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This is Christian Andresen, and I love Christian Andresen. I love Christian because he has been loved by God. I love Christian that he has been faithful to his wife and children. But I especially love Christian.
We haven't done this for about a year. Because God has placed him in a critical spot in Europe for the gospel. When it comes to the gospel in Germany and all across Europe, a Christian is really at the key spot for training other men for the gospel.
And he brings over the MacArthur's and the Devers, and he is committed to train men according to 2 Timothy 2, verse 2, for the glory of God in Europe. So he's back in the states with his wife Cheryl. And he is doing some studies at the Masters College.
He's already graduated from the Masters Seminary. And I am really glad that you can meet him so you can understand what's going on in Europe. At the church we support ministries, we support missionaries that mirror what we do here.
And that is training the next generation of men and women for the gospel. So I'm really glad Christian is here and he's going to preach the word to you today. He's going to preach in German.
I will preach in English. And I was going to translate. Oh yes. I'm sitting down.
It's amazing how our hearts can be knit together with people across the world through the gospel. You want me to translate? And as you get to know the Andresans, I think you'll see that's true with them as well.
So Christian, this didn't count against your time or anything like that. Anyway, we don't clap a lot at this church. But let's just welcome Christian and Cheryl here to our church.
Well, I know this is not for us. This is for the Lord. And I'm thankful that I'm here and my wife can be here. We had a great time yesterday. Visiting Boston and seeing a little bit of the history of America, some glimpses of it.
I know there's so much more to say and to learn. But I'm here really because there's a common share we have. It's the ministry Christ has given us and the gospel ministry Christ has given us. If it's here or if it's in Germany and Berlin or Switzerland, it doesn't matter.
It's the same all over. There are some challenges that might be unique but not really unique in the sense of, as the Bible says, there's nothing new under the sun. I want to really share with you a little bit from my heart.
We will go into the scripture and look at a short passage together. But I want to just also focus about why we train men for the ministry. What is our goal there? The aim of our teaching. What is it? One of our greatest challenge in ministry of training young men for the ministry is not so much to teach them the content of the Bible.
I mean, we can't do that. But to lead them to the right attitude towards Christ in the ministry. That has obviously to do with the content of the Bible, but it's more that aspect of how we change and bring them to the right attitude.
Often the most gifted men and the most knowledgeable men are the greatest challenge to guide them from where they are to where they should be. For instance, we had a guy, a reporter, Marcus is his name, and he had a great ability to formulate everything he wanted to say also from the scripture.
But I was very doubtful always how his heart worked. Does he really mean what he says when he said it? Is it really deep conviction? And you can't question. I can't look into the heart. God used some external means in his family to change his heart totally around.
He had a handicapped child which died after a year and a half of fighting with his wife for their life. But only that really changed him. He knew the truth, and we guided him and helped him. And he's actually coming back, I think, this month to preach a few more sermons, which he was lacking to preach.
There was another pastor in a city, Johann is his name, and he has a small church. And I also was doubtful he was already a pastor and his church was going well. And so we didn't know really if the message and what we taught them really reached his heart.
And so we were very concerned. And when he left the training, there were still some questions. But then over the last years, we have seen a transformation. The truth has grabbed his heart, and the church is moving in the right direction.
Another young man from Switzerland, he's well loved, a young man loved by all people. But because he's loved by everybody and because he's doing so well, very often he doesn't take it so serious what he's preaching.
He knows he can communicate well, but somehow there's something missing. They do not see themselves as what they are in the eyes of Christ very often. And I think we do the same thing sometimes. Yes, we are Christians.
We sit here every Sunday, and you probably are, and I do the same in Germany, and others are doing it around the world. But do we know really how Christ sees us and what we're supposed to be? Men belong to Christ for one purpose, to live and preach Christ in our ministry.
That's the way it should be. The purpose is so for us too, our objective in life needs to be the same that of Paul when he says to proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord and yourself and ourselves as slaves in order that you glorify Christ with your life.
It's easy to say he's Lord. It's another thing to say I'm slave to his lordship and to proclaim him for his glory. Christ is Lord, self is slave, salvation through servant heart, transformation. One message with a dual application.
Let's open up the Bible to 2 Corinthians 4, verses 5 and 6. It's a passage which I usually sign my letters with when I'm writing to men who are working with me because I want them to keep in mind where we are called for.
