"The Promise and Power of a Thankful Heart” Part 1 - Pastor Greg Addison - Nov. 5, 2023

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, choir and praise team and everyone for uh worship this morning.

It's great to praise the Lord.

We are so grateful for so many things that he does and who he is and how he loves us.

And that's what we're going to do this month.

We're going to study the power and the promise of having a thankful heart.

We're heading into Thanksgiving season, and Thanksgiving is so much more than just a holiday, it is the posture that our heart should have towards the Lord.

We've been singing about that in the hymns that we've been singing today.

And so each Sunday this month, I'm going to be talking about how to be thankful and how that thankfulness draws us closer to the Lord.

Now I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 16, and we're going to look at an illustration today of how thanksgiving brings us into God's presence.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Giving thanks brings us into God's presence.

Now, while you're sitting there, I want to read to you very quickly Psalm 100.

Now just stay where you are in Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

If you've been in church any amount of time, you're familiar with this.

If you've not, this is a new psalm to you.

Then you're going to, it's very simple and you're going to love it.

This has really become my textbook for the lessons and for the messages this month.

And in this incredible psalm are so many truths about what it means to be thankful, about how to be thankful, about why we should be thankful.

Listen to what the Bible says.

Shout triumphantly to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come before him with joyful songs.

Acknowledge that Yahweh is God.

He made us and we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Now listen to this verse, verse 4 today.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name.

In other words, we enter into the presence of God through thanksgiving.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name, for Yahweh is good and his love is eternal, his faithfulness endures through all generations.

You'll recognize some lines from some of those songs we sang this morning from this hymn, this psalm in Scripture right here.

Now, as you'll know, the word psalm is the word song, and this is actually a song book written here in the middle of the Bible that teaches us to praise and to worship Him.

And so this is a song or psalm of thanksgiving.

A psalm that teaches us how we are to be thankful and why are we to be thankful.

One of those things, as I pointed out, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

We enter into God's presence through a thankful heart.

Now that's awesome because to be in God's presence means you don't have to be special.

You don't have to know the secret handshake.

You don't have to have a lot of money or a lot of accolades or anything else.

When you enter into God's presence, you don't have to be in a time in your life where you have it all together and things are humming and doing well.

Pastor where I grew up used to say, you don't clean yourself up to come to the Lord.

You come to the Lord and He does that for you, right?

So whatever condition that we are in, we can come into the presence of the Lord.

Now this story illustrates that in as great a way as you can imagine.

Here in Acts chapter 16, we find Paul and his team in the middle of a missionary journey.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

If we had time to read the entire chapter of Acts 16, you'd see certain events that happen.

First thing that happens is he picks up a young man named Timothy.

And that's important just because Timothy is famous.

There are two books of the Bible that Paul wrote as letters to Timothy, and we know who he is.

So he picks up Timothy.

Timothy is on his mission team, and they are going forward and they are praying for God's direction.

And what happens is they come to one area and they're about to go in, and the Holy Spirit says, No, don't go there.

And they come to another area, and then the Holy Spirit says, No, don't go there.

And then in the night, Paul has a vision that he accounts as coming from the Lord, where he hears a man who is from the area, the geographic area known as Macedonia.

And the man in Macedonia calls for his help.

Please come and help us.

Bring Jesus to us.

And then Paul credits that as the direction of the Lord.

He's told him no here, he's told him no there.

And so he says, Come here.

And so they go to Macedonia.

And they move there and they begin to preach.

And the first thing the Bible tells us they find is a famous story where there's a woman named Lydia who has a group of people who have been searching for the Lord, and they find them, and they're able to encourage them and show them that Jesus is the Messiah that they've been looking for.

And a church is planted through that group, and God is beginning to move, so they find this open door, and then they're going out preaching, and then this event happens.

There's some young lady who is possessed of a demon, and these men are controlling her, and they are using her to like tell fortunes and divine futures, and people are paying them for all of that.

She begins to follow Paul around everywhere he goes to preach, and she's hollering out behind him.

