Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Sermon Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina.

We'll be right back. to preach what God lays on my heart through His Word, but I have no authority. God has the authority here, and sometimes God takes over what I might have intended, and He speaks to His people, and I am fine whenever He does that. It's hard on me sometimes because it sometimes comes across a little more stern or mean than I intended because I struggle with so many things in my life as an individual, and I wouldn't give you a plug-nickel for any pastor that says different.

We all struggle. We all have things in our life, and so to me when I'm preaching to dear, precious people that are faithful and I don't want to get on them, I don't ever want it to look like I'm preaching at them or getting on them for anything, I've got my own issues. The only thing I want to do is I just want to obey God. So don't ever think that, you know, Brother Daniels is getting up here and letting us have it.

It couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, I let myself have it more than any other person in my life, except my wife. But other than that, just about no one else lets me have it more than I do. And so, you know, tonight I want you to receive this with a heart of acceptance and submission to what God would have us to learn. Verse 7 literally gave us a principle that sometimes that you can have so much of something and be so blessed that you literally take it for granted.

You don't even find enjoyment in it anymore. And then now you can't find enjoyment in something that's good because you're just so over-sensitized and you've created an appetite for something so different that even when God gives you something good, you can't enjoy it. And the principle of verse 7 is exactly what creates the scenario here in verse 8. Now notice what it says. It says it gives us an illustration of a bird that wandereth from her nest. Now what's interesting here is this word wandereth. We're going to talk about it a little bit later, but we also understand that when you have a nest and it says her, it says as a bird when it leaves her nest, but then it says so is a man that leaveth his place. But the understanding here is that here's mama bird and here she is in this nest.

And there has to be a time where she leaves the nest to many times get food, get worms, get nourishment for the babies in that nest. But when it says here wandereth, it doesn't mean that it leaves for a purpose and comes back. This wandereth means that there is no purpose.

There is no intention to come back is what it's basically saying. And it's saying just like that is a man that wandereth from his place. Interesting that oftentimes often what makes us wander from our place is that we are no longer content with our place, which is what verse seven was speaking of. Now I want to dig into this if I can in a couple of ways because we really got to understand what a nest is and why this is used as this illustration in this verse. A nest is a bird's place. It's where it belongs.

I want you to notice first tonight, just a couple of things I want to give you. First a nest is a place of safety. Bird has gone to great lengths to build a nest out of twigs and everything else and many of you have seen birds nest in different things and different kind of birds make different kind of nests often and bigger birds make bigger nests.

We could go on and on about that. But it is first created so that they can have shelter in safety. A nest isn't built on the ground so that birds and baby birds are easy prey. They're obviously built in the trees and different things and so a nest is a place of safety. It represents a place where those little birds, those baby birds, those young birds, plus that mama bird and even a dad bird that might be in there that there is a place of safety there. They can shelter from not just storm and inclement weather and different things but it also is a place of safety from predators.

God has designed it that way. It's a place of safety. And may I say this, when a bird wanders from its nest and it leaves, it literally leaves safety.

It leaves itself now exposed. There's safety in that nest. But when a bird wanders off and leaves where his place is and begins to just wander off aimlessly, that bird has now exposed itself to danger from other animals, danger from weather. Now all of a sudden they don't have that nest to go to and they don't have that safety built around it.

It's a place of safety. Number two, a nest is a place of responsibility. You see there's a purpose for every bird in that nest. There's a responsibility for a bird to make, you know, go and get the worms and go and get the food. There's a responsibility of young birds to stay in that nest and obey Mama Bird and to watch, and to watch what Mama does so that that baby will learn how to do what it takes to survive and all those different things. Everybody in that nest has a responsibility. And may I say this, when God gives us a place in life and God puts you in a place and God gives you a role of responsibility in your life, it's a place of responsibility.

