a fact.

Jesus is not trying to make the point of a principle, he is trying to illustrate a very specific spiritual fact.

Now let's talk about facts for a minute.

Because we live in a world today where people say things like, Well, you've got to live your own truth.

So we've taken this word truth and we've sort of turned it into all these other things.

Uh, it's kind of turned into a generic word, and sometimes it doesn't even mean what it originally was designed to mean.

So let's talk about truth for a minute, right?

So we'll say this is true, or here's a truth, all right?

So let me give you a truth that I believe is absolutely a rock solid truth.

Okay?

The number one best chocolate milkshake in all of Arkansas is served at Bulldogs Restaurant in Bald Nall.

Now, I should have gotten an amen right there.

Because that is an incredible fact.

It is truth.

It is absolute truth.

Who's been to Bulldogs?

Who's with me, right?

See, some of y'all, this is important that I teach you these things because there are many of you that didn't raise your hands.

Now, I know a lot of you think you have your sort of idea, and Chick-fil-A is really good, okay?

I'm all in with the Chick-fil-A milsay, right?

But I'm telling you, bald knobs is the best.

It's the best.

It's the truth.

Now you think about what that truth is for a minute.

For me, that is true.

That is my truth.

It is something that can, to some degree, can sort of be proven if we loaded up the church buses and we went on a pilgrimage and I bought you one, you would agree with me, most of you.

But that is really a subjective opinion.

That is using the word truth to state something that I believe to be true.

It is something that possibly can be proven to some degree.

It's important to me to say it that way.

It's a truth, but that is really a subjective thing.

That's not the definition of truth.

All right, let me try again.

This one I know is provable.

I know this is provable.

My parents really taught us life well.

My dad did a great job teaching us all kinds of things.

He taught us that the Bible is true.

He taught us we need to be in church.

He taught us that Jesus is our Savior, and he taught us that Ford makes the best automobiles.

Now I'm getting a lot of amus.

I got more traction with that right there.

There's some empirical facts to this.

As you all know, in just the time I've been here, I've driven a Ford Mustang and now I drive a Ford F-150.

F-150 is the number one selling truck and has been for decades.

The Ford Mustang is the number one best-selling American sports car in the world and has been for decades.

It's the best car.

Those are the best, right?

Now, Janet was raised in a home that had a lot of struggles.

For example, her father was a GM man.

And I married her anyway.

Sometimes in church life we call that missionary dating, right?

You go and you try to win somebody over.

I would show up at their house, and my father-in-law, sort of a twinkle in his eye, would look at me and say, Did that Ford get you here?

Because he was a GM man.

Now I've owned three GMs in my lifetime.

And that's why I have gray hair.

And I haven't owned one in decades because they were awful.

My experience with them were terrible.

When we had our babies, my wife had to have a minivan.

And she just had, and this these were in the days when minivans were like exploding and they were new.

And she had to have a minivan.

And she had to have a GM Astro minivan.

At 32,000 miles, when I put the third set of tires on it, because they couldn't align the front end and make it work.

And the second internal part of that engine went out at 32,000 miles.

Did I mention that?

I went home, I said, give me your keys.

I'm going to the Ford dealership.

You're going to be quiet and drive what I bring home.

And I brought home our first Ford expedition.

I mean, and life's been good ever since.

Right?

So there's a truth.

That is truth as Greg believes it.

There are some empirical facts that apply to that.

It's a little better than the milkshake version, but it still is something that you can argue about or not and try to figure out and whatever.

That's not really what a biblical truth is.

A biblical truth is a fact.

Let me give you a fact.

Jesus was born from a young woman who was a virgin by a miracle of God.

Jesus lived a sinless life, and because he loves you and because of his grace, the historical, actual person of Jesus who really lived, who really walked the earth, who really did the miracles we talked about a couple of weeks ago, who is factually, empirically proven to have been here and done the things that the eyewitnesses who wrote Scripture said he did.

