Opportunity 7-14-24

Episode Transcript

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Welcome to Blessings in Christ. I'mScott Roberts. Blessings in Christ is also
the Church of Christ preaching the gospelof our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
of Heat that believeth and is baptizedshall be saved. The Church of Christ
is scriptural in name Romans sixteen sixteen, scriptural and origin Colossians one eighteen,
scriptural and doctrine one, Timothy foursixteen, and scriptural in practice James one

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and twenty two. Our lesson todayis by Phil Bentley from the New Carlisle,
Ohio Church of Christ. He's startingto preach with us here on Blessings
in Christ Radio, and we're veryexcited to have him with us. He's
bringing us a lesson on opportunities.And you know, as Christians, first

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of all, we have an opportunityto do good to every person, every
soul in the world. Did youknow in Galatians six' ten it says,
as we therefore have opportunity, letus do good unto all men,
especially unto them who are of thehousehold of faith. Also, as Christians,
we have an opportunity to let ourlight shine before the world and to

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try to bring more people into thechurch into Christ. In Matthew five and
verse sixteen says, let your lightso shine before men, that they may
see your good works and glorify yourFather, which is in Heaven. And
most importantly, we have an opportunityas Christians to teach the gospel to other

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souls, trying to get them toobey the gospel plan of salvation. And
Matthew twenty eight and nineteen, Goyou therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, of the Son and the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoeverI've commanded you, and lo I
am with you always, even tothe end of the world. So once

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again our lessons by Phil Bentley fromthe New Carlisle, Ohio Church of Christ.
He's bringing us a wonderful us onopportunities, opportunities to let our light
shine, let the light of JesusChrist be seen in all of us,
attracting other people into the Church.We have the opportunity to do good unto

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all men. And of course wehave the opportunity to share the gospel,
and not only to share the gospel, but try to teach new converts to
help them to mature in their Christianlife. So once again we hope you
enjoy the lesson today. We dohave another another surprise, and that is

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we have some beautiful singing by Wetzeland Lowell Atkins that you will hear today
on the podcast and the radio program, some beautiful gospel singing. We hope
that you really enjoy the singing.Once again, we hope you enjoy the
lesson today and the beautiful singing byWetzel Atkins, and please like us on

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Facebook. Thank you, and havea wonderful weekend. Is a God and
only one who made and so hemade all things createed Man accord. He

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is lain. There is a Godand his relay is reaping my heart.
His love I feel is not Ibe when line play meaning to sing the
sty and Alasia. There is aGod that there is. Some old will

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say walk God, feature or briend, but when they died, what they
shall find will sure change. There. There is a God, is a

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god every babies in my hoping.Lord is love I feel? Is love
I be when I'm like when I'mmeaning the falling in the shop and lassiou
there is a God When I waslost, insane and change the bless.

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It's a you came he lived inme. Oh hi, you grit for
heaven. And there is a god. There is a god, and hevery

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has remating my hotkeeping my hordis love, I bears, I like when I
play with meaning the stock in theSouth and Asia. There is a god,
a god as brees w weir goodno more. I saw on three

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crossing three men in the agony come. Two cried out for mercy, brees,
and the third man looked at meand all the herd. In this
man's eyes, it just broke myheart in two. It seemed I could

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hear him say, I'm doing thisfor you. I knelt beneath the third
man's crow, and slowly about myI reached out to touch his beak,

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and it stained my hands with red. And when I heard him crying in
things, I raised my eyes tosee the blood's filled from the third man's
side, and some of it spilledon me. The third man wore a

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crown of thorn, and spikes heldhim to the tree. I heard him
say, on my God, myGod, has thou forsaken me? And
there within the mighty crowds the oneswho mocked him, cried, King,

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save thyself, if thou art king, And then the third man died.
Suddenly I heard the thunder rolled andsaw the lightning pierce the sky. The
third man was still hanging there,and I begin to cry. I saw

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the boulders falls and heard the breakingof the ground. Then I woke,
and though white dream, I touchedmy cheeks and found my we agree ah