It means that God puts you there because there's something He wants you to do and of all the people in the world He wants you to do it and He wants you to be faithful to it. But when a bird leaves and wanders away from that nest, the responsibility that bird has now, there's no one to take care of that responsibility and it leaves that responsibility to whoever is left in that nest and they might not be able to handle the responsibility that is left. It's a place of responsibility. Sometimes we get to the point that we don't like the responsibility in our place.

We can begin to feel sorry for ourselves and think, well I've got more responsibility than anybody else and I'm tired of this responsibility. I've seen it happen to husbands, I've seen it happen to wives. The husbands begin to think, you know, all I do is go out and try to make money and pay bills and everybody always has their hand open, give me money, I need money dad, I need money this, hey I need money for this, I need money to buy this, I need money to buy this and that's all dad is, is basically an ATM machine that everybody comes to when they need something. Some of you dads, your hearts beating a little bit faster right now, you're thankful that the pastor is finally dealing with this and hopefully conviction will settle over the audience. And then the wives that are sitting there with you think that's the most absolute most absurd thing they've ever heard in their life.

You think he has it rough? You try doing 40 loads of laundry during the week and you try to have to make all these meals and go to the grocery store and do this and run the kids here and run the kids there and plus many wives obviously working a job too and doing different things and sometimes in our place, in our nest, we can become tired of the responsibility. The problem is, when you leave that place, you now have left a responsibility that nobody's there to perform. I want you to notice thirdly, the nest is a place of provision. You know everything those birds need is in that nest.

Sometimes momma bird or daddy bird might make sure and they go out and they get what's needed but that nest was provided so that those baby birds could be there and whatever is needed is brought to them. And God has given us a place in our life, a place of responsibility, what we would call God's will and you know what God's will for me is that I pastor Kerwin Baptist Church at least obviously for now and whatever God wants in the future. God's will for you might be you working at a particular company or you working at a particular job and God's place for you might be that you've married so and so or that you've married this person and God's place for you might be that He's given children to your home and you have a responsibility to your home and all those different things and God gave you a place and in order for that we ought to understand that that place was given so that we could have our provision, that we have what we need, and we shouldn't have to continually leave our place to get what we want. Let me put it this way, a husband shouldn't have to wander off from a marriage to get what he needs.

A wife shouldn't have to wander off from her marriage to find provision. God's designed the home. He even designed marriage after relationship between Him and the church. He loved the church so much that He died for it. He gave it everything He had. And a man that leaves his place is like a bird that wanders off from the nest.

Now there's no provision. And what it often means is that the provision that God gave just wasn't enough for that person. May I say this, that a nest is also a place of teaching. You see what goes on in that nest is that there are young birds there and they need to learn how to live life because momma bird and dad bird might not be around forever.

A lot of things can happen. I remember as a kid I was all excited to get my first BB gun rifle and my dad just shot for the stars. It didn't start with, you know, the little whatever thing. It started with a pellet gun. And so my one rule was you shoot out a window, I tear your hind end up. That's what he said.

So no windows. And my dad said, don't you dare shoot at a bird. But birds are such tempting targets because you sit in front of a house and you got nothing really to shoot at. There's windows everywhere but I can't shoot at those. But man you see these little birds up and down.

I'll never forget in Rapid City, South Dakota. I had my gun and I was, dad was working at the church, we had a preacher boy ministry, we were taking preacher boys out in the summer and I was shooting at little paper targets that dad had given me. But I grew tired of his provision. I wanted more of a challenge. And sure enough, oh across the way, good ways away was a power line and there was a bird sitting on it.

And I thought, you know, there is no way. So it's not going to hurt. And if I did hit it, that would be so impressive who would care. First shot. I hit that bird. I'll never forget going up to it.

I'm 50 years old now. And I still remember the sight of that bird laying there. You say, well that's just absolutely ridiculous. Well I had to go tell my dad. He said, oh you didn't have to.