He went to a cross and there he died, and three days later, he literally bodily, factually rose from the dead and conquered death and sin.

There's nothing subjective in that truth.

That is a flat-out 100% uncontrovertible fact of life.

It is a truth.

That's what the word truth should mean.

It is absolutely true and it has no subjective anything involved in it whatsoever.

It is 100% bedrock dependable fact.

Now, let's go to our parables.

A parable is a simple story that communicates a single specific truth.

It is a truth that Jesus is trying to drive home.

It is not a biblical principle, it is not a proverb like we read in the book of Proverbs.

It is not some idea of some sort of promise.

When Jesus is telling a parable, he is trying to drive home for us.

This is a rock, solid, bedrock, absolute, factual, spiritual truth.

When Jesus tells a parable, it is understood within the context of its telling.

Often Jesus told a parable in response to a question.

And he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.

It's in its context that we understand the one truth that Jesus is driving home.

A parable is a straightforward lesson.

He is trying to help us understand it.

And it is not an allegory.

It's not something that you twist and add all these layers to and all of that.

It is not a large, convoluted, complicated thing.

Jesus is trying to drive home a single spiritual fact.

And he tells a parable in a way that helps us relate so we can understand this is that fact.

As we talked about last week, Jesus pointed out here in the book of Matthew a little earlier when he started using parables extensively, that because it is a fact, facts often divide.

It is uncontrovertible that Jesus lived as a human man, was a historical figure who was actually here.

It is not a parable, it is not a fable, it is not a story.

Jesus was actually here and then lived and died and rose again.

Secular historians, eyewitnesses who died for the testimony, who there saw him, all of them testify that Jesus is real.

But there are people that reject Jesus.

There are people that try to convolute that and they claim there's this or that or about scripture or whatever kind of a deal.

And they can choose to reject that, and that fact tends to divide.

And Jesus said when he told those parables, he who has an ear, let him hear, as we talked about last week.

Are we listening?

If you're not listening and you don't want to hear, that parable may be rejected for you, or it may divide you out.

But if you're listening and you want to hear, then Jesus teaches that fact and he drives home that spiritual truth that then should shape our lives.

Now, here in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus begins to tell a series of parables.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

And these parables, Jesus is telling about the end times.

He is trying to explain this is how life works, and this is how it is going to unfold and how eternity will begin.

And then we tell this story here in Matthew 25, verse 14.

Matthew 25:14

And if your Bible is similar to mine in any way, you may have a little heading there that an editor put in that it says the parable of the talents.

Now, it involves talents, which in this story, as you see, was a biblical word that we use for money.

But it's really not about the talents.

That's not the truth that Jesus is trying to drive home.

So keep in mind here, Jesus is driving home a fact.

This is actually how life is going to be and how it is going to unfold.

If you look, Matthew chapter 25, verse 1, he begins a parable and he says, The kingdom of heaven will be like.

Matthew 25:1

And that lets you know as he unfolds that parable, he is trying to say, This is the fact of what the kingdom of heaven will be.

And then in verse 14, he comes back and he builds off that same introduction and he says, For it is just like.

What is it?

It is the kingdom of heaven.

It is just like, and he tells a story to drive home a spiritual fact.

Kingdom of heaven is just like a man going on a journey.

He called his own slaves and turned over his possessions to them.

To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one talent, to each according to his own ability.

Then he went on a journey.

Immediately the servant who had received five talents went and put those to work and earned five more talents.

In the same way, the man with two earned two more talents by putting it to work.

But the man who had received one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master of those slaves came home.

And when he came, he settled accounts with them.

The man who received five talents approached and presented five more talents and said, Master, you gave me five talents.

Look, I've earned five more talents.

And his master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave.

You were faithful over a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

And if you underline your Bible, underline this next phrase, enter into the joy of your master.

Then the man with two talents also approached.

Same story.

Master, you gave me two talents.

Look, I've earned two more talents.

His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave.

