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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
Please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 6, verse 66. Three weeks from today, on Sunday morning, August 23rd, I am going to begin preaching word for word through the book of Genesis for nearly a year. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, straight through. If you miss it, you will miss what could be one of the great spiritual experiences of your life. Then I'm going to take about three months and skim the rest of the Old Testament and then go for about ten years straight through from Matthew to Revelation in the New Testament. I mean it. It will be a tremendous, thrilling experience. You will need to be a regular Sunday and Wednesday night attender or you will miss something. Spread the word and make plans. We shall be hearing some of our last Old, a New Testament preaching in the next two or three weeks for a few months. Now in John chapter 6, verse 66. From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. I like this man called Peter. He was always making a lot of mistakes. He was a swashbuckling, independent, free thinker. He was very, very impetuous. He always acted on the spur of the moment. He asked a lot of foolish questions. He made a lot of mistakes. But Jesus Christ loved him because he was a man. He was a man's man. And when he had time to think it through, when he came up with some things, he really said some of the classic gems of the New Testament. He says here a question that is the basis of my message for you tonight. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. I would like to have seen the look on his face. They asked him, Will you too go away? Said Jesus. And with almost a look of dismay, I can imagine that he looked to the Savior and said, Did us leave? Where shall we go? We've tasted that the Lord is gracious. We've found that the Lord is the heavenly gift. We've tasted of the divine nature. We've got a taste of T -bone steak. And you expect us to go back to hot dogs? Where can we match this? We found what real living is all about. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. This morning I ask you in my sermon, How shall we die tonight? How shall we live? Well, the apostle says the same thing. How shall we live? Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Now, the word eternal in this context does not merely mean a quantity of life, life endlessly. It means a quality of life. This man Peter had tasted of the garbage pails of this world. He had tried everything. And he had found that it failed him. Because like it or not, he was a divine creature. A human being is a divine creature. Made in the image of a spiritual God. He is a spiritual being who wants tasting of God's goodness and his graciousness. Though he may rationalize and reason and philosophize and intellectualize and explain away, he knows down in his soul that he will never again be the same until he lives a life in the dead center of the will of God, doing what God created him and separated him from his mother's womb and breathed breath into his nostrils and put blood in his veins to do to be a vehicle of the grace of God to men in a world and a society that needs Jesus Christ so much. And it was more for him. He was a preacher of the gospel. Many are called, but few are chosen. He was a chosen vessel. And I submit to you that there are many of you here tonight who are chosen of God. You've got special ministries in a special area. God, I said to David himself the other night, made you like you are and put you where you are because there are a lot of people like you are with whom you can communicate. Therefore, you ought not to thwart the grace of God and frustrate the will of God by doing your own thing and going your own way, but by letting the grace of God flow through you. This world is wanting to know how to live. We have never lived in a generation that people have been as susceptible to the gospel as now. There's not a freak. There's not a hippie. There's not a millionaire. In this world that's been on dope or drugs or money or sex or pleasure or whatever your bag may be or your thing may be that will not be honest with himself and say, I'm still looking. I'm still searching. I'm still longing for that panacea. I'm still looking for that level. I've still not found that absolute fulfillment. Now, Peter had drunk from the cisterns of this world until they had gone dry. He had eaten from the garbage pan of his own experience until it had left him in hunger. Now he had tasted of Jesus. And he said, me go back. Me go away. Lord, they'll all forsake you. Now, where else shall I go? Thou hast the words of life. Now, I take this verse apart and I discover that it is then in words, the words of Jesus Christ, that there is life. Now, once again, the world is looking in intellectualism, in the flesh, in pleasure, in education, in science, in a thousand ways for life. For life. Where shall we go? How shall we live? What shall be the philosophy of our life? What shall be the direction of our existence? What shall be the purpose of our brief span of life on this earth? How shall we live? Has never been as tremendous a question as it is today. Now, this man of men says to all of us, we shall live by the words of Jesus Christ. Where shall we go? Thou hast the words of life. So we discover that life is in a word. Not just in any word, but in the word, the words of Jesus Christ. The Bible says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. How important are words? The Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, thy speech betrayeth thee. By a man's words, he shall be justified. By his words, he shall be condemned. For if you confess me before men, I'll confess you before my Father which is in heaven. But if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father which is in heaven. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, why are words so important? Words are the tangible expression of thought. Words are the visible proof, the audible reality of what one is. Even God who is a mystery, even God who is mysterious, even God who is invisible, revealed himself to man in tangible form in a person called Jesus Christ. And what we, God, was thinking, what God wanted, what God was like, was what Jesus Christ wanted, was thinking, and was like. And so he said, we shall call him Logos, the Word. The Word became flesh. The visualization, the tangibility, the incarnation of God in flesh and blood that I could understand, that I could relate to. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That name that is above every name that he gave to himself in his Son, living on this world, the personification of God was Logos, capital W. The Word, Jesus Christ, the Word, and it is no accident that he has called him that, the Word of God. So it is by the Word of the Lord that we have life. Life exists as men eat of and digest and partake of and assimilate into their conscious mind and being the words of Jesus Christ. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaker, what men think about, they become. Most people think about nothing, and that's what they become. But we begin to gravitate toward the accomplishment of what we think about. And so as we think about and dwell in and assimilate the Word of God, we begin to live. And there is not a one of you who would not admit, if you've had the experience, that somewhere back down my life, there have been a few days, a week, or a two, or when I really got in the Word of God when I lived, when life was full, when I was happy. I was talking to a young man the other day about his life, and I reminded him that the happiest week or two of his life were those days when he was in the Word, an hour, two, three hours a day. The Word of God, that's where life is. That's where it's at. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of life. Every great preacher of the gospel is loved and believed and revered and exalted and understood and preached. The Word, every great church, is a Bible church. Oh, how I love for a church to come together and say, Now, church, let us open our Bibles and turn in them and hear the rustle of the leaves as the people of God start to search through the Word. Those people are going to live. Those people are going to be full. Those people aren't going to be hungering at the cesspools and the garbage pails of this Word. This world, they will have found the fullness of the bread of life. The Bible says the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Now, the word Bethlehem means heaven's oven. The bread of life was literally baked in heaven's oven. When Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, the Word came into the world in the form of a man, and we touched him, and we saw him, and we felt of him, and we have experienced him, and we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. So he says, To whom shall we go? Where else will we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. It is in thy words, in the Word of God, that there is life. Is there a missing dimension in your life? Try the Word of God. Quit reading books about the Bible and start reading the Bible. Get a copy in modern English, if you will. Devour it, assimilate it, pour over it. 20, 30 minutes, an hour a day. I'll tell you, some of you, instead of coming to church, looking like you've been weaned on sour pickles, or coming three feet off the ground, you'll be so happy, everybody will make you a bit up to something. They really will. Remember, there's life in the Word of God. Where else shall we go? Did you ever notice how important words are? Think of how important that day was when you spoke your first word while your mama's got it down in a little book at home. Dada. Dada. Ain't that a lick? Dada. It looks like they could teach kids to say something else besides dada. Or I'll tell you one better than that. Mama. Mama. Oh, he's talking. Oh, isn't life wonderful. Junior said, dada, or mama today. Oh, there's some other words. When's the first time you ever said, I love you? Ah, there's a word for you. How about this? I do. Many a man said, I do, and wished that he hadn't. But he did. I do. How many of life's great experiences do we remember by the words that accompanied them? I got the race. I made the team. We're going to move. Words. Words. Bespeak the great experiences of life. And far too soon for us, they are dust to dust. Dust thou camest, and to dust thou shalt return. Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit. The last words for many of us, before the way of every man and woman, boy and girl, the saved and the lost, far too soon for all of us. Words. Words. Now, what words of the Lord Jesus Christ are the most important? What words give life? What words? What words? I want you to turn quickly over to 1 Corinthians, if you will. No, I'm sorry. Romans. Over to Romans first. Chapter 5, verse number 1. Over to Romans, chapter 5, verse number 1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if I were to ask you what the world wants the most, what would you say? My little boys and I were riding home from church today, all day and had gone home early to get dinner ready, and some kids came by on a motorcycle. The little boys had never seen anything like it. They had a kind of banana seat, a bike on a motorcycle, and funny looking handlebars, and they really did a double take. And these kids turned around and waved at them