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see pay the man, say Iwele for And it's my dessaportm striving discontent

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man. I kissed my every dayon the law. No matter what obsession
paint our deep depression. I'm standingon the soul and brown, standing on
the road, on the Omo rockof us, safe from they stone,

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from all the stone like rangous richingof and rangement start from Saty's wages.
I'm standing on the soul brown.Even though he's done. Now, I
don't feel alone. Now with comfortcame the spirit of the wall. Now

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with his word to guide me.Romp temptations had me. I'm standing on
the soul road, standing on theroad oh age, safe from marry stone,
all the stones that rangeous rich andlove. I'm rent not con Stan's

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wages I'm standing on the soil androad. Now I'm pressing onward east that
please meet Homer. I'm trusting inmy sandar day by day and closes airy
ration Burmes his foundation. So onthe solid rock, all s standing on

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the road, on the rock ofger safe from marry stone, all the
stone that rageous, rich in love. I'm rated th Consanta's wages. I'm
standing on the sawing on the wrong, on the right all this time,

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like right from side, just onthe I'm gonna start off reading a little
something I wrote down. I'm notgoing to take one hundred percent for the

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authenticity of it, but it's asomething I wrote that we talk a little
bit about how great America is andand why is it so great? And
U America is is a an experimentthat has went well compared to uh other

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kind of trees, other nations ofwhat they took on as their government,
compared to what we've done here inAmerica. I'm going to read to you,
I call it America the Great andhere in the United States, we
are living in an experiment that isbased on freedom. Personal liberty in itself

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is grounded in the much deeper realizationthat freedom prospers only where the blessings of
God are avidly sought and humbly accepted. The American experiment rests on this insight.
Its discovery was the great triumph ofour nation's founding fathers, as voiced

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by William Penn when he said,if we will not be governed by God,
we must be governed by evil tyrants. Explaining the inalienable rights of man,
Jefferson said, the God who gaveus life gave us liberty at the

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same time. And it was GeorgeWashington who that of all the dispositions and
inhabitants which led to prosperity, religionand morality are indispensable supports. And finally
that shrewdest of all observers of America, Alex D. Polpeville put eloquently after

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he went on a search for thesecret of America's greatness and the genius of
America, and he said, notuntil I went into the churches of America
and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness, did I understand the greatness and genius

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of America. America is good,and if America ever ceases to be good,
America will cease to be great.The fight against the evils that are
trying this great country is many.There's so many of things trying this country.
One of the biggest evil things thatI want to point out is what's

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going on in our schools. Forinstance, what's going on in the schools
is parental rights. Parental notifications fromschools is now the opposite of what it
used to be, telling children tonot involve their parents and what they are
being taught. This is only oneexample of many attempts to water down traditional

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values and even arbigate the original termsof America's freedoms. Freedom prospers when religion
is vibrant and the rule of lawunder God is acknowledged. When this country's
found by fathers past the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government

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interference. They never intended to constructthe wall of hostility between government and the
concept of religious belief itself. Theevidence of this perminates our history and our
government. The Declaration of Independence mentionsGod no less than four times. So

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this country is founded on God,and even our own currency, our money
engraved on it says in God wetrust. Now I'm going to share a

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little something here with you. Afew little random stories I picked up that
I thought were a little inspiring.There's a series of stories I want to
touch upon, and I want youto think about these just a little bit.
So. In May twenty six,two thousand and three, a gentleman
named Aaron Rawston was hiking a voter, fell onto his right hand and pinned

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it and pinned him down. Afterwaiting four days for help because he couldn't
free his hand, he then amputatedhis own arm to get himself out.
Could you imagine how horrible that wouldbe to do? On New Year's Eve,
a woman was bung bungee jumping inZimbabwe. The cord broke and she

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fell into a river and swimmed backto it shore. And a crocodile infested
water with a broken collar born acollar bone. Claire Chaplain, a lady
named Claire Chaplin was smashed in theface with a five pound watermelon being propelled
by a sling shot, lived andwalked away. Matthew Brobye was hit by

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a javelin. David Strigel was actuallypunched in the mouth by a kangaroo.
The one amazing thing that these peoplehave in common is when asked about these
occurrences, they all smiled and said, I guess things could have been worse.
This makes me think of those thatthink they are having a bad day.