You were faithful over a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Share your master's joy.

Then the man who had received one talent also approached and said, Master, I know you.

You are a difficult man, reaping where you haven't sown, and gathering where you haven't scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, you have what is yours.

Now let me just stop right here and ask you a question.

When you watch the master interact with the first two slaves, and then this guy comes and says, I know you, is his description anything remotely like the experience these other two men had with the master?

It looks like two different masters, doesn't it?

Here, man, blessings enter into my joy.

I'm gonna double what you made, and I'm gonna reward you and all of that.

And then this guy says, I know you, and then he describes him as some harsh, evil guy that he's waiting to discipline him or whatever.

I mean, it's an incredible sort of juxtaposition there.

He says, I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground.

Look what you have is yours.

But the master replied to him, You evil, lazy slave, if you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I haven't scattered, then you should have at least deposited my money with the bankers, and when I returned, I would have received my money back with interest.

So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents.

For to every one who has, more will be given, and he will have more than enough.

But from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

And throw this good for nothing slave into the outer darkness, and that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And so Jesus finishes this parable, and often we've heard this, and we think about the slaves when we tell the story.

We think about five talents and faithful and the ten and all that, and that's in there.

But here's what I want you to think about.

Jesus is explaining what life will be like, and he's explaining in the context of this there are multiples of these parables right next to each other, and he is saying the kingdom of heaven will be like this.

There was a man going on a journey.

The main character in this story is the owner, not the slaves.

And the key truth in this story is Jesus trying to explain this is what heaven's going to be like.

This is how this is going to unfold.

And we know that as Jesus went to the cross, he began to teach his followers the same thing.

He began to teach his disciples the same thing.

The famous passage that we also often use in funeral services or encouraging people or whatever, John 14, he says, listen, in my father's house are many mansions, I'm going to there and prepare a place for you.

He's told him, I do not want you to be troubled.

I do not want your heart to struggle.

I want you to be comforted because I'm going to that place and I'm going to prepare it for you.

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to receive you to myself.

The whole point of Jesus going to heaven is to prepare a place for us.

And the Bible makes it clear he is coming back.

You have a whole book in the back of the Bible called The Revelation that tells us about Jesus returning, about the judgment that happens.

Christians who are followers of Christ will be judged for what they've done, and they will be rewarded for the good things, and they will have judgment for the things that we didn't do well, and then we will go to be in heaven.

And those who are not followers of Christ, when Jesus returns, they will be judged for their sin and they will be thrown into eternity in hell.

All throughout Scripture, Paul writes to people and he says, Listen, I want you to understand, I want you to be encouraged, encouraged one another with the truth that one day Jesus is coming.

He'll come like a thief in the night, and there'll be a shout and a trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then those who are bad will be caught up with him in the air.

When we take the Lord's Supper, this is my body which is broken for you.

And we eat that bread that tastes like styrofoam.

And then we take the cup, and he says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

And he reminds us that every promise ever written in Scripture was sealed with the blood of Jesus.

And then he says, This as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until what?

Until he comes.

All throughout our understanding of Scripture, Jesus came, he died on the cross, he accomplished salvation for us, he rose again, conquering death and sin.

And then he said, I am going to go to heaven, and the Holy Spirit is going to come, and you're going to do all these things, and the Holy Spirit is going to, through you, He's going to do greater works than I've ever done, and then I will return again to take you home to heaven.

This is a parable of expectations.

This is a parable about the owner who says, I am going, and I'm going to make you a steward of what I give you and the purpose that I give you, and I'm going to return again.

And so this really should be called, in my humble estimation, the parable of the expectations.

Because this is the expectations of the owner and of the slaves.

It is the expectation of how all of this unfolds and what God is doing, and Jesus is trying to explain to him here's what's going to happen.

Are you listening?

Are you a follower?

This is the factual reality of what this is going to look like.

And so you have two servants who are faithful and one who is not.

What does that tell us?

