IBCD Sermon Weekly: Recent Episodes
International Baptist Church Düsseldorf
The book of Hebrews portrays our journey of faith as a race. The examples of the lives of the faithful who have raced before us, help us face uncertainty with perseverance, despite the challenges we encounter. As the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ is the ultimate champion of the race.
Hebrews 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith."
Sunday Sermon by Christopher Uchegbuo
1 Thessalonians 5:18 "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
Something we see in the Bible is a constant reference to the nations. Even though the Bible follows the history of the Jewish people and Israel, from Abraham to Jesus to Revelation there is an emphasis that God’s work through the Jews is ultimately for all humanity. At IBCD we have a unique foretaste of what it means to have several nations gathered to worship the Lord. This Sunday we celebrate our “Cultural Sunday” where we take the day to express our appreciation to God for allowing us to be part of this amazing place, some for a short time, some for a long time, all eventually for eternity!
Act 2:39 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-- for all whom the Lord our God will call."
We are going to be starting a sermon series through the book of Hebrews next week, but before we do so, we need to explore the idea of “covenant” in the scripture. Why? Because the book of Hebrews makes many references to the covenants of the Old Testament and compares it to the new covenant found in Christ.
Have you ever thought about alternatives to the Christian God? Looking at the world and the injustice that is prevailing, we might question our faith sometimes. Psalm 73 shows us that while it is normal to go through these phases, at the end of the day no alternative can ever be better than our God of mercy. He is the solution to all evil.
In life, we have to make a lot of decisions. As Christians, we want to make them according to God's will. But how can we find out God's will? How can we find out His ways? That is the same prayer that David expressed in Psalm 25.
Psalm 25:4-5
4 Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
Sunday Sermon by Christopher Uchegbuo
We shall be looking at the significance of the new covenant we have in Christ and the blessings of this covenant.
22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23, NASB)
The Christian faith holds the Bible very high. We believe that it is God's authoritative word breathed out by Him. Therefore, it is important to engage regularly with it. However, it is not always clear what the best way is to engage with the Bible.
Psalm 1 tells us to meditate on it day and night. If we do so we will be like a tree planted by streams of water.
Psalm 1:2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
So, in the sermon today I’d like to explain some of the understandings I have and most of our leadership has around the functions of the church and the involvement of the people which make up the church. The reason I’m doing this is many folks here do not come from a “Baptistic” background and also churches vary from place to place as to how they function and why. In addition, I think many of you are where I was before this time in my life where you appreciate the church, even love the church, but might not be entirely clear as to your role in the church.
1 Corinthians 12:12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.
I think when John wrote both this letter and the Gospel of John, he wrote from the perspective of someone who had seen a lot when it came to the church and faith. He saw the early church struggle. He saw the church have to deal with the fact that Jesus’ return was taking longer than expected. He saw that sin could infiltrate the church and throw people into spiritual depressions, confusion and even destruction. So, he ends the letter with a few words of perspective.
1 John 5:19-20 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.
Today we are having several people getting baptized after the morning service today so I thought we would take a little break from 1 John and talk about baptism. One of the passages I found unusual which references baptism several years ago is in the book of 1 Corinthians, so let’s get into this.
1 Corinthians 10:1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
As the Apostle John finished up his letter to a struggling church, he makes a series of statements which need some clarification. Last week we looked at prayer and this week we are going to be looking at a sin which John says “leads to death” and that it really does not deserve to have a lot of prayer effort put into it. Does that surprise you? Let’s take a look.
1 John 5:16-17 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
Today we are continuing the letter of 1 John. In this last section, the Apostle John gives a series of quick teachings on issues which were, and continue to be, points of confusion and sometime contention within the church. The three areas he covers quickly are prayer, how to deal with a brother or sister who is sinning, what it means to be a child of God in a fallen world, and one brief sentence concerning idols. Today we are looking at prayer.
1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
The passage we are looking at today is a little bit confusing. Actually, it is really confusing! John leans heavily into the “testimony” which justified the character, nature, and even the mission, of Jesus Christ. When these verses stand alone, they can be hard to follow, at least they are for me – but when we reflect these verses back into John’s Gospel, we get the much deeper meaning to what he is saying. As we have been going through this letter, we have seen that John uses specific words and ideas. Today the word is “testimony”.
**1 John 5:7-8* For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.*
The word “overcome” in the passage today indicates a continuous “overcoming” in a continuous struggle. This is important to understand. Until Christ returns to make all things new, or we go to him at the end of this life, we are involved in continuous struggle. There is never a moment of being able to put our feet up and say, “The battle is done and all is clear skies and easy days ahead.” That is for the time when all things are renewed in Christ. However, we don’t need to get depressed because with Christ it is a struggle in which we can continuously overcome.