Let me, while you're opening your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4, verses 5 to 6, I just want to remind ourselves of the crucial truth here. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your bondservant for Jesus' sake.
For God who said light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Short passage but very significant, very significant.
So our purpose is to preach Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as bondservants to the glory of Christ, to the glory of God. There's one message with a dual application. For we do not preach, he said, but we do preach Christ.
We proclaim him, we proclaim him publicly through the message Paul has given here to the Corinthians, which were a church which questioned his role as an apostle or even an elder and questioned his message even if he did it out of selfishness or for the purpose of really glorifying Christ.
But it was not a hidden message. What he preached was open. It was heard by all the people. That's why he said, I proclaim it. He had no hidden motives. What he said, that's what he meant. His plan was to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
But the question is still, why preaching? Why preaching? Why not a dialogue? Why can't we talk about it? Why not discuss through a good chat on exchanging of good ideas? You may think that is a silly question.
Of course, it is a silly question. But it's not that way in Germany. Many people don't want to be preached at anymore. They don't want to have the traditional worship service. And I think that's very much the same here in the States.
They say to themselves, I don't want to be preached at. They don't want to be understood. They want to be listened to rather than to listen to somebody else. They want to have exchanged their views, their ideas.
They think it's an audacity basically to someone to think he alone has the truth. How can he say that? The trend among the Christians also in Germany, and I think it's here no different, is more living room atmosphere where we can talk about engaging topics.
And I think that is something what we encounter. Even the good churches where Christ is preached, people want to hear it. But do they really want to do what they hear? That's the question. When they hear the preached message, do they really want to do what they hear?
Do you want to do and follow that what's preached on a Sunday? Or is it only like this in Berlin where we preach a passage and next Sunday or the Sunday afterwards you come back and say, somehow, I don't know, it's still the same thing.
There's no change in the people. They seem to listen. They come back. But what is the follow-up on that? Is their life changing? I want to sometimes come back on a Sunday after a month or so and preach the same sermon again and ask the question, so how are you doing?
What is going on? What have you done about it? What will you do about it? I'd like to see everyone maybe for next week in my office for 15 minutes and we talk, you know, what your plan is. Tell me what the Spirit did in your life.
Maybe the elders. I ask the other elders, come on. Everybody comes to our office next week. I'm not saying that nobody is responding to it, but do we take the word for what it really is? It's Christ who's proclaimed.
Sure, we can talk about interesting topics and we can share our thoughts regarding the truth, but first and foremost, we need to listen to Christ. We need to listen to Christ. Not even Paul or not even me or other preachers.
We need to listen to the message the preacher proclaims of Christ. It is not about me, therefore, and also it is not about suggestion of what I think is good. It is really we proclaim Christ and God like that.
There's a picture which is actually in your office, Pastor Mike, where Luther is preaching in Wittenberg. And when you see the picture, you stand in front of it and you say it's kind of odd because in front of Luther is a cross with Jesus Christ on it and behind the cross is a congregation.
So when the congregation listens, what do they see? They see the cross and Christ. And when Luther preaches, he preaches Christ. They don't see Luther. That was his intensive. He didn't want to be seen as replacing Christ but representing Christ.
Paul said to the Galatians, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block for the Jews, a folly to the Gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 2, he said, It's interesting. It's not about him at all. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaim among you, Silvanus and Timothy, and I was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes.
For we are not like the many peddling the word of God, but as a man of sincerity and as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. Romans 10, 17, so faith comes from the hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.
Paul preached Christ from whom he received also his call for the ministry. This is the context where we are in. Paul was duty-bound. He was nothing more and nothing less than the voice of Christ, and that's what we try to teach the man in Berlin.
That's what we should pose to be. Christians are not anything like little Christs, and that's what my name is. I was born a Christian by name, but when I found out that I was supposed to be a little Christ, I was very thankful that that's a good reminder to me.
Whenever I write my name, I'm supposed to be like a little Christ. Not that I'm Christ. No way. But I should represent him. Therefore, he says, Paul says to the Corinthians, therefore, since we have this ministry as we receive mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
And later on he says in the same passage, the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is in the image of God, so he is proclaiming Christ. Our responsibility is to proclaim Christ, and that is only done by saying what he says and by doing what he does.