That tells us that the owner had expectations of his servants while he was gone.

The owner has expectations for us to understand what is happening.

I am going away.

I am going to make you a steward of my possessions.

I am entrusting them to you.

And he has expectations of his servants.

He has expectations of what they are going to do in managing the property that he has entrusted them to.

And so for us, if you know Christ as your Savior, if you've surrendered your life to Him, you know, as we say here often, it's not your life anymore, it's His.

He bought it, He paid for it, you're His.

It is His life, not yours anymore.

I gave my life to Jesus when I was a nine and a half-year-old boy.

It's not my life anymore.

Most of the time, I'm trying to do my best to live it the way he wants me to live it.

Sometimes I get all sort of Greg-like, and I try to take control of some area of my life back from him.

And that doesn't work very well.

Some of you have tried the same thing at times, and you know it does not work very well.

Why?

Because he expresses ownership over our lives when we have surrendered our lives to him.

In a moment, I'll give the invitation, and when we tell folks how to be saved and we give them the opportunity to trust Jesus, sometimes I say it this way: How do you give your life to Christ?

You take everything you've been, everything you are, and everything you ever will be, and you give it all to Jesus.

But he'll do more with our lives than we could ever do ourselves.

And the kingdom of heaven is like that.

When you've given your life to Jesus, it is not your life anymore.

And Jesus said very clearly, I'm going to my Father's house to prepare a place, and the Holy Spirit will come, and He'll live inside you, and you'll do all these things, and you'll follow Him, and He'll show you truth, and He'll convict you of sin, and He'll build your life this way, and He'll transform you, and He'll do all these things, and I will return again.

And that's exactly this story, is it not?

That's the truth that Jesus is telling.

The owner has gone.

He has entrusted us with life, with skills, with talent, with possessions, and all of that.

But they are not ours.

They belong to Him and they came from Him.

And He has an expectation what we do with our watch, our time with our work and with our wealth.

He has very clear expectations for our watch, our work, and our wealth.

And he expects faithfulness until he returns.

There are also expectations of the slaves.

As you see this story, you begin that Jesus is helping us understand.

Listen, if you are a follower, I have entrusted you with this message, with this mission, with this purpose, and I'm going to come back, and you should expect that I'm going to come back.

And you should expect that when I come back, I have the same expectations I had when I left.

So here's the expectation of the steward.

He went away, he left them in charge of that.

He did not give them ownership.

He just put the possession in their hands and expected them to do with it what he would do with it.

And so here's what you get from the stewards.

They should expect the owner to return and inspect our stewardship.

Even the servant who was not faithful expected the owner to return.

Look at what he said in verse 24.

Master, I know you.

You're a difficult man, reaping where you haven't sown, and gathering where you haven't scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, you have what is yours.

He expected him to come back.

He did not want the owner to find that he had lost that money.

He was expecting the owner to return and to inspect his stewardship.

And we should expect that Jesus will return and Jesus will inspect our stewardship.

Now, stewardship is a biblical word.

It means his possession and his purposes.

And so you see, all three of these men had an expectation of this is not my material, this is not my possession.

The owner has placed this in my care, and he is going to return and inspect it.

And so that's why these guys show up and they say, Listen, you gave me five talents, and I put them to work the way you would, and here's five more talents.

You gave me two talents, you had an expectation about these talents, and so I tried to do what your purpose would be, and I put them to work in the way that you would put them to work, and they grew to be two more talents.

Even with an expectation that the third servant has, he does not understand the master.

And he does not understand what's happening.

He does not understand.

He is more worried about himself than he is about the master's goals.

He is afraid for himself, he doesn't want to work, or he doesn't want to lose it, or he doesn't want risk or whatever, and he is thinking about himself.

And because he's thinking about himself, he does not understand the master and he does not understand the master's purpose.

These other two guys, they invest and they show and they are following stewardship, and they expect the owner to be pleased when they come back and they're excited to show him what they've done.