Hey, he's the man of God.

Listen to what he says and all this.

And it's not an affirmation, it's a distraction.

It is Satan using his influence in that circumstance to try to get Paul and try to get the people of God away, try to create a spectacle where they follow her instead of listening to the preaching of Paul.

And after point, I love it.

The Bible points out, folks, it says, Paul just got aggravated.

Now, don't you like that?

I like Paul for that.

I spend half my life aggravated.

It's my spiritual gift, my normal condition.

In fact, the Bible says he was greatly aggravated.

And then he turns around and in frustration he casts out the demon.

Leave her alone and go away.

I love it.

It's awesome.

Even in his personality, God is using him and working through it.

He casts out the demon.

And of course, now she can't tell futures and fortunes and all that.

And these guys have lost money and that, and they're all frustrated, and they miss this opportunity.

So they bring all these people to bring these charges against Paul.

They pull him up in front and his team up in front of the magistrates.

And that's where we pick up the story here in verse 20.

Bringing them before the chief magistrate, they said, These men are seriously disturbing our city.

They are Jews and are promoting customs that are not legal for us as Romans to adopt or practice.

Then the mob joined in the attack against them, and the magistrates stripped off their clothes and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

After they had inflicted many blows on them, they threw them in jail, ordering the jailer to keep them securely guarded.

Receiving such an order, he put them into the inner prison or the worst part that you could put them in.

Now keep in mind, they don't have, you know, rights and constitutions and all that.

Man, they're back here in the dark with rats and bugs and criminals, and it's awful.

I mean, it's a horrible place where he has put them in.

And they have secured their feet in stocks, so it's not enough to put them in this horrible place, but they chain them in, so now you can't get away from the rats or anything else.

I mean, this is a horrible thing.

Man, Lord, we're glad you brought us here, right?

We're glad you sent us to Macedonia.

At about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

They are praying and singing hymns in that situation.

The Bible says the prisoners were listening to them.

I'd love to know what the prisoners thought of them, wouldn't you?

Are those guys crazy?

What is wrong with those guys?

Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the jail were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains came loose.

When the jailer woke up and saw the doors of the prison open, he drew his sword and was going to kill himself, since he thought the prisoners had escaped.

But Paul called out in a loud voice, Don't harm yourself, because all of us are still here.

Then the jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

Then he escorted them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

So they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

Then they spoke the message of the Lord to him along with everyone in his house.

In this situation, they find themselves in, they've been beaten, they're hurting, they're struggling, they're in this dank, dark, mold, rat-infested, horrible prison.

They're chained in there, and they are praising the Lord.

And what you see here is a picture of men with a thankful spirit who are resting in this moment in God's presence.

Now, here's the first thing I want you to see this morning.

Truth number one is this obeying God's instructions are not the same thing as being in his presence.

You can be obedient to the Lord as a matter of, I'm just, I just don't want to get in trouble, or this is what I'm supposed to do, or this is how it works.

And simply being where you're supposed to be or doing what you're supposed to be doing is not the same thing as having an intimate sense of God's presence in your life.

You see, these men are where God called them to be.

They know they are in the right place because they are bearing fruit on the one hand, with these followers of Lydia and these other people getting saved and beginning to work.

They are also under attack by Satan, which also lets them know they're in the right place and what's going on, right?

And so in all of that, they know they're where they're supposed to be, and then they end up in prison, and there are a lot of responses we can have when the situations turn on us.

There are a lot of ways we could react.

We could react and be angry, we could react and be frustrated, we could react and be down and depressed and struggling.

Instead, they react in a very specific way.

They find themselves in their spot, and what they do is they turn their attention and focus on the Lord.

And the Bible says very clearly that they are singing hymns.

That is a picture of what we did this morning in the worship.

They are worshiping and praising the Lord after all this has gone on.

And what that tells us is, as believers, we've got to understand there is a difference between just walking and being obedient and living out what we know to do and treating it like it's a lifestyle and a philosophy and all that, and that's all good, and we need to be obedient.