Yeah I did. My mom and dad had a way of finding out everything. My dad said show me where it's at. So I was all cowered and humbled and penitent and took him out that bird and my dad said Daniel, somewhere there's a nest. It's got baby birds. And now they're stuck.

There's nobody to care for them because you decided to disobey what I said. How would you like it if your mom and I just packed up tonight, left in the middle of the night, got in our car and just left you here? How would you like that Daniel?

Do you think that would be great? How would you eat? How would you get anywhere? Who's going to pay for your clothes? Who's going to pay for whatever? You know what, you don't have to worry about that.

You know why? Because we're taking care of you. And this bird was taking care of her kids and you decided to kill it. Man I'm boo hooing.

Then dad took me into the trailer and I really started boo hooing. A lot of things can happen when you leave the nest. Nest is a place of teaching. You've got to understand sometimes the place where you're at and the place that maybe God's given you can get tough and it can get rough and it can get lonely.

And you can begin to feel a bit overwhelmed, underappreciated, and this isn't at all what you had envisioned in your life. But that nest is the place of teaching. And you're teaching your children. You're teaching them by your actions. And when mom or dad have to constantly wander off to be satisfied. You're telling those kids that hey, whatever God provides is not enough.

You need to take matters into your own hands. May I say next that a nest is a place of accountability. He's going to tell you something, Mama Bird doesn't show up in that nest where she notices every baby bird in that nest. And if there's one missing, Mama Bird's not going to say, oh well. You see everybody has a job, everybody has a purpose, everybody has a place. And that nest is a place of accountability.

And God has given animals this natural ability to take on their responsibility, to take on their role, to just do what they're made to do and what they should do. Can I ask you something tonight? Are you wondering? Are you drifting away from your place? I want to give you a statement and if you have a piece of paper, you ought to write this down somewhere.

Please get a hold of this. Restlessness is a recipe for recklessness. Restlessness is a recipe for recklessness.

Wandering, it's amazing that it uses the word here because wandering can happen gradually. You often drift with your mind before you ever drift with your body. We get to the point that we focus on all the things we don't like about the situation or the place that we're in in our life and we can begin to think that things would be better in a different place. We begin to think things would be better if we had a different place. And we can get to the point that we don't necessarily enjoy and like the place that God has given us for now.

But I'm here to tell you that when you wander off from that place, you're making a big mistake. We can begin to think things are more exciting outside of the nest than it is in the nest. We can begin to become complacent about our nest. We can become discontent with our nest, bored with our nest, ungrateful for our nest.

We can begin to want a bigger nest and a better nest and maybe a more satisfying nest. So I want to ask you tonight, where is your place? Where has God put you? What role has God put you in in your life? What responsibility has God given you? You say well I don't know if this is where I'm always gonna be. God might not have you there yet, but I am saying where you are now, you ought to know where God wants you now. To what has God called you? Do you know where God has placed you or where God is directing you and has He made it clear what He wants you to do? And even if you don't have it all figured out, do what you know to do now. If you're a teenager here and you say I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life, you're right. But God said while you're in the house you're in now, obey your mom and dad.

Honor them. David had a place in battle. He was the king. But he decided not to be in his place. And he stayed back at the castle and took it easy and saw a woman bathing in the house across the way and sent someone, brought her in, did that which is wrong. She conceived a baby that was his.

He had her husband murdered just to try to hide it and nothing was hit. All because David wandered away from his place. I thought about Samson. Samson had a place.

It was called a Nazarite vow. God had given him special strength. God had given Samson special favor. He had made a commitment to Samson and Samson had made a commitment to God. But he left his place. He wandered away from his nest for a woman named Delilah. And that started a chain of events that ended with Samson pushing pillars out from under this large temple building and literally killing him and those around him.

What great potential, but he just couldn't stay in his place. I thought about Lot. Lot was fortunate that Abraham took him in. Lot's dad had died and Abraham took him in even though God said he didn't.