**1 John 5:5* Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.***
In this passage today John talks about keeping commands. Like the word “love”, the word “command” in the Bible needs to be carefully understood because if it is misunderstood it can, like misunderstanding the word love, lead to a deep misunderstanding as to what the Apostle John is teaching. So, what does John mean when he writes:
1 John 5:3-4 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
Today is a special day at IBCD. We are taking the time to celebrate our 30th anniversary as a church.
Love is big deal with us humans. We write books, songs, poetry, and make movies all around the idea of love. However, have you noticed that most of what we write about love is not really our best work? Why do we love the idea of love and yet seem to so often get “love” wrong? This question affects the church deeply. How we relate to God is deeply affected by how we understand love.
1 John 4:7 - 21
As we have been going through the letter of 1 John we see him addressing the issue of sin within the church, the issue of false teaching,
and the perspective of love as a solution to sin issues within the church. He ended the discussion of love being the solution to sin issues within the church by saying this:
1 John 3:23-24 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Today we are continuing our study in the life and ministry of Elijah. In 1 Kings 21 we read about how something seemingly innocent like the desire for a vegetable garden leads to conspiracy, perjury and murder. We will learn from this example about the anatomy of sin - it starts from our desires, which conceive sin, which grows and brings forth death.
1 Kings 21:1-16
Sunday Sermon by Pastor Mitch Eggers
Ephesians 2:11-13 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
One of the places the church has struggled with over the centuries is the tension of works and faith. Our human nature is to want to earn our place in God’s favor, earn our salvation, but we are not saved by our own merit, we are saved by faith. However, we are not “saved” to just sit back and do nothing, but we are then expected to act as new creations in Christ.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Many have gotten to the cross and have known the despair and the heartbreak of the cross. After all, many can identify to some extent with the crucified Christ because they themselves have felt beaten, torn and tattered by life, by those who were supposed to care for them, by circumstances, and some would even say, by God. The sad thing is, while we stand gathered around the cross, far too few have moved beyond the cross to find the real message of Easter. What is the message of Easter? It is the message of the empty tomb. The empty tomb which is the new dawn of hope, the new dawn of life, the new dawn of human destiny, the message of resurrection found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke 24:36-48
Palm Sunday is the official invitation of God to participate in his redemption plan. In the gospels, up until this time, Jesus kept his identity under wraps because his time had not yet come but now, he is revealed. Palm Sunday is the invitation to hope for something glorious. New life, born again, raised from the grave of death and despair into the glorious expectation of eternal life.
Luke 19:29-40
What is the church? For today’s purposes it is important to understand that from the perspective of our leadership, and which is widely held in general, the church is not a building, it is not the workings of an institution, instead it is the people. An “Ecclesia” is a group of people called out from the population in general for a specific task or purpose. In the original usage it could mean anything from a political purpose, social purpose and so on. This is the word in the New Testament used to describe what we call the church. We are a people, called out from the mass of humanity by Christ, to fulfill the mission of Taking the Gospel to the Nations and Making Disciples of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 28:18-20Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
So often people struggle with how to apply their faith in everyday life. In the letter to Philemon, we have an example of how Paul’s belief system affects his actions in a way which runs counter to the expectations of the world around him. I find this to be particularly enlightening, especially over the years as a pastor, when people ask for advice. So, what do we see in this letter?
Pilemon 1:8-9 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love.
As I was thinking about the sermon today, I thought an interesting idea would be to pick some verses which talk about things that are “new”. I was going to relate this to the idea that Jesus, the Messiah, the Word made flesh came to us, was “incarnated” as a new life – A baby. God could have chosen to reveal himself in any way he wanted and the way he chose was to start at the beginning, to come as a newborn child into his creation. I started at Genesis and went from there and I found something unexpected.
1 Peter 1:3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Sermon by Meinhard Keppner
Malachi 3:10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty,"and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
As we continued through Malachi, the passage we are covering is one which deals with the coming of the Messiah. It is not the second coming they were focusing on (which we tend to focus on) but the first coming – or the first “advent”. However, there are several similarities to the expectation of God’s people as they prepare for the coming Messiah be it the first or second advent, which we will look at today.
Malachi 3:1 See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.