And the master says, Sharing my joy and blessings for you, and it's this incredibly wonderful return.

But this third man who does not understand the owner, does not understand these are not his positions, does not understand his responsibility to do what the master expects him to do.

That man doesn't know the master, he's afraid of the master, he doesn't follow the master, and even though he expects him to come back, he does not expect to be valued, to be judged on his faithfulness.

He does not understand what that means.

And so Jesus tells us a very clear fact for all of us.

God has taken home Jesus for a period of time to prepare a place for us, and he has given us a watch, he has given us the ability to do work, and he has given us wealth.

And Jesus says there is a very clear spiritual fact that when I return, the owner has an expectation of stewardship.

Of stewardship.

Now it's interesting, he doesn't place on them, you gotta pay these dues, or you got to do this, or you've got to reach this level, or you gotta do whatever.

Instead, what he says is, Jesus gives us the moral, for everyone who has, more will be given.

And he will have more than enough.

In other words, whatever God has given you to work with in your life, whatever time, whatever abilities, whatever amount of wealth he's entrusted with you, whatever it is he's put in your life, the passions, the skill sets, whatever it is those things are, they're in your life.

Those are given to you by the Lord.

And when you give your life to Jesus, they're not yours anymore.

They belong to him.

And they are to be invested in the pursuit of his purpose.

And so it's not about I have this or I have that or whatever.

It's about all that I have came from God and I return it to him.

It's all his purpose.

And he's going to evaluate our stewardship, our faithfulness.

He is a God who rewards.

Everyone who has more will be given, and he will more than enough.

He is a God who rewards our faithfulness.

He loves us.

In fact, in this parable, when Jesus is communicating the spiritual fact of the expectation of the owners and what we can expect as the slaves, he makes it very clear there are two who are rewarded and only one who fails.

He is trying to drive home the point of God's love for us and God's reward for our faithfulness.

He is trying to transform us to be in his image, and he gives us this time and these opportunities and these possessions and these skill sets and all of that, and he gives that to you, and he says, when you surrender that to the Holy Spirit, when you become realizing that my life, I am a steward of everything.

I do not own this.

This is not mine.

It all came from God and it is used in his pursuit.

He is a God who blesses, who provides, who protects, and who rewards.

He is a good God.

That's why I think Jesus tells this story about how bad the expectation of this third servant is, because he really does not understand who God is.

But Jesus is very clear about this fact.

The one who does not have, even what he has, will be taken away from him, and throw this good-for-nothing slave into the outer darkness.

There is judgment for failing to be a steward of what God has given you.

It's a very simple spiritual fact that we miss so often in life.

Even as pastors, sometimes when we're teaching Scripture, we tend to teach this way Biblical principles of stewardship.

Now that's a good phrase, and that's important, and there's lots of them in here.

There's all kinds of stuff about budgeting and giving and tithing and being generous and helping others and warning us about debt and all that kind of stuff.

There's all kinds of biblical principles in there.

But Jesus is like, listen, here is a fact that I need you to understand.

What you have has been provided to you by the owner for a time, and it must be used faithfully to his purpose and expectations because you can expect him to return.

Jesus was coming back, and Jesus is coming back.

And how will we be found?

And then I just want you to get this point.

Share in your master's joy.

We don't, as we go through this journey, listen, we're not fundraising.

I'm not a fundraiser.

That's not what we do.

We are unashamed in talking about tithing and offerings and investing in the future, and our church has an incredible heritage of stewardship, and we have incredible people in our church.

Just look at what God did last year in our budget and our missions giving in our Faith Forward offering last year.

Look at how He's prepared all of that.

Look at how He's taken what we've given, and He has multiplied it just like Jesus said He would.

The one who made five, give him five more.

The one who made two, give him two more.

For everyone who has more will be given and more, and he will have more than enough.

God blesses, he provides.

Listen, we're not trusting in our giving to help us do ministry, we're trusting in God's provision.