It is not a new message. There's nothing new under the sun. It is Christ's message and not our message. Paul, in this passage, calls the gospel ministry, is called to the gospel ministry. It sounds very simple and logic.
Why not? Since Christ paid for his and our redemption by his death on the cross, it is totally logic. Why should he not represent the gospel to other people? We should naturally serve him and live a life he lived, live as Christ lived.
That would be just natural when we think about our being a repentance. Paul does not only say that he preached Christ, Jesus, but he was saying also he preached Christ as Lord at Kurios, the supreme one.
It is found 748 times in the New Testament alone as Lord. It is a dominating description of Christ. So when he preached the gospel, he preached him as Lord. So what Paul is saying when he writes to confess Christ as Lord, what is he saying by that?
Have you ever thought what it means that Christ is Lord? I know that Lordship is a big theme and topic, but what are we really saying when we mean Jesus Christ as Lord in our life? I want to give you eight points.
I tried to make it short, and I know I have just 45 minutes, but I'm on California time, so it's an extra three hours I get here. So I heard we have lunch, right? Good. I just wanted to add eight points.
When we talk about Jesus Christ as Lord, we imply that Christ is no other than the Jesus Christ of history. And he's in Acts 2, 34 to 36, that is written about him. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So this is what we talk when we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord, and he is risen, and he has all power we can only imagine.
We acknowledge him as deity. Thomas said to himself and answered Jesus Christ, My Lord and my God. He confessed him as God. We are admitting that the Lord's personal rights are absolutely supreme in the universe, in the church, and in our individual lives.
He has absolute supremacy. In 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6, he says, Yet for us there is one God, the Father from whom are all things, and for whom we exist. And one Lord, Jesus Christ, to whom are all things, and through whom we exist.
We also affirm the triumph of Christ over death, the hostile cosmic powers when God raised him from the dead. We said that he has overcome death. We also affirm like that that our hope is in the resurrection of Christ.
Know that he who raised the Lord Jesus Christ will also raise us with Jesus and bring us with you into the presence of God. We also affirm that Christ is personified in every Christian message and defined basically by Christians.
That means, as I mentioned already, we are seen as little Christ and as such say that he is our Lord. We declare our accountability to the Lord, that he is a righteous judge. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is a judge, the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom.
So we are declaring our accountability to Jesus Christ as Lord. We make him publicly, we declare him publicly, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. We are declaring him. But also what we do, we renounce our former allegiance to pagan lords and affirm our loyalty to the Lord through whom we exist.
In 1 Corinthians 8, verses 5 to 6, Paul says the following, for also there were maybe a so-called God in heaven or on earth, and as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom all things exist.
As Christ is the root for which the saints grow, so is he the rule of which other saints walk. Augustine Hippo said the following about the lordship of Christ. He values not Christ at all who does not value Christ above all.
The Lord who decadent the tomb has not decadent the throne. He is still on the throne. Martin Luther, I think, said it really good, explained it in a good way when he said, when Jesus Christ utters a word, he opens his mouth so wide that it embraces all heaven and earth, even though that word be but a whisper.
He is still in control. Jesus asks a penetrating question in Luke 6, 46, but why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? And I ask myself the question, why don't I do always the things he says?
Do we? Do we do the things he said? That is exactly what Paul says here. He says, for we do not proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your bondservant for Jesus' sake, for Christ's sake.
What is it what he means by bondservant? He's talking about an attitude of humility and submission. It talks really about being a slave, a person owned as a property by another. And it's a relationship that is bound to the owner, as I mentioned, as a slave.
To confess that Jesus Christ is Lord is to say to another Christian, I am your slave. Slavery to Christ is exhibited in slavery to Christians. Paul described himself elsewhere as slave, slave to Christ.
He even mentioned Timothy and Epaphras as slaves. But this is the only place here where he speaks of himself and his fellow workers as a slave of others, other believers, in the sense that they are unconditionally obligated to serve them.
Because he's saying here, for we preach not ourselves but as bondservants for, as your bondservants, as your slaves for Jesus' sake. He's talking to the Corinthians. We make ourselves, I make myself, Paul, your slave.
