Monthly Archives: April 2014

Sunday – April 27, 2014 Judges chapter 19 to 21 “Saving Private Benjamin”

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Sunday – April 27, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

Judges chapter 19 to 21 “Saving Private Benjamin” from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Judges 21:24-25
“The sons of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance. In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

The final five chapters of Judges function as an appendix to the entire book. Instead of focusing on the sins of Israel or of their judges, these chapters look closely at the lives of two Levites. Levites were the priestly tribe in Israel, the religious leadership of the nation. Sadly, we will discover that the religious leadership is not holding the nation accountable for its sin. Instead, the Levites are as messed up as the people they are supposed to lead. Their small, personal failures escalate to tribal and national dimensions and plunge Israel into political and moral anarchy. Thus, Judges concludes with a finger pointing in the face of the Levites.

When the Scriptures tell us each man did what was right in his own eyes, it is not singling out a single level of society or position of leadership. It was across the board. The surface issue is what people were doing, but the elephant in Israel’s room was the standard by which they governed themselves. It was no longer God’s standard but their own eyes and results in people insisting on following the leading of their own lusts, declaring their independence from God and echoing the lie of the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

The message of the Book of Judges is a message for the church today. How many of us are outraged at the conduct of the covenant people of God? They were called to be the people of God by a covenant but still refused to be subject to His commands. We have been saved by a covenant of God, but in our self piety, reject the rule of God for what is right in our eyes. We come to church on Sunday because it is congenial and find our moral standard commendable in our own eyes. Yet in our hearts we are as stubborn and sinful as the people of Gibeah in our rejection of God’s authority and standards in our lives.

Sometimes matters appear quite proper on the surface, but if we are willing to look past the obvious and dig a little deeper we will find the true enemy. We may be shocked at the author’s selection of Gibeah and their sins to document Israel’s depravity. But do not let the outrageousness of the offense blind us from the point that the Scriptures are making. The root of it all is each man doing what is right in his own eyes. That root may show itself in the grossest of sins as we see here at the end of Judges or in the veneer of righteousness that can be seen with the rich young ruler, but it all comes from the same source.

Sunday – April 20, 2014 Resurrection Sunday CHRIST IS RISEN!

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Sunday – April 20, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

Easter 2014 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Word On Worship – Sunday – April 20, 2014 Download / Print

Luke 24:45-49
“Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

If there is one thing I despise, it is those phone calls that come from toll free numbers, which begin with the assurance that the caller is not “selling” anything. The Bible could not be more open and direct about the purpose of the Scripture. Through it God has one goal for the unbeliever: He wants to demonstrate as clearly and as forcefully as he can that Jesus not only claimed to be the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of God, but that by many miraculous signs He proved it! The last and greatest of these signs was His resurrection from the dead.

While the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was prophesied in the Old Testament, and by our Lord Himself, the Bible makes it very clear that the disciples – just as many people today – were not predisposed to believe it. Only after the most forceful and compelling evidence that they could see and touch, would the disciples believe Jesus really was alive. And having become convinced of this great truth, the disciples never ceased to proclaim it, first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and finally to the ends of the earth. The resurrection of Jesus is the final and compelling proof that He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Believing in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is the only way God has provided for the forgiveness of your sins and for the gift of eternal life. By believing in Him, you will be saved: John 1:11-13 “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him. But to all who have received him – those who believe in his name – he has given the right to become God’s children – children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God.”

In many ways, the Bible is not a simple book. But its message to the unsaved is incredibly simple: Jesus Christ saves from sin, death and hell. If you have never come to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Son of God, then this book is addressed to you, and for you, to give you all the evidence you need to believe in Him. Have you believed? This is the most important decision you will ever make. It determines your eternal destiny.

Sunday – April 13, 2014 1st Peter 1:17-19 “The Impartial Judge” Ken McAuley

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Sunday – April 13, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

1st Peter 1 verses 17-19 Ken McAuley from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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 1 Peter1:17-19
And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Most of the time we don’t want to think of our God as a Judge because that’s ‘scary’; most of the time it means condemnation, humiliation, and penalty to us. But we forget that a judge can also give a reward for work done. The question then becomes: will the judgment be condemnation or reward?

The Impartial Judge judges us based on our status before Him. If we obey Him, He treats us as sons. If we don’t obey Him, it doesn’t go well with us. We have no hope for a good outcome. If we are treated as sons, we can expect grace and mercy. So, how can we tell if we are pleasing to Him? The Word of God says that we must have faith to please God. What is faith? Simply stated it is trusting that God means what He says. If God says that we must trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation, it requires that we look into what He means by that so that we can make a valid decision. What He means is that there is no way that we can accomplish our own salvation without Jesus Christ.

Can He really be that restrictive? Surely there is something that I can do. I mean, I am a good person after all. Didn’t He make me this way? The problem is that we inherited an evil nature from Adam when he sinned and disobeyed God and God had to ban him from the Garden. Since then we have a tendency to displease God just as Adam did. We can’t do anything about that. That means that anything we do is tainted by evil motives. We’re always looking to get around having to obey God. We want to do everything our own way. If that condition isn’t fixed, God can’t accept anything we do as good. He compares our good works to “dirty rags.”

