Sunday – June 30, 2013 “Slavery, Shrimp & the Supreme Court: Did God Get It Wrong?”

June 30, 2013 – Read the Word on Worship

Slavery, Shrimp & the Supreme Court: Did God Get It Wrong? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Idolatry and unbelief are evil bed fellows. While there is a relationship between unbelief and idolatry, we would not be correct in thinking idolatry is only practiced with images of stone or clay. Idolatry, at its heart, is fashioning God in our own image. Idolatry is sinful because it fails to do justice to God’s perfection. Idolatry misrepresents God, often distorting His character as a cartoonist characterizes the features of a prominent personality. But we distort God with wrong concepts and wrong theology just as much as we do with physical likenesses which have no resemblance. Theology is simply a word-picture of God.
Man is continually editing that word picture of God to make Him less than He truly is. We think if God got eating shrimp wrong, how can we trust what He has to say about something as complex as human sexuality right? After all, now even the Supreme Court agrees with us.
Join us this Sunday for a thoughtful response to the events of this week as Pastor Andy returns to the pulpit for his message “Slavery, Shrimp and the Supreme Court- Did God Get it Wrong?”


Word On Worship – June 30, 2013 Download / Print

Romans 1:20-22
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

Idolatry and unbelief are evil bed fellows. While there is a relationship between unbelief and idolatry, we would not be correct in thinking idolatry is only practiced with images of stone or clay. Idolatry, at its heart, is fashioning God in our own image. Idolatry is sinful because it fails to do justice to God’s perfection. Idolatry misrepresents God, often distorting His character as a cartoonist caricatures the features of a prominent personality. But we distort God with wrong concepts and wrong theology just as much as we do with physical likenesses which have no resemblance. Theology is simply a word-picture of God. If we are wrong here, we are idolaters.

Knowledge of God is given to everyone. This knowledge is attainable by observing the handiwork of God in creation around us. Just as we can learn much of a writer by studying his work, or of a painter by his paintings, so, also, we can learn of God from His handiwork, His creation. We may learn, Paul says in verse 20, of God’s eternal power and of His divine nature. Who can look at the raging power of the Niagara Falls and not be struck with the power of the One Who created them? Who can study the power of the atom and not be impressed with the infinite power of the Creator? And who can ponder creation without concluding that someone far greater than mortal man was the originator of it all?

But many men have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and exchanged the blessings of God in His provision for sexual fulfillment for that which is unnatural and disgusting. … for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another …” (Verse 26). This is a deadly sequence of events. Rejection of God’s revelation leads to idolatry, and idolatry leads to immorality and man at last plummets into the grossest perversions imaginable.

To a great extent, the judgment of God is getting exactly what we want. Men reject God’s revelation of Himself and God gives men over to idolatry. Men reject God and His purposes for men and God gives man over to practice the unnatural. Not only is this so in the present; it will be so in the future. What an awesome thought. Hell is getting exactly what we want. And on the reverse side of the coin, how grateful we Christians should be to our heavenly Father Who has and will withhold much of what we ask for, for our own good.

What do you think?