Amen?

That's what we're trusting in.

That's what we do.

We are teaching these spiritual truths.

But just as Jesus often used this thermometer of spiritual faithfulness called giving, he uses it again in this parable.

It's one of the fastest and easiest ways to say, Am I on mission?

Am I surrendered to the purpose?

Do I view my life as none of this is mine?

Jesus paid it all, and all to him I owe.

It's easy to tell.

It's a quick thermometer.

What are my expectations?

Do I expect I have more time?

Do I expect I need more things?

Do I expect I need to protect my time instead of teaching Sunday school or doing whatever?

Do I expect I need to do this or do I expect everything I have comes from the owner?

And the owner has a purpose, and the owner's going to return.

Here's what you know if you know Jesus as your Savior.

If you're pursuing that, growing in that truth, then you can expect that the owner blesses obedience.

Share in your master's joy.

It is a joy to hear God say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

It is a joy for God to use you.

It is a joy when Jesus comes back and he finds us a part of sharing the gospel and on his mission.

It is a joy when you come to church and you're invested in church, and the church is your church because you helped build it.

You prayed over it.

You teach Sunday school in it.

You invite people to it.

You either go to the Chaffee campus or you pray over the people that go to that.

And you're all a part of that mission, and you're experiencing that mission, and you're experiencing the five talents turning to five talents and the two turn talents turning into two talents.

And you're hearing the Lord say that, and he says, Share in my joy.

It is a joy to be a faithful steward in every aspect of our lives.

And it is a joy because we get excited about the sure return of Jesus.

A parable is a spiritual fact.

And the owner's coming back again.

He is coming to do what he promised.

Are we ready?

Listen, I want to encourage you.

Don't just sort of blow your way through this emphasis.

Pray and ask what God would have you to do.

Spend some time with your family and pray through this.

Spend some time thinking, Lord, this is a great time for me to determine am I being a faithful servant?

This is a great time of worship.

This is a great time for us to look at the master.

I think I know the master, but am I afraid of the master?

Do I not trust the master?

Or am I excited when the master says, share in your joy?

I want to encourage you to go through this journey spiritually and thoughtfully because Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like this.

All this journey begins with trusting Christ as your Savior.

It all begins with that understanding that He is the owner.

But He is a God who loves us, and Jesus, as a fact of history, stepped out of heaven and died for you, paid the price for your sins.

He rose again conquering death and sin and he offers you the opportunity of salvation.

If you give your life to Christ, if you take, as I said before, everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and if you give that to Jesus and you surrender your life, your possessions, as I said a moment in that way, your watch, your work, and your wealth, if you give that to Jesus, listen, he will save you.

Why?

Because Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like this.

You're not trusting in anything I say, you're trusting in the infallible, inerrant word of God, the truth that Jesus saves.

If you've never given your life to Christ in a moment, I'm gonna close us in prayer.

I'm gonna pray over this time.

Our people are gonna stand and sing.

It is a testimony that they are looking forward to the return of Jesus.

It is their testimony when they sing that they believe the truth of what Jesus said.

And they're trying to be an encouragement to you for you to give your life to Christ.

So you come.

We'll have pastors ahead of our aisles.

You just come.

If you have questions, there's no rush, there's no pressure.

If you have questions, we'll take all the time you need to answer them.

We'll answer them now, we'll set up meetings, whatever you need to do.

We are here to simply serve you in your journey.

Let us help you point you to Jesus.

Church family, as we head into this faithful time, I want to ask you to just let the Lord speak to you today and say, Lord, make me a faithful servant.

He'll take care of the rest.

How much?

What do I do?

He's got a plan for that.

Trust him and listen to him.

Make a commitment to follow him in this journey.

Lord, we love you and we thank you for Jesus who taught us so clearly, who factually came and died for us, who rose again, who created salvation for us, and I pray this morning you'll give us the freedom to respond.

It is in Jesus' name that we pray in all God's people sin.

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.