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You can hear people complaining of badtraffic, or complaining about their boss
at work, or how bad theirjob is, that they've been trying to
quit for years, or that theiralarm clock didn't go off in time,
or the weather isn't to their liking. Now we need to realize that our
tragedies are so small that they easilyfit on the tip of our tongues.

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We can find real tragedy in bigcities like Chicago, where dozens are killed
weekly and we know not their namesnor why. There's always times that we
think woe is me and things can'tget worse. But remember two million people
die every year from dehydration alone.And these people don't care if the cup

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is half full or half empty.They just want to drink. Remember the
Lord is with us, and we'renever ever given anything too tough that we
can't handle. Remember he is alwaysin our corner and willing to back us
if we let him, or justask him for help. Remember you are

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still here and the Lord is blessingyou. The Lord is blessing you constantly.
The very heart that's in your bodybeats approximately four times, four thousand
times per hour. Your heart beatsfour thousand times per hour, and each

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beat is a testament that you areblessed. So, just a few little
thoughts I wanted to share with youhere before we dive into our lesson.
So I want to talk to youabout a subject that's kind of a favorite

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one of mine, and this subjectapplies to me, not to just any
one person. We're going to talkabout opportunity, the window of opportunity.
Opportunities can refer to things in thebusiness world, the sports world, the
leisure and travel industry, and toChristians. In the business world, the

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opportunity may be one business talking abouttaking over another business that is selling out
or about to shut down. Inthe sports world world, an athlete may
have the opportunity to join a differentteam. And in the leisure and travel
industry, there may be a specialoffer come up to take a cruise or
go somewhere at a very low rate, and that opens up the opportunity to

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take an affordable trip or vacation.But as Christians, we must constantly keep
our minds tuned in for an opportunityto spread the word of the Lord,
because we never know when an opportunitymay appear again with that individual. We

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never know. So we're talking aboutthe window of opportunity. So what is
opportunity? What is this window ofopportunity I'm talking about. It's the urgency
to take advantage of an opportunity,And an opportunity is defined as an event

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or moment at which actions of importanceor significance can be achieved. We must
be ready to take any opportunity thatcomes before us. All there will come
a time of opportunity to speak ofand for the Lord, and we've got

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to be ready to do that.You don't know the opportunities there. So
that's why we're constantly to be heavenlyminded. That's why we're constantly to talk
to people and ask them if they'reready for the coming of the Lord,
asking what's going to happen to themif if they died? Now where you're

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going, what's going to happen toyour soul? I've mentioned it several times
in different sermons that I've preached throughthe years, that we don't have the
knowledge and known if we're going tolive the next minute, the next hour,
the next day, the next month, next year. We don't have
the guarantee we'll walk out of thisbuilding. We don't have that guarantee.

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We don't know that that's an urgencythat we need to plant in people's minds.
It's not easy to do, butwe gotta work at it, and
it's it's doable. It's doable.In Ecclesiastes chapter three, verses one through
eight. Those of you that wantto fall along and open up to Ecclesiastes

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chapter three. Ecclesiastes Chapter three,we're gonna look at verses one through eight,
and it says there to everything,there is a season and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.A time to be born and a time
to die. A time to plantand a time to pluck up that which

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is planted. A time to killand a time to hell, a time
to break down and a time tobuild up. A time to weep and
a time to laugh, a timeto mourn and a time to dance.
A time to cast away stones anda time to gather stones together. A
time to embrace and a time torefrain from embracing. A time to get

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and a time to cast away,a time to rend and a time to
sew, a time to keep silenceand a time to speak, a time
to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time
of peace. There's a time foreverything. We just named that off.
This is one thing we got toremember. I tell you where this is