Don't take any family with you. Abraham took Lot and then they get to the Jordan Valley and Abraham lets him choose whatever land you want. And Lot chose the beautiful land, the best land, the most blessed part of that land.

Lot says, I want this. And the Jordan Valley was Lot's place, but he couldn't stay in his place. Wasn't enough for him. He had to keep looking over towards Sodom. And before long he's at the gate of Sodom and before long he's with the people of Sodom and before long he is even in leadership in Sodom and it ends with he and his family running for their lives and his wife turning around for one last look of the place they should have never been.

She turned to salt. May I say something? You have a place here in this church. You have a place in your marriage. See what is and what I thought, well it's your place now. You have a place in the home.

You have a place in your work, in your career, even in your friendships. Stay there. Quit trying to wander away from your place. Quit being so discontent with the nest God has placed you in.

Don't be prone to moving all the time, hopping here and there, never content with where you are. Always something better on the other side of the fence. If you leave that nest you're gonna forfeit safety. You're gonna fail on your responsibility. You're gonna forget your family. You're gonna be blinded by sin. You're gonna hurt others in the process.

You're gonna hurt your own family in the process and you will hurt yourself in the process and you will end up regretting it. You will find out it wasn't as great outside of your place as you thought. You know what you're gonna find? That you don't fit in another place like you thought you would. No matter the trial, the test, the trouble, remember restlessness is a recipe for recklessness. You can't keep jumping from place to place. Stay in your place. It's where you belong. Now I'm not naive. I'm preaching to teenagers here tonight but I'm preaching to men, women, I'm preaching to husbands, to wives, and I know how it goes.

I know how the stages in life change. I know that in the book of, in my mind right now, Colossians or Galatians, I know in my mind God put a little tidbit, said husbands love your wives and don't be bitter against them. Where did that come from?

It's not said anywhere else in Scripture. You know husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it but all of a sudden randomly it says husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them and God's saying you gotta watch out because I'm gonna tell you something, husbands, there's gonna come a time in life that you're gonna almost feel bitter against your family because all of a sudden you're gonna stop and think what about me? Cause you have kids in the home, guess where mom's attention goes? It goes to the kids. And then the kids finally are out and you think you're gonna get some attention and one of those kids has grandkids.

And you go even further back than you were. You've worked your whole life, handed out money to everybody in the family, provided everything but they hugged mom at Christmas. And all of a sudden the husband needs attention, he wants to be first, he wants to be a priority for once in life and husbands can become very bitter, I've seen it happen. That's why all of a sudden people say you know I heard about so and so, they've been married 30 years and all of a sudden end up divorced.

Oh I can tell you exactly what happened. The husband finally had enough. I can give you other scenarios where the wife finally has enough. She stayed to get those kids raised and get them somewhere but bless God she's not putting up with being treated like a dog anymore. Let me tell you something, I have been there and I have done that but I am here to tell you this, Satan is gonna convince you about things in your nest and in your place and remember this verse.

From what I can tell in this verse, I've got two things I want to give you tonight and we're done. Number one, every person has a place. Every person has a place. You might be sitting there not me, I don't have a husband, I don't have a wife, I don't. You don't have to have a husband or a wife or kids to have a place. Let me tell you something, in fact the Bible says that if you can live and be free of a husband or a wife and children, you have more of your life to give to God.

And the Bible says that if you can hack that and live pure and stay that way, that that's one of the best ways to live because you can serve God without bearing the responsibility for others. So I'm tired of this excuse why I don't have a family, I don't have a place. Yes you do, you have a greater place.

Everybody has a place. It might not be what you imagined, it might not be what you thought, and it might not be what our... The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know Him personally.

Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3 23 says, for all of sin and come short of the glory of God, no matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven. Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior.

Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5 8, but God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your Savior. Romans 10 9 says, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way and calling upon His name. Bible says whosoever, that's anyone, can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at carwinbaptistchurch.com or visit us at person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.