and gave them the V sign, the victory sign, the peace sign. It used to be the victory sign. Now, it's the sign of peace. Well, I thought the thing to give them is the one finger, the index finger, which means one way. You know that, don't you? That's the newest thing that's going around. When somebody gives you the peace sign, you give back the index finger sign which means peace is there's one way to peace and that way is jesus christ it's breaking out all over the country and christians ought to do it i'm for peace here's the way to have peace peace is good but you get peace one way through the prince of peace jesus christ it's good it's important anyway they wanted peace the united nations wants peace more than anything in this world the man who can get himself elected to office and bring peace that this world will be a man that i believe the world will change the nation will change its constitution for to keep in office we we have to to give us peace peace we buy we purchase we spend we bleed we live we love we die we take vacations we build homes we garner possessions all for peace we have lawyers trying to bring peace in domestic situations i talked to people in counseling sessions have today did yesterday do all week every day nearly every week of every month they all want peace peace peace with myself peace with god peace with my husband peace that's the word the world wants to hear that's the name of the game that's what we're seeking circuit searching for and seeking for that's what god has put you here for to give you the opportunity of being a means of grace a vehicle by which men may learn how to have peace he said i've come that you might have life grace truth and peace from our father and from the lord jesus christ now he says here is how you have peace let's look at it again look at it again therefore being justified by faith in other words therefore because we have been saved rightly related to god converted born again washed in our the blood of christ from our sins therefore by faith we have peace with god through the lord jesus christ and i suggest to you simply and briefly tonight that those two words that jesus christ speaks to the world which most are benefactory and beneficial to the human family are the words of peace and pardon now let's turn them around you see it is clearly established in first corinthians that peace is based solely upon the basis and the premise of pardon without pardon you don't have any peace god was in christ reconciling the world unto himself and this schizophrenic society blown apart looking through every means to reconcile itself to pull itself together cannot do so because its problems are spiritual problems and there is no peace until there is pardon the world will never be reconciled to itself until it is reconciled to himself jesus christ said i am the way and so peace the spiritual problem of peace the end result of peace is based upon the original problem of guilt and men must be pardoned from their guilt before they can have peace with god and so the word of peace is presupposed upon the difficult problem of guilt from which there can be pardoned pardoned and i suggest that the two words that the world's the world needs to hear the most and that jesus christ offers the most to us is are the words of pardon and the words of peace pardon pardon how we need a pardon pardon from guilt the centurion heard it go thy way thy sins be forgiven thee the thief on the cross heard it son this day thou shalt be with me in paradise the woman at the well go thy way and sin no more even in the life of poor little zacchaeus up a tree a lot of us are up a tree jesus said come on down today i must abide at thy house for we are guilty sinners the bible says then let all the world be silenced let the whole world become guilty before god for we shall never want to be saved until we see ourselves as lost and we shall never comprehend a lostness until we comprehend our guilt and our standing before god and so the first word of pardon comes because of a judicial a judicial responsibility we are judicially guilty listen the bible tells us over in first corinthians by one man came death also by as in adam all die even so in christ all shall be made a law made alive because this man died because adam died we die because adam sinned we sin because adam was guilty we are guilty it is a judicial fact We are guilty by our nature. The psalmist said, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. We go forth from the very womb, speaking lies in hypocrisy. This does not mean that he was born the result of an adulterous relationship, but in reality it means that at the very inception of my life, at the very core of my being, the principle of sin was established in my life, and I can attempt to educate myself and enlighten myself and improve myself and gain social affluence and political prominence and material possession, but I still have a basic problem of me. I am a sinner by nature, and I'm a sinner by practice as well. The fact that I have a sinful nature means that I do sinful things against the holy God that breaks that relationship, and I have a problem of pardon, sin. And this world is going crazy trying to find pardon for its guilt. They run from psychologist to psychologist, from experience to experience, and experiences are good and psychologists are helpful, but there are some problems from which this world can find no release, and one of them is the problem of guilt. Now, a lot of times they say, Well, you just got a guilt complex. We ought to have a guilt complex. We're guilty. Thank God, though we are guilty, we need to learn that the blood of Christ, his Son, cleanses from all unrighteousness, and what God forgives, God forgives. You can take