It's better than not being obedient, right?

But there is a difference between just walking through life and being a Christian and intentionally focusing on the presence of God and the person of God.

There is a difference between being in the spot we're supposed to be in and being where we sense and understand that God is with us and strengthening us and moving and working.

The Bible teaches this often about the presence of God, and it's something that so many people don't learn in their lives.

We don't learn that there is more than just walking this out, but there is walking with Jesus.

That this is a relationship of love that we have entered into.

All throughout Scripture, one of the great things of Scripture is that God wants to be in relationship with us.

He literally wants us to be in his presence.

You think about in the uh in the book of Genesis in the very beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, he created this incredibly lush and beautiful garden and he made it beautiful and wonderful.

And the Bible says he would come down and walk with them in the cool of the day and spend time with him.

He created an environment where they could relate personally to him.

One of the great tragic impacts of sin is that it separates us from God.

One of the most horrible aspects of dying and going to hell is being forever, for all of eternity, prohibited from being in the presence of God.

Why is it so horrible?

Because the most important thing and the most beautiful thing and the most powerful thing and the most positive thing and the most loving thing is to be in the presence of God.

And you can't imagine a bleak eternity where you never again have access to the person in the presence of God.

When Adam and Eve sinned and God created the means of salvation all throughout the Old Testament, we see that picture of God desiring to be with his people, and you see him step into the lives and interact with all of these people throughout the story of redemption as it's unfolded through the Old Testament.

Now, when we talk about the presence of God, I want you to think about this for a minute.

First of all, God is present everywhere all the time.

God is omnipresent.

We talk about that.

It means he's everywhere all the time.

There is the omnipresence of God.

God is present.

But there is a difference between God's presence everywhere, and I am at his feet, and acknowledge that we are connected and he is engaged with me.

And we are communicating.

Think about the Old Testament picture of Moses.

And he is walking, keeping the sheep.

He's a shepherd, and he comes upon this spot, and here is a bush that is on fire.

And the presence of God is in that bush, and the voice of God speaks to him and calls him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Now listen, God was everywhere, right?

We also know in Romans chapter 1, the Bible says that the fullness of God is illustrated and shown in all of creation.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

So, in one sense, theologically it's true, God was in all the bushes, and God was in all of that creation.

And as Moses looked out over the valley, God was in all of that, and you see a beautiful valley and you see the picture of that, and the leaves change and all of that, and that speaks to us about God and all that, that's true.

But Moses is not kneeling in front of every bush.

He's not taking his shoes off in every bush.

Why is he there in front of that bush saying, This is holy ground, take your shoes off here?

Because he is personally in interacting with the person of God.

The presence of God is there.

Think about in the New Testament, Paul, this guy, when did he learn about the presence of God?

Well, he's on a road to Dismascus and he's going out persecuting followers of Jesus because he believes they're heretics and all of that, and all of a sudden a light shines out of heaven, and the voice of Jesus speaks to him and says, Paul, why are you persecuting me?

And Paul understands in a way that he never has before what it means to be in the presence of Jesus.

The Bible talks to us about the intimacy of this relationship.

Jesus promised us in John 14 when the Holy Spirit would come.

He said, He will live in you and make us one.

In James chapter 4, the Bible says this draw near to the Lord and He will draw near to you.

James 4 · chapter mention

In Hebrews, the Bible calls us to, in our time of need, boldly come into the presence of God, and it pictures this picture of Jesus as the great high priest, step into the presence of God and boldly stand before the throne of grace in time of need.

Because he loves you and he's been there and he knows what you need and he wants to minister in your life.

You see, the joy of being a Christian should be being able to be in the presence of God.

And so what you see here is these guys, in this moment, they are actually in the presence of God through their choice to praise him regardless of what's going on around them.

And as Christians, we should understand when the Bible calls us, for example, in our textbook of Psalm 100, enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

We are being called into the presence of God and the person of God.

In Romans chapter 8, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit bears witness to us that we are his children.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The Bible says, if you are led by the Spirit, you are his children.