Think about it. The Corinthians who have questioned him, his authority, and treated him in an unrespectful way. And here he says, I want to make myself a slave. How can he? Think about yourself as being willing to submit yourself or make yourself a slave, a servant to other Christians who might question you.
Paul would most gladly spend and be utterly spent for the sake of the Corinthians. In chapter 12 of the same book, chapter 12 verse 15, he says the following and where it portrays his attitude towards the Corinthians.
And he says, I will most gladly spend and be expanded for your souls if I love you more and I'm to be loved less, and so on. He envisioned his relationship to Christ and his relation to the fellow Christian as one of slavery.
That is, as unquestioning service for the benefit of the other, as a result of the unconditional and voluntary surrender of his personal rights. I'm willing to give up my rights to serve the others, Christians and believers.
And that's what we look in preachers. That's what we look in the people who we prepare for the ministry in Germany. They probably very often they come with high goals. I'm an elder. I'm a teacher. I'm a preacher.
But what the goal is really to make them servant leaders so that they can, yes, say, preach the word with authority, but at the same time have a totally humble attitude. And we were joking yesterday about it with Pastor Mike.
He said, Christian, you are now here in my area. You know, I give now. I tell you now what to do, not because usually he's in Germany, and I tell him what to do. And I said, I'd gladly do it. And he, well, we enjoyed it tremendously, obviously, the time we had.
But what I'm saying is this should be the attitude, really, that wherever we go, we submit under, and we trust that God knows what's right and what we can deal with and we have to deal with. Too often we have our own plans, and we don't see Christ.
We think we work for Christ, but we work for ourselves and use Christ. In Germany, a slave, we would call him a Leibeigner. It is Leib is body, belonging to an owner who uses it as he wishes. It is his body, so he can use it as he wishes.
You are a Leibeigner. In this case, it is for God's glory and the service of the loving God, so it's something good to do because we know Christ would not do anything what is not to his glory and to the glory and even to the best of your own abilities.
But here, the Leibeigner really says we are part of Christ's body, and he decides what he does with his body, and we are part of it. In this lowly service to others, Paul was following in the footsteps of his Lord who himself had adopted the stature of a rule as a doulas, as a servant.
He himself was a servant. In Romans 6, we read the following, verse 16. Do you not know when you present yourself to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness.
So we want to be servants obedient to righteousness. In Matthew 20, 27, Jesus said, and whoever wishes to be the first among you, he shall be your slave. And why do we do it? For the sake of Christ. There was, however, one important difference between these two relationships, the Corinthians were not the Lord of Paul.
He submitted to them as a slave, but they were not the Lord. And more than that, they were, his service was to them for Jesus' sake, only that Jesus Christ was the Lord. Our true look into the face of Jesus is the most humbling experience possible.
Those who love Christ and are devoted to serving him will be self-effacing, not self-exalting. They submit themselves. They will also be humbly serve God's people. Conversely, those who are proud are not looking into the face of Christ.
If we are proud, we don't look at Christ. We look at ourselves or other people, maybe because we are jealous or because we want to be bigger than others. Their primary concern is with themselves, not with the welfare of God's people.
So if we serve as slaves, we look upon Christ, and we can do it and be focusing on what Christ wants from us. But what is this service for? In verse 6, he says the following,. For God, who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
God's sovereign salvation through the revelation revealed knowledge of the word preached. It is here through his living, giving word of Christ, Paul states that the reason that he preached Christ and was devoted to the Corinthians, it was because God had dispelled the darkness by illuminating the heart and has given the knowledge of Christ into their hearts.
The spirit principle in this is the person who has light is responsible to share this light with others. If we have the light, if you are a Christian, if you are a believer, if you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you ought to give it to the next person and dispel the darkness through the light that is given to you.
First Corinthians 9 .19. Paul says, For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all so that I may win the more. What is he saying? He just doesn't come to your door, knocks at the door and says, Here I am, I work for you.
His slavery is to the gospel of God Christ that he proclaims and does anything in order to reach the people's heart with the gospel. Of course, nothing that is contradictory or sinful, but he will do everything beyond that to help give them the understanding of the gospel of Christ.
And if it means to not be supported by the church and work until night in order to support himself and preach the gospel, it doesn't matter, he did it. God's creative work was also explained here when we read that, that for God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, it looks back to creation.
But God said, let there be light and there was light. Paul is not only depicting the heart as by nature dark through sin, but also implies that the conversion is a replacement of that darkness by light.
The replacement of the darkness by light. And the heart also denotes that we are not, denotes the whole person, not just some part of the person. But it's with a special reference to the relation and we have into our whole being.
So conversion is a flooding of the darkened human heart by divine light. Again, conversion is a flooding of the darkened human heart by divine light. Whereas the God of this age blinds the mind. When we go back to the first few verses of the same chapter, he says that for some the gospel is a light to them, for the others it's the God of this age.
He says in verse four, in whose case is the God of this world has blinded the mind of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
So he says, to one it's a light, it's enlightened them, it brings them to salvation. To others, it really is just a confirmation of that darkness that the Lord of this, in talking about Satan, has darkened their heart and they don't respond to the gospel.
The God of this age shines in the heart. Paul saw it move from the physical creation to the spiritual recreation, from the nature to grace. The God of redemption is none other than God of creation. It is the same God who has shown into our hearts.
But not only is the agent the same, the result of the action is the same. The creation and the diffusion of the light and consequently the dispersion and dispelling of darkness is happening. To illuminate our hearts with the knowledge of God's glory, shining in the face of Christ, means nothing else than the knowledge that produces illumination is nothing other than the knowledge of the gospel.
So as we preach the gospel, we glorify God because it's a means for us, it's a means God has given us to push away the darkness of the heart of the unbeliever. Of course, in the sovereign work of God.
So our goal is to preach Christ, Jesus Christ, as Lord. To make ourselves slaves, whatever that might mean for each individual, in order to preach the gospel to the people that they might be able to be transformed to Christ because the darkness is moved away out of their hearts by the gospel.
Paul is affirming that God's act of shining into human hearts aims at the illumination of those hearts and illumination that arises from the knowing God's glory as it comes in clear focus on Christ's countenance.
1 Peter 1 .19 says it, the following Peter says this, so we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well pay attention as a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
John 8 .12, then Jesus again spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. We have then one message, the gospel of Christ with a dual application to preach Christ as Lord and ourselves as slaves, in German, Leibeigene.
That's a dual message because we proclaim something but we act as people who are owned by Christ and want to preach his word. A known preacher said the following, when we come to Jesus for salvation, we come to the one who is Lord over all.
Any message omitting this truth cannot be called the gospel according to Jesus. If we understand ourselves as slaves of Christ, we will have the right attitude in our service for Christ. Hudson Taylor said, Christ is either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all.
There cannot be a middle ground. And this is exactly what our ministry is in Germany. The ministry is about the gospel ministry ultimately, about saving, bringing people to salvation and proclaiming the word of God through preaching.
It's not a talk, it's not a suggestion. What we do, it's not a living room atmosphere. Even so, it could be nice in a living room. But the point is, we proclaim it because we don't talk about us. We proclaim the message of Christ and we herald it because we are nothing else than, in Germany we would say, a defluster to somebody who is speaking through an amplifier what Christ has put in my ear, in my heart.
Let's pray. In Germany we stand up. Why don't you stand up and we pray together. Lord God, just reading and studying through this passage reminded me how selfish I am sometimes just to consider even what I like to do, even when being in the church, how I like the church to be instead of asking, what do you want me to do?
What do you want your church to be like? How do you want to proclaim the message? How should I make myself more a slave to all? What is in the way of my life that hinders me to be a slave, to be a Leibeigner, to be owned by you, to be your body?
Father, I pray that we ourselves will not go away today, none of us, and think, well, I know this. But nothing changes, Father, that we can really come back next week and share what the Spirit of God has done, how we have made ourselves slaves to others by preaching and proclaiming the Word of God in word and in action, that we portray the character of Christ through our lives.
Lord, I pray that you build this church to be a really lighthouse in this area and goes much beyond the borders, even as it already is shining in Germany, because of their support and help. I pray that it will go much beyond these borders and there will be a duplication of many, many men being trained up to be faithful men who take the baton, put it in their hands, and carry it on to the next one.
Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to have the Word of God in a written form that we can teach and preach it and live by. As Jesus yourself said, that it's not by bread alone we live, but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth.
We ask your guidance and blessing on this church and on our ministry. In Jesus' name, amen.