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” That confirms that we must trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation, as stated earlier, which He states in John 3:16. There is nothing else we can do to get to heaven – it is God’s place by the way – except trust in what God says is necessary. It cost Him the precious blood of His only begotten Son to make it possible to restore the relationship that He intended to have with us before Adam sinned. Why should we think that our desires must override His at such a cost to Him. He not only offers Salvation but adoption as sons and an inheritance.

What more could we ask for in exchange for perishing in a Lake of Fire and eternally suffering apart from the presence and power of a good, kind, righteous and loving God who is not merely loving but just and holy.

Accept God on His terms since He is the potter and we are only clay. After all, He is the Impartial Judge.

Sunday – April 6, 2014 “Signs in the Heavens” Thom Rachford

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Sunday – April 6, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

Signs in the Heavens Thom Rachford from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years”

The Lord has used His handiwork in the heavens to display His glory and provide for time keeping and for seasons and for signs. Times are easy to understand. We mark days by the rotation of the earth and years by its movement around the sun.

Seasons are more difficult to understand. Yes, seasons can mean winter, summer, fall and spring. We do mark them by the positions of the sun and earth. But seasons are more than that. Consider, the horse breeder’s statement that the mare is in season, or consider the baseball season, or a season of peace. Webster’s Dictionary defines season as a time characterized by a particular circumstance or feature. The time itself is undefined. It may be long or short. For example, The church age may be said to be a season of Grace.

What about the term sign? A sign, per Webster, is something that gives information through a motion or gesture by which thought is expressed or a command or wish made known. The Lord placed the “lights” in the sky to make known His thoughts, commands and purposes (wishes). The Star of Bethlehem is such a sign in the heavens. The wise men saw the sign and interpreted its meaning. According to Matt 2:2 “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” They followed up by taking a 700-mile trip extending about 2 years including the preparation.

Are there other signs in the Heavens the Lord has used to fulfill His wishes? Yes, in Joshua 10: 12-13 the Lord made the sun and moon stop in the sky until His purpose (wish) was accomplished and Israel won the battle.

Also for King Hezekiah. When, in 2 Kings 20:9-11, Hezekiah asked for a sign to certify he would live, God said He would move the shadow from the sun forward or back which ever one Hezekiah wished. The shadow moved back. You can also read about this in Isaiah 38:8.

At the crucifixion of Jesus – the sun was darkened. Matthew 27: 45 tells us, “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.” That was three hours, from noon to 3 p.m. Was it only in times past that God caused signs in the heavens for man’s information? Does He do the same today? Yes, tetrads (blood moons) are a modern example of God’s signs in the heavens. How should we respond? Will we be like the wise men who saw the sigh of the Star, recognized it was from God, interpreted the meaning and followed it? Or will we be like the leaders and King of Israel who either paid no attention to the sign in the heavens or if they did observe it, they ignored it for it did not suit their purpose? By ignoring the Bethlehem star, the leaders of Israel put their purpose above God’s.

We are now entering a season of signs in the heavens. Watch and be ready in Christ.

 

Sunday – March 23, 2014 Judges 18 “The Danites Promiseland Part 2”

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Sunday – March 23, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

Judges 18 “The Danites Promiseland Part 2” from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Judges 18:30-31 “The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” The subject matter of the Book of Judges can be very difficult for our generation to study. Many want a technical commentary to simply explain the tradition and history of this book in hopes of finding the background of ancient Israel. They avoid wrestling with the text, having chosen to be distracted with the possibility of a textual problems or reading into the Hebrew idioms so they do not have to hear the clear teaching of the text. The question we need to ask ourselves is why are we so afraid of the Book of Judges?

Since I have found so few Christian teachers who have willingly attempted this task, forgive me if I step on a few toes. The general theme of this book is God’s dealing with false religion. On one hand, we can intellectually agree that God would be upset with false religion and with so many warnings in the preceding books of the Pentateuch and Joshua; we jump on the band wagon and condemn Israel for surely they should have known how stupid false worship is and where it leads.

Do not pat yourself on the back and think how wise you are to see the failure of the Israelites. We are afraid of the Book of Judges because we do not want to see the stupidity of our own false religion. We may not make molten idols but how different are we than Micah, who thought he had the favor of Yahweh because he had an actual Levite as his priest? We have our own forms of such “magic.” For example, by thinking a child is a member of the kingdom because they were baptized as an infant or because they went forward while they were at youth camp. The person who assumes they have entered the kingdom of God because they completed a task is engaging in a false religion and that is just stupid. It does not differ from Micah’s religion in principle or form, only in the details. So our folly remains invisible to us.

We have traded idol worship for subjectivism, but it is still a false religion. The people of Dan made their own convenience store of worship where they could remain in control and worship how and when they chose. They were convinced God was not picky when it came to glory, honor and praise. Modern day Danites tell us worship is an individual affair, and like our toothbrush, a very personal thing. When they come to worship it is not Yahweh, the all powerful saving God they praise. Instead, they want a blob of molten silver that they can squeeze and shape the way they want God to be. And that is self-serving idolatry, unworthy to be called worship.