There is this sense and understanding that there is a personal interaction with the Lord.

And in our lives, we don't always sense that.

God is always there.

He never leaves you, he never forsakes you.

We sang that in some of the lyrics of the song this morning.

But sometimes we feel like God is not there, even though he is.

What's happening there?

We are in a situation where we are struggling to sense his presence.

So what you have here is a situation where you understand that there is a difference between being where you're supposed to be and being in the presence of Jesus.

Truth number two is this being in God's presence, it is not limited by situation or circumstances.

He is always with us.

But the question is, are we going to praise Him and look to Him?

Man, you can't get any worse than this.

They're in prison, they've been beaten.

You can imagine what would happen in my life, living under the half the time I'm aggravated, I'd be aggravated, the Lord.

What are you doing?

We had people getting saved, and you go stick me in this prison, get beat up.

What's that about?

I can imagine being frustrated like in myself thinking, why did I come here?

I must have misunderstood what God said.

I must have, I must have somehow missed it.

In my life, I can think back to times when I ended up in a situation where things were like radically different than we thought they were going to be.

And even to some degree, it's going off the rails, and I'm thinking, I miss God.

I failed my family by not understanding God's direction.

And I missed it, and I brought us here, and now I'm in trouble, and I'm in the woodshed because I didn't understand God and all of it.

Listen, that's not true.

My wife shook me in one of those times and she said, Greg, stop.

You prayed about this, you had direction, we prayed about, we had confirmation, we're here.

Now you need to get with the Lord in this situation.

Because he is here.

And that's the beauty of what happens in our relationship with the Lord.

Circumstances cannot prevent us from being in the presence of God.

It cannot prevent us from sensing the presence of God.

Wherever you are, you can stop and you can thank him and you can praise him and you can worship him.

And in that moment, you can sense God's presence.

He speaks to us, he calls to us, he comes and wraps us in his arms.

He is with us in that moment.

We are not captive to whatever situation we're in.

We are not captive to whatever circumstances we are in.

God desires to be with you and he wants to be in your life.

And when you can praise him as they are doing, you can be in the presence of God regardless of what's going on around you.

What is the presence of God?

What does it feel like?

Well, here, for them, I believe it's the thing that keeps them singing.

Now, as you read the story, it's kind of interesting.

What happens is they're praying and singing and all of that, and all of a sudden, God shakes that building.

There is a violent earthquake.

He shakes the thing, he knocks the doors open, and I'm thinking, woo! That song worked.

I'm out of here.

I'm gone.

God, uh, he's out there, not in here, and he opened that door so I could go out there with him, and I'm going, right?

No, no.

Here's truth number three.

Thankfulness in God's presence allows us to hear his guidance and see when he moves.

It is not the shaking of the prison that is the presence of God.

They are singing and praising, and God's presence is there, and they are sensing him with them.

They continue to sing and praise in a way that they sense the presence of God and that they know he is there with them.

And they know whatever happens, God has brought them here, and God has saved them and called them, and they are his.

And because of that, that is when they sense God's presence.

God's presence doesn't show up in the earthquake and the shaking of the doors.

They are continuing to sing and praise in a way that is so authentic, these hardened criminals are listening to them.

We spend time thinking that it's the hand of God doing dramatic things that is the presence of God.

No.

The relational experience of being in God with God, hearing his voice, talking to him, sensing his presence, feeling that strength, knowing that we're with him.

That is the presence of God.

It is when we are in the presence of God that we are able to recognize God has moved and what he's doing when he moves.

Look what happens in this story.

Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of jail were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open, and everyone's chains came loose.

And like rats leaving a sinking ship, they all ran out of the doors, down the hallway, and out the doors of the prison into the street.

No, that's not what it says, is it?

When the jailer woke up and saw the doors of the prison open, he drew his sword and was going to kill himself because he thought that's what was happening.

But Paul called out in a loud voice and said, Don't harm yourself because we're all here.

What would tell Paul and the men with him to stay there in that prison?

Even though the stocks are gone, why are you not going to get up and run out?