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at in the Bible, so youcan tell and show others. If you're
teaching someone and you're trying to tellpeople what's in the Bible. If they
own a bible, have one taketheir own bible and show them where it's
at. People want to say,well, your Bible has different things of
mind. Does you're just trying totrick me. You can open up that
bible off their bible and show them. So I tell you where this is

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at, so you'll know it's there. While the window of opportunity is open,
we must be We must be thebest Christians that we can possibly be.
In Galatians chapter six and verse ten. In Galatians chapter six and verse
ten, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men,

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especially unto them who are of thehousehold of faith. Who is those
that are of the household of faith. It's my brothers and sisters right here
in Christ. Right here you are, those of the household of Faith.
And it's said there, and I'llread it again. It says, as

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we have therefore opportunity. There's thatword opportunity. As we have therefore opportunity,
let us do good unto all men. Doesn't say this, do good
to the brothers and sisters here inthe church. It says to all men,
but especially especially so we're gonna goout of our way. This says,

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especially unto those who are of thehousehold of faith. So we are
to search out and to be withour brothers and sisters, those of the
household of faith, before we dothe common man. That may be our
next door neighbors or something to thatnature. But if we're doing our jobs
as Christians, we're talking about theLord too, our next door neighbor,

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and hopefully we can make our nextdoor neighbor also our brother or sister in
Christ. And that's where I havea weak point at I ain't working on
mine hard enough. I was tellinga story here a while ago about the
lady that lived beside me. Iwas willing to do some work for it,
And I said she wanted to payme, and I said, payment
you can give me is come tochurch with me. You know what,

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She's found someone else to do thework for it. She didn't want to
come to church with me? Thatbad? That afraid to come to church.
Why don't she afraid we was goingto do to her? Afraid she's
going to end up with loving theLord, Afraid that somebody here might tell
her they love her faith, wemight give her a good handshake and tell
her where it's glad to see her. What was the worst thing that could
get I would like to know what'sgoing through her mind that scared her so

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bad that she'd rather have someone elseto work for her that me would do
work her neighbor. She sees whatI can do, and I do it
for it for nothing, the allthe things she has to just come to
church, sit for an hour,listen to a sermon, see some people
that love her and tell her theylove her, and glad to see her
there. I mean, goodness,that don't scare me one bit. That

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sounds like a great time. Ican't wait to go. But it's just
funny how people are so in thisverse. It said, as therefore we
have opportunity, let us do goodun to all men. It didn't especially

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specify any certain men, but itsaid all men. That would mean the
rich, the poor, the sick, the dirty, the clean, the
black, the white, the uneducated, the unbeliever. Now, if you
will turn with me over to Lukechapter ten, we're gonna take a look
at verses thirty through thirty six.That's Luke chapter ten, thirty through thirty

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six March. Now, when Ido my lessons here, I cheat a
little bit, and I write downthe verse I don't have to turn over
to the Bible. Allows me togo a little quicker, and plus I

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write a little bit larger font thanwhat the Bible does. Is I'm going
blind, and makes it a littleeasier for me to see and read then
read straight from the Bible. Butanyways, here in Luke chapter ten,
starting verse thirty, it says,now this is of course it's g he
is talking. It says, acertain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho

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and fell among thieves, which strippedhim of his raiment and wounded him and
departed, leaving him half dead.And by chance there came down a certain
priest that way, and when hesaw him, he passed by on the
other side. And likewise Levi,when he was at the place, came

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and looked on him, and passedby on the other side. But a
certain Samaritan, as he journeyed,came where he was, and when he
saw him, he had compassion onhim and went to him and bound up
his wounds, pouring in oil andwine, and set him on his own

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beast, and brought him to anend and took care of him. And
on tomorrow, when he departed,he took out twopence and gave them to
the host, and said, untohim, take care of him. And
whatsoever thou spendest more, when Icome again, I will repay thee which

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now of these three thinkest thou wasneighbor unto him that fell among the thieves.