What is a priest? In a very short definition, a priest is a person who is able to bring God and people together. Historically, and across cultures and religions, priest do this through various means – rituals which commonly engage the senses, sacred stories, a worldview which places the individual into a greater context, definitions of societal structures like family, and so on. This is across all religions. Malachi describes the priestly role at its best when he says, 7"For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction-- because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.What does it mean when we talk about “the Priesthood of the Believer?” How does Malachi’s message to the priesthood of his day resonate with the Priesthood of the Believer in Christ?
Malachi 2:7 "For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction-- because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.
Today we are starting a series which will take us through the book of Malachi, which in your Bibles is the last book in the Old Testament.
In this book God is dealing with a nation that is acting like a surly, pouting teenager who feels that God (Dad) is being unfair and not meeting their expectations.
Malachi is classed in the “minor prophets” because of the size of the book, but what he has to say is anything but minor. Some commentators have described the book of Malachi as “good news with a divine edge”.
Malachi 1:2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?'
Most of us have heard the saying, “Give credit where credit is due.” What that means is we should be willing to acknowledge legitimate claims to achievement and respect. When it comes to God, one of the questions we as creation have asked, and have been asking for all time is, “what is God’s due?” What claim does God have on me, my possessions, my life, and my family? What is God’s due?
Malachi 1:11 My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty.
We call this Sunday “Cultural Sunday”. It is not a “worship” of culture, and we are not celebrating diversity for the sake of diversity. We are celebrating the unique way God has chosen to shape and form IBCD over the years into who she is today, which is a unique place unlike any other many of us have ever been part of, and will unlikely be part of again. This particular body of Christ is unique, and we are thankfully acknowledging the beauty of it, the difficulties of it, and the way being part of IBCD can challenge and change lives.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Last week we talked a bit about what to expect leading up to the second coming of Christ. Today we will be looking at some expectations upon the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the defining moment for Christianity, and as far as Christianity is concerned, for the world. Jesus is the model of how we are going to live upon our own resurrection and eternal life.
When we think about faith, we usually think of Hebrews 11:1-2 which says: Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. When we read this from our perspective in 2021, we are and have been for a couple of thousand years on the side of the Cross where Jesus is understood by Christians as the Messiah who has already made open the way of forgiveness and eternal hope. But how did people, specifically the Jewish people, understand faith before the Cross? Today we are going to walk through Isaiah chapter 40, which has within it several verses which are well known either because they are referred to again in the Gospels, particularly around the birth and life of Jesus, as well as many verses which are well known within their context of Isaiah. From this chapter, we can learn a bit more about what faith is supposed to be.
Why do people generally like rules in our religion? Because if we keep the rules we feel like we are validated in our faith. We feel like we are one the side of right. People will sacrifice a lot – be it money, or time, or even safety to go on a pilgrimage in order to feel like they are validated in their faith. It is the trust they put in the rules which gives them the feeling a validation. If the rules did not mean anything, then keeping them would not mean anything. For many people, placing trust in the effectiveness of the rules and meaning of the rules is what faith is to them.
Matthew 19:24-25 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
As we continue through the Gospel of Matthew we come to a section today which has been the cause of a lot of confusion over the years. Like many passages in the Bible, it has often been broken up into pieces and we are more familiar with understanding the pieces than we are with the whole. There are very deep and good lessons in the pieces, but the problem is when we look only at the pieces or teach only on the pieces it obscures the whole. The pieces, each essential, make up a larger whole. That whole today we are looking at is the coming Kingdom of God.
Matthew 16:28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
God's love is unconditional - he loved us even while we were still sinners. But there are 3 areas where are told that we get only as much as we give - judgment, mercy and forgiveness. However, we sometimes act as if these conditions do not apply to us, giving one thing while expecting another in return. Today we examine what the Bible has to say about judgment, both in view of God's judgment toward us and our judgment of others.
Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Today we celebrate Palm Sunday. This is a celebration of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem (sometimes called "The Triumphant Entry") the week before he was crucified. One would hope that by this time his followers would understand the importance of the upcoming week and the trials Jesus would face, but they did not. Instead they were more focused on themselves. Sound familiar?
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Hosanna in the highest!" - Matthew 21:9
“Reward” is not based on title or role. Those who support the prophet are given the prophet’s reward. Those who support the righteous man are given the righteous man’s reward. In other words, those who are supporting the one out in front are worthy of the same reward. They are a team, and they succeed or fail as a team.
The Apostle Paul seemed to understand this, and so he understood the church as a body, each part important and supporting the whole. Some parts are more prominent than others, but none is more important than the other.
Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. -Mathew 10:41