Because they're in the presence of God and God is speaking and they recognize God is doing something here and we're not going to leave.

And we want to be here for what's happening.

And the Holy Spirit guides them.

You stay right there, we're about to do something.

And it's because they are worshiping and because they are giving thanks and because they are in the presence of God that when a door opens, when an opportunity arises, when a direction comes, they are able to hear it, they are able to see it, and they follow what God would have them to do.

In fact, if you continue to read this story, what happens is they lead this man to Christ, he takes them to their house, that guy gives them a shower and cleans them up from that horrible prison that they were in and feeds them.

They share with his family, the entire family gets saved, and then word comes to the jailer from someone at the jail that the city forefathers, because of all this stuff that happened, man, they're panicked and they go, ooh, this is not good, and God's shaking these things, and we don't understand all this.

Let's just quietly sneak those guys out and be done with this and wash our hands of it.

And Paul understands what's happening because of God, what God tells him.

Paul and his team literally go back to the prison.

Are you kidding me?

Who would do that?

Like we're out of there.

We just had a bath.

People are getting saved.

Why are we going back to prison?

And Paul understands this is an opportunity of the gospel, and he says, uh-uh.

Those guys are not going to get away with treating the messengers of the gospel in that way.

They put us here in a public fashion, and they are going to have to come and apologize, and they're going to have to fix this publicly, and that's an opportunity for God to do something even greater in this moment for the gospel than we thought he could have done.

Is that incredible?

But if they run and they leave and they don't hear, they miss the opportunity.

What is the presence of God, Patrick?

Well, it's that moment where in your heart that is focused on the Lord Jesus, you just know he's there.

You just know he's there.

Sometimes it's a sense of peace.

Sometimes it's, you know, and joy and excitement.

Sometimes you're just struggling and you don't know how you're going to do this, and somehow there's a strength and you survive.

Sometimes it's a voice that God speaks to you.

As it says in Romans 8, he bears witness with our spirit.

It breaks my heart sometimes when I see some of these people on television and they're mocking Christians.

And you may have seen some of this on some of the different talking heads around.

And they act like somehow we're crazy because we hear voices.

Have you seen that on television?

Have you seen some of the people mock that?

And they act like these people are crazy, man.

They like hear voices and they hear things, and everybody knows there's not a God out there.

And if you're hearing something, like you need more drugs, like you're just messed up, right?

And I'm thinking you just never have understood what the presence of God is.

Who he is and how he loves us.

You miss the opportunity when you're lost, when you're struggling and you don't know which way to go, and you are in prayer, and you are worshiping him, and you have that sense of peace that Jesus gives us.

When you have that direction to trust and do this.

I can't tell you how many times.

Man, I've been studying and I'm in my quiet time and I'm trying to figure out what we're doing, and I don't understand what God's doing, and then I'll be in a meeting or somewhere, and the and the word of the Lord will come back through a scripture, and that scripture will just wash over, and I'll think that's it.

That's where we are.

I heard from the Lord.

We can sense the presence of God collectively when we're worshiping corporately together.

It's why it's so important to be in the presence of God's people.

And when we worship and we praise together, when we study God's word together, and the Holy Spirit is working in your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart, and your heart.

And he's over here and he's over there and he's over there, and he's connecting all of us.

And it encourages me, and I learn to recognize better the voice of the Lord and the presence of the Lord.

It's how I know in my quiet time.

When I'm in my quiet time chair and I'm talking to the Lord, I'm reading from Scripture, and when something is clear and He speaks to me, it's how I know because I've been here with y'all and I've been worshiping and we've been studying the word together, and we have those moments of affirmation, and we understand that, or I'm interacting with someone in our Sunday school class or whatever, and we're sharing, and somebody has a word, or they've been praying for us, and then in that God speaks, and I recognize all of that.

Listen, that's what the presence of God is.

And you should desire to be in the presence of God.

It should be a hunger in your life as a follower of Jesus.

If you don't have that hunger, if you are skeptical of what that is, that's telling you that God wants to do some work in your life.

Maybe you need to be saved.

Maybe you're on the journey and you're asking the right questions and you're pursuing him, but you haven't gotten there yet.

And maybe this is the question that grabs a hold of you.

And you know I need to be saved.

Listen, you don't have to be old.

You don't have to be a Christian who's 82 years old and you've walked with Jesus for 70 of those 82 years, and you're a prayer warrior and all of that.

You can be a brand new Christian.

You can be like Paul and not even a Christian yet.

And the Holy Spirit stops him and Jesus speaks to him, and in that moment he gets saved.

You can be a junior high student or a senior high student, and you can have your quiet time and hear from God and Him direct you and tell you which friends to witness to and how to stand in this moment, how to have wisdom in that moment.

You can be in the presence of God at work in the midst of chaos and some announcements come down and something has happened, and you just quietly say, Lord, I don't know how to react and I don't understand this.

Help me.

How do I get into the presence of God?

Well, this is as beautiful a picture as you can.

Even in prison and in stocks after being beaten, they entered his gates with thanksgiving and they entered his presence and his courts with praise.

I want to encourage you just a few actions right here.

First of all, you just have to have a focused, purposeful action.

You don't surrender yourself to the Lord and focus on him by accident.

It is a choice.

You stop what you're doing, you stop where you are.

You take a moment and say, I am going to actively pray right here.

That's why I love it.

Guys talk to me about having their quiet time in the car on the way to work.

Now, listen, you can sing praise songs and do that and work.

I listen to podcasts and I hear, you know, stuff and I go that's interesting and all that, but here you are, man, you're praising the Lord, you're in the presence of God, all of that, and somebody cuts you off.

Boy, the presence of God evaporated in a hurry, didn't it?

Right?

I mean, it happens.

I remember my dad one time when I was a kid, we were driving to church and we lived out in East Memphis, and so many people did, and we're driving downtown, and we were on I-40 as it cuts through, and my dad gets caught in the speed trap, and there we are.

We get pulled over on Sunday morning on the way to church, and I bet 15 members of our church honked at us as they drove past.

We got to church, and my dad went into Sunday school and he said, Okay, y'all, I'm taking a collection to pay that speeding ticket because I saved all of y'all a lot of money this morning.

Right?

That's not in the presence of God.

It is stopping and being still and focusing on the Lord.

It is effort to worship the Lord.

It is effort to stop and be thankful.

It is effort to say, I'm going to sit right here and I'm going to focus on the Lord until I sense his presence and hear his voice.

You have to stop and do this.

Here they are, they're in prison, and the Bible says they were praying and singing hymns to God.

They actually did it.

There is no substitute for stopping and being thankful and praising.

No one can do it for you.

You have to stop and do it.

Number two, I want you to start making a list.

First of all, just make foundational truth of who Jesus is.

They are sitting here in prison and they don't know what's going to happen, but they're not worried about it because they know whatever happens, Jesus has saved them.

They are his.

In another moment when Paul was in prison, he describes in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, and he says, Listen, I want you to know, church family, we were in this difficult spot, and it was so bad.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

We just knew we were going to die.

It was over.

We'd given up.

We were preparing.

And you know what?

We were okay with it because we know we serve the God who raises from the dead.

And they knew they were saved and knew they knew, fine, you chop off my head, the next moment I'm going to be with Jesus.

That's awesome.

And they knew where they were.

Why do we know that?

Because Jesus is our Savior.

Because the Bible says, for God so loved the world that gave his only son, and whosoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life.

Romans chapter 8, in the same chapter where he talks about he bears witness with our spirit and he leads us in that spirit, he says, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is found in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And in that moment when you're going to stop and you're going to praise him, whether it's a good time, whether it's a bad time, whatever the circumstances are, there is a process here.

When you stop and pray, you first think, Jesus, you are my Savior and you have saved me and you gave your life for me.

No greater love hath a man than this than a man will lay down his life for his friend.

You have loved me and given your life for me.

And you start making a list, being thankful for the foundational truths of who Jesus is.

He is greater than those who are in the world.

He never changes.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, scripture says.

The next list, start this now.

Now specific truths applicable in the moment.

Man, I would be in that moment just like I shared a story a minute ago where I was thinking, man, I missed it just because it got bad.

No, it may have gotten bad because you are where you're supposed to be and God's at work and Satan doesn't like it.

Think about where they are.

Silas turns to Paul or Timothy, one of them, and says, Man, did we mess up?

Are we supposed to be here?

Paul says, Listen to me, son.

God called us here and made it clear.

You remember that?

We know we're supposed to be, so God's going to take care of us because he spoke to us.

You remember the vision and the affirmation of God?

Yes.

Hey, listen, we know we're supposed to be here because as soon as we got here, God bore fruit and he showed us the people that he called to minister to.

You remember Lydia?

You know those pokes?

Yeah, you got all that.

Remember those facts?

Look, we are where we're supposed to be.

God has placed his fingerprint on this moment.

Timothy, don't ever doubt.

If we die and we die in this prison, we know we came to do what God called us to do because those people are now planting a church and serving the Lord.

We know we're where we're supposed to be.

And so you begin to make some of those foundations.

Lord, thank you for this, and thank you for showing me this, and thank you for letting me be here with these guys, and thank you for that.

And then finally, in that moment, the whole point of being in God's presence is hearing his voice.

You are thanking him and you are praising him.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

And now you begin to listen because I'm in the presence of God and I want to hear what he says.

I want to hear him if he speaks to me through scripture and he says, Right here I've got you, son.

Or if he says, Don't go anywhere.

Son, I'm about to open that door, but don't run.

Don't miss what's about to happen.

You be patient and you wait on me and you watch.

These prisoners around you, I put you here to show what it means to be in my presence.

When those shackles are gone and they know what you're praying is real because you stayed where I am and you didn't go running.

Don't listen for God to minister to you.

I want you to practice this just for this month.

Find a prayer journal.

Don't get weird, don't turn it into homework, don't make it too hard.

I know I did this one time and the guy went out and he spent like a week searching at all the different bookstores about the best journal that he could have.

I'm like, dude, just get post-it notes, all right?

Don't like spend more time buying a journal than you did like writing in it, right?

Just make a list what you're thankful for.

Stop, make a list.

Follow that plan and then listen and be open and write what God tells you.

Because I want you to know what it is to be in the presence of God.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, man, this is why you get saved.

To be in the presence of Jesus, to be clean before Him, to be forgiven, to be whole.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, know this just what Paul told that jailer, that Jesus came, stepped out of heaven, lived a sinless life, went to the cross, and there he died, taking all of our sin and punishment on him so that he could pay the price for our sin.

He rose again, conquering death and sin to offer us forgiveness and freedom and new life.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you this morning to give your life to him.

I want you to bow your heads where we are, where you are.

We're about to close.

Here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna say a prayer in this moment.

God's people are praying.

We're gonna stand up, and just like Paul and Silas and Timothy and those others were doing, we're going to sing praises to the Lord.

If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, understand that this is the testimony of people who are walking with the Lord, and they want you to know what it looks like.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to come and give your life to Him.

Place your faith in Him.

Trust Him and what He did on the cross to pay the price for your sin.

Just like this Philippian jailer did.

Just like the people singing this morning have done.

Our pastors will be at the head of the aisles.

We have someone in the balcony.

If you need to be saved this morning, you come.

Lord, we thank you that we are saved more than just from the penalty of sin, but we are saved to be able to be in your presence.

I pray this has been encouragement to our folks who know you.

Encouraging them to desire and to focus to be in your presence.

And I pray if there's someone who's not been saved, they don't have that relationship with you, that this morning, this picture of Paul and Silas will show them, regardless of what's happening around them, they can be in your presence when they know you as their Savior.

Give us a freedom to call to you this morning to respond to you, a desire to be in your presence.

We pray these in the saving name of Jesus and all God's people, said.

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.