treatment and therapy all of your life. But as Graham Blaine Jr., the eminent Radcliffe in Harvard psychologist said, America's biggest burden is probably carrying guilt complexes, and he said, Most of them are nothing but unconfessed sins. Unconfessed sins. Let God get down in your heart and see yourself. Let all the world, says the apostle, become guilty before God. Why does God demand that we see ourselves as guilty judicially, by nature, by practice? Because a man isn't going to have sense enough to do anything about his condition until he realizes what it is. There's a problem of pardon. And he speaks a word of pardon. And when pardon comes, then peace comes. A man has peace with God. He is justified. That means to be established, related rightly into oneness with Jesus Christ. And it is established, that peace, that jigsaw puzzle, puzzle, peace that finally fits in, that form of life that finally finds expression and fulfillment, that contentment, where man vacillates between frustration and frustration and almost near idiocy, looking for something, looking for something, looking for his life, looking for himself, looking for something. And then he finds out that he is a spiritual being. He was made for God. And God has so arranged the human personality that man never finds fulfillment until he finds it in God. Then the light comes on and the song starts. Then the experience of life really begins. When man gets the word of pardon from God through Christ, then he gets the word of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It means pardon, and it means peace with himself, and it brings peace in circumstances. Many years ago, there was a contest, and some artists put on a little display of pictures that folks drew and offered a prize, and everybody contributed and brought all of their beautiful paintings. The theme of the contest was peace. They're all supposed to attempt to draw a picture which best signified to them peace, the embodiment of peace. There were three main pictures. Third place went, the third best picture, to a man who had painted a gorgeous pastoral scene. There was the quietness, the birds were singing and the flowers blooming. Then there was a man who came in second. He painted a dying sunset, the soft golden rays of the western sky just dying over the horizon, and this pictured peace to that artist. But the man who won, the man who in the minds of the judges best portrayed the image of what peace really means, painted a black sky, lightning flashing, and you could almost hear the thunder rolling, clapping of the thunder in the skies like a hundred thousand sand chariots across the floors of heaven, almost like a giant soldier brandishing his sword in the gleaming lightning flare as the clouds burst and the winds blew and the tree strained and bent. Then there was at the bottom of the sea in a giant rushing waterfall, and behind every crag and rock, the force of the multitudinous power of that water, burst its way across. Yonder and back of the waterfall, if one looked closely, he could barely see. There was a little nest. In that nest there was a bird. Beneath the bird's wing, there was a little baby bird with its head just peering over the edge of the nest. Safely covered beneath the wings of its mother bird. Almost oblivious, totally oblivious to the world. The problems and the flashing was going on all around him. For peace, you see, is not the absence of adversity. Peace is security and composure and tranquility and rest in the midst of adversity. For he said, you will have troubles in this world. But he said, be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. And we need not be stoics who refuse to cry and numberify our feelings. Nor need we be denialists, nor despairists who give up. We need not be fatalistic, nor need we be epicureans and go out and attempt to lose ourselves in a mad rush of a world from which we've come. But with God in my life, real life, the words of life are the words of pardon that my sins are forgiven. I am at peace with God, and I can live in my world and not be conformed to it or overwhelmed by it, because God in Christ. Because God in Christ liveth in me. Peace and pardon, these are the words of life. Peace with God and peace in circumstance and peace with myself are solely and exclusively based upon the premise of pardon from God. For to be rightly related to him through his pardoning grace is to have peace, peace, peace that only comes from Jesus Christ. Let us stand and bow our heads. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee today for the words of life. And we know that where there has been death, there can be life. We know Jesus Christ was the exposition of the law, the embodiment of it. Everywhere that he went, the law, the word of God, cast judgment, cast light and exposure on sin. And death and evil and darkness were put to flight. The light, the radiant peace and glorious light of Christ shone through. Dear Lord, we know that we can be little Jesuses in this world. Christ lives in us and can live in us and must live in us. And oh God, we pray that if there be one person here today who needs to claim anew and afresh the pardoning grace of God for his sins. As a Christian, it's almost started to go the wrong way back from God and in his heart he knows it. And oh God, for that one that is lost, going away from Christ. Dear Father, may they find real peace through the word of Christ when he says, Go thy way, thy sins be forgiven thee. May we dedicate and rededicate our lives to thee. May those who need to join the church or come by letter of baptism or accept Christ, do whatever they need to do to find peace with God in this situation. Do so now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.