IBC Bremen Sermons

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?"
Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean." For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
(Acts 17:16-21 NKJV)


Are you curious? Do you have an interest in spiritual things, in the meaning of life, or about the existence of God? Well, that is because God placed this curiosity in your heart.

1. God planted CURIOSITY about Himself in our hearts.

From one man He has made every nation of men to live all over the earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live, so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.
(Acts 17:26-27 HCSB)

God wants you to discover Him.

God planted eternity in our hearts, as a way for us to know that we should seek Him.

God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.
(Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)


Do you know that God is also curious about you? God was curious and interested in Moses. God called to him from a burning bush. God was interested in Daniel, Joseph, Isaiah, and a whole lot of other people. God has called us by being interested and curious about us.

Curiosity about God leads us to a choice about God. I can choose to walk away from God, or walk toward God. What happens when I walk away from God? This becomes a 2-step walk away from God in REJECTION and ISOLATION.

2. We REJECTED Him. This is called SIN. Our rejection separates us and isolates us from God.

I choose to take no interest in God. I choose to be indifferent to His ways. Walking this path leads me further away from God. As I lose interest, I become separated. This path leads me to hell.

God called this ignorance in the past.

Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked...
(Acts 17:29-30 NKJV)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(Romans 3:23 NKJV)

Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death...
(Romans 6:23 MSG)

This path is dangerous. It is broad and it will lead to death and destruction.

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
(Matthew 7:13 NKJV)

3. We ISOLATE ourselves and try to live life without God.

While we may know that the way we live is destructive, we still try to do it all by ourselves. We make excuses for walking this way. We walk this road in isolation without God. The excuses we use for walking this way sound like this:

I don't need God.

From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused.
(Romans 1:20-21 NLT)


I can live life all by myself.

They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one."
(Romans 3:12 NKJV)


I know what is best for me.

"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire.
(John 15:5-6 MSG)

Without God, we simply cannot make it in this life. Without God, our destiny is clearly a path that leads to complete isolation from God in place called Hell. Is Hell real? Yes, Hell is a real place. God has said people who choose to live without Him will go there. But as I said earlier, God has placed this curiosity in your heart for a reason. As Paul said in these verses - God is not far from you. God wants to be involved in your life. You can choose to integrate God into your life.

What happens if I choose to follow God?


I choose to be interested in God and His ways. Walking in this path brings me closer to God. It leaders to eternal joy and happiness in heaven. It leads to contentment and satisfaction in this life. I grow in my desire and love for God and His ways.

It is like the narrow way of which Jesus spoke.

Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
(Matthew 7:14 NKJV)

What are the promises of walking this path?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
(John 3:16 NKJV)

You will have eternal life with God in a secure place called Heaven. Your eternal destiny is secure. On this path, God leads you and helps you to your destination. It is the walk of life of a Christian. It is a journey of adaptation and integration. Because in order to get to heaven, God wants you to integrate Him into your life on Earth.

It is a two-step walk with God.

4. God helps us to ADAPT to Him and His ways. He helps us to change. He made it possible for us to change our ways. God expects me to repent. But this is a process.

I can't do this alone. I need God's help.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
(Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV)

5. God helps me to INTEGRATE myself to His ways and into His story.

You go from ADAPTATION to INTEGRATION when you completely immerse yourself (i.e. baptism) into God's ways for your life.

But how can I stop walking away from God on the broad road, and start walking with God on the narrow road? How can I CROSS over and start to integrate God into my life?

I need to do the following:

Confess my need
Repent from my walk away
Observe Christ's action
Select God's free gift
Step into this eternal life walk with God

Posted by Jim Erwin at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

The Heart of a Christian

In a small church on the U.S. East Coast a pastor delivered a sermon on abortion, and after the service a German man who lived in Nazi Germany told of hi experience: I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it?

A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!

Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to the death camp. Their screams tormented us.

We knew the time the train came past our church and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.

Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing....

