Sunday School 8/14/22

The Church Builds Bridges

Graves into Gardens

Goodness of God

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Have you ever thought about how weird languages are?

What do you call those bugs that light up outside on a summer night?

Fireflies or Lightning bugs?

What do you call those clothes you put on at night right before you get in bed?

Pajamas or Puhjahmuhs

What do you call that pie that is delicious that has a nut in it. It grows on a tree and falls off. They are also really good in brownies?

Pecans

What do you call the shoes you wear when you are going to play an activity outside or just wear around?

Tennis shoes, athletic shoes, sneakers?

What do you call those massive trucks on the interstates that have a lot of wheels and pull trailers full of stuff?

Tractor trailer, semi, eighteen wheeler?

Do you realize language matters?

The gospel itself is important. period… But if you were to share the gospel with someone who isn’t from your same culture, you have to define your terms!

You might tell someone Jesus died for you!

And they might say? Who or what is a Jesus?

Or Jesus died for me? NO! That’s a lie, Jesus lives right down the street.

Illustration:

There’s a place I want to take our high schoolers too next summer called Wyumi.

It’s in Pennsylvania and they train you in Missions and how to be a missionary.

One thing you may never think about is cultural things!

How to hunt and kill an animal. Not only that, but preparing it. You know missionaries have to do this in other parts of the world to survive?

Well, when they talk to people and try to learn a new language, it’s important that missionaries LEARN THE LANGUAGE! well before they try to share the gospel.

WHy?

Well, one thing I learned at Wyumi is that a missionary lady went to at tribal people in south america. She shared the gospel with them…

Years later, a missions organization sent a missionary family there who took the time to learn the language.

What they learned was that lady basically took genesis 1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

And instead she translated it as, “One month ago, God created the heavens and the earth, and I was there.”

Now… That’s a massive difference in meaning!

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The point this morning is that to share the gospel with people sometimes, often times, requires that we get to know people on a human level!

On that relational, human level, there are misunderstandings.

God calls the church to build bridges in order to share the gospel.

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Exegesis

Read Acts 17:16-32

When Paul was in Athens, Greece, He saw the idols that the people had!

He even saw an idol “to an unknown god.” (vs 23)

Could Paul just walk in there and say, “God loves you and die on the cross for you, rose again, and is coming back again one day?” No…

Why not?

Because this was an addition culture. Let’s add gods to the ones we worship.

Paul’s god would be an addition to all their other gods.

Paul had to help the Athenians learn, there is only one True God!

“the way the truth and the life.”

John 14:6 “6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He then goes on to say, God is not able to be fashioned by human hands.

You can’t make an image of God (vs. 29)

He then shares the gospel with them in vs. 31 and 32.

Then some accept it and some reject it.

But here’s the point this morning.

In order to successfully share the gospel with someone, we have to build a bridge to help them understand what we are actually saying.

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What are some things now days that might be really weird for people 500 years from now to understand about our culture?

What might be hard to understand about social media?

“I just posted a picture on my wall” - How might that be misinterpreted?

“I just shared a reel with you.” - How might that be misinterpreted?

What are some other examples you could think of?

Just like people reading about our culture 500 years from now might require some context, such as: Hey they had this thing called “social media” back then… and here’s what that was.

We also need to learn other people’s cultures in order to share the gospel with them.

Why?

Because not everyone lives you like you do, talks like you do, watches the same things you do.

And so we need to be sure that if we share the gospel with someone, they are actually understanding what we are saying.

Paul reminds the people of Athens.

God is not an idol (17:24,29)

He does not need us (Acts 17:25)

He made us (17:26)

He wants us to know Him (17:27)

That’s important stuff everyone needs to know!

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ILLUSTRATION

In 2008 I went on a mission trip to Peru.

What was very interesting is that people were very accepting of Jesus there.

If you asked “how many of you want to be saved and accept Jesus” Everyone would raise their hand.

WHy?

Because they were like the people of Athens. They thought you were just adding Jesus to your list of gods you worship.

That was why it was so important to teach them… Jesus is to be worshipped exclusively.

He is the way the truth and the life and NO ONE comes to the father but by HIM!

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So we would teach in ways to build bridges…

Building bridges seeks to understand other cultures and bridge the gap to your culture.

Find Common Ground

You want mutual understanding.

Once you have that, you can share the gospel!

Even in the United States, again, we need to understand people’s backgrounds, their assumptions, what their beliefs are founded on.

2. Understand what other people believe.

If someone hates their dad because of their past, will they be receptive of God as their “heavenly Father”?

Probably not… but it’s still true that God wants to be their father.

So how do we get them there?

3. Build a bridge with someone moving them from the common ground to the Gospel!

We build a bridge… We help define how our heavenly father who is perfect is different from our earthly fathers who are not…

What if someone has had a bad life and thinks God doesn’t care about them?

vs. 23

We help remind them, God wants to be known.

Even the Athenians had an idol to the unknown god…

But our God wants to be known…

He has given us His Word (the Bible) and he makes himself accessible through prayer!

The Point is, find common ground to help them understand!

If someone doesn’t think God cares about them… remind them how much he does!

4. Finally, We need to seek empathy.

Sympathy is feeling bad for someone in their circumstances or situations.

Empathy is understanding how someone feels because you’ve been through that situation too…

Now even if you haven’t been through a situation, we can think empathetically and not just sympathetically.

We can all empathize with sin! We can all empathize that we need redemption for our sin!

Guess what, Someone may have worse situations than you, but if we die without Jesus… That’s the worst possible situation!

APPLICATON:

Our culture is a lot like Greece today.

We all have our little gods we worship.

The hard part is understanding for ourselves that God doesn’t want to be a god added to your lie.

He wants to be the God of your life.

Like we talked about last week, salvation is by faith through the grace of God.

It’s important we know for ourselves this grace of God.

When we know it and begin to understand it, we have to share it with others!

For the student in your school who doesn’t have parents, has a rough home life, has lots of insecurities, do you realize you could bring Jesus to that person?

You don’t have all the answers to his questions, but you have the answer to the most important question.

That kid needs Jesus.

For the bully in your school, do you realize he is a bully probably because that violence is an outward display that on the inside he’s a coward, he’s scared.

We have the answer for the bully too.

For all your insecurities and the insecurities of those we interact with every day, we believers carry the only hope for them and for us.

It’s found in the goodness of God and in His grace.

Like we sang this morning, God can make a garden out of a life that seems dead.

And God can use you as the vehicle to see a person go from death to life.

Remember His faithfulness.

2 Timothy 2:11-13 “11 This saying is trustworthy: For if we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”

Even when our own faith struggles, there is God, who is faithful.

Give Him everything you’ve got this school year.

Love him with all your soul, mind, strength, and body.

Remember His faithfulness to you.

Seek empathy with others.

Build relational bridges.

Share the gospel when possible.

watch God work!

It’s going to be a good school year, but way more than the grades, the sports, and the accolades, what if someone came to know Christ this year because God used you...

It just takes one person for God to change a culture.

Ask Paul, ask Jonah, ask Jesus himself!

Why not you?