There are people all around us in a similar situation as those Jews in the train cars, but their destination is an even worse one: they are on their way to hell. Are you like those German Christians? Do you only want to ignore the problem, or do you want to do something to help? There should be no question as to what you should do if you are a Christian because you have the one thing that is able to save them from destruction: the gospel.

Vance Havner once said, “We do not have a secret to be hidden but a story to be heralded.”

The act of sharing the gospel is called evangelism.
• Evangelism is the sob of God. It is the anguished cry of Jesus as He weeps over a doomed city.
• It is the cry of Paul, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
• Evangelism is the heart-winning plea of Moses. “Oh this people have sinned.—Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin—; if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written.”
• It is the cry of John Knox, “Give me Scotland or I die.” It is the declaration of John Wesley, “The world is my parish.” It is the sob of parents in the night, weeping over a prodigal child.

The key to evangelism is a burden for the lost.


I have a question for you this evening. Who has become dear to you?

To have the heart of a Christian, which is someone who desires God's heart, you need to love people.

You need to love lost people. So I ask the question again: Who is dear to you?

Is there anyone dear enough to you that you are bold enough to speak about God? (2:1-6)

Because God is interested in people, we should be interested in people.

Your motives must be clean.
Your life has to be genuine.
You desire must be for their well-being. You should not have a desire for their money, for their things, or for wanting to get something out of the relationship. You are not salespeople of a free product. You are discovers of a relationship that changes lives.

You see, many times we don't speak up. There are many reasons that we don't speak up. But I believe we don't have boldness because we are so wrapped up in fear.

1. Fear

EXAMPLE

"Article in Christliches Medienmagazin Pro about the influence of Islam in Europe". The problems that some people have when they try to be bold and speak about Jesus Christ.

2. Indifference:

However, some people don't speak up because they simply don't care. You see, the trap that some Christians fall into is the idea that because I am now a Christian, my life is safe, and so I don't need to care about anyone else. God loves me. But in reality, God loves everybody, not just me. God didn't create just me, He created the entire world. Someone who thinks in their heart: I don't really care about this person, they really are not worth telling about Jesus - what I am really saying in my silence is: "Friend, you can go to hell."

Would you ever say that publicly to someone? Well Christian, if you don't tell someone about your relationship with Jesus, then you are saying that by omission.

Is there anyone dear enough to you that you are willing to nurture a relationship? (2:7-8)

After you have spoken about the fact that they need Jesus, or more precisely how Jesus can help them, you should help someone come to know Jesus as their Leader in life. But to do this, it will take a relationship.

I have said it earlier, there are three primary ways of telling others about Jesus

PASSIVE

PROGRAM

PERSONAL


Each of these ways are useful. The passive form requires almost no relationship skills.
The program form requires limited contact and little relationship skills.
The personal form of evangelism requires contact and a relationship.

How do we show people we CARE?

1. BE FRIENDLY!



2. SHARE YOURSELF!


3. BE HELPFUL!

Is there anyone dear enough to you that you are willing to invest your life? (2:9-12)

Because the eternal state of a person is at stake, you have to be willing to invest your life. God wants us to speak up about Jesus to some people. God wants us to build a relationship with other people, so that they can hear about the message of Jesus Christ. But God also wants me to invest my life with a few people. This means more than speaking up on occasion. This means more than just nurturing a relationship so that I can share with them about my relationship with Jesus. This means that even after they come to Jesus, they need a mentor. You will be a mentor to someone who comes to Jesus Christ. Lost people should become people you love, nurture, and eventually invest yourself in.

I’m not saying you need to move into the inner city. Or go to a far away place like Africa. What I am saying is that you should make it your ambition to reach out to the very people that God has placed on your heart.

We must proclaim the true gospel:
• The need for the gospel—All have sinned.
• Jesus is the only way to heaven.
• Salvation is by faith alone.

An elevator operator at a hospital in Nashville once said, “I’m just a nobody telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody.”

Are you willing to do what it takes to share the heart of God with others who need Him? Don't just be like the people in that church service who sang songs to God but let the lost people take the train to hell separation from God. Reach out to them today.

Never give up on people because Jesus never gave up on you.

Posted by Jim Erwin at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments