Sunday – June 14, 2015 “The Man Who Bought Property in a War Zone” Jeremiah 32

Sunday – June 14, 2015 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday – June 14, 2015 “The Man Who Bought Property in a War Zone” Jeremiah 32 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Jeremiah 32:6-8
“And Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, “Buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it.”‘ “Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of the Lord and said to me, ‘Buy my field, please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for you have the right of possession and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.”

Buying real estate is always a speculative idea. Buying real estate after you have been prophesying the nation that land was in would be taken captive by the Babylonians and utterly destroyed is completely insane.  Yet that’s exactly what God asked His prophet Jeremiah to do. Jerusalem was under siege, on the brink of falling to the Chaldeans. Jeremiah was in prison because he had been preaching that the nation was going to fall and that God wanted them to surrender.

Jeremiah obeyed, but then he got a bit confused. Had he done something dumb? If God was going to overthrow Israel by the Chaldeans, as Jeremiah had been preaching and as seemed imminent, then why did God tell him to buy this land? So after the transaction was completed, Jeremiah prayed, and God granted him the answer he needed to endure. His prayer teaches us some lessons on how to pray by faith in a bleak, confusing situation.

Jeremiah wasn’t crazy; he was being obedient to God’s difficult command. The point was to illustrate, by faith, that houses and fields and vineyards would again be bought in Israel (32:15). In Jeremiah 31, God had promised and Jeremiah had proclaimed that the days were coming when God would form a new covenant with His disobedient people, where He would write His laws on their hearts and forgive their sin, where they would be His people and He would be their God. By purchasing this field, God was asking Jeremiah to put his money where his mouth was. To pray by faith that God would fulfill His promises of restoring His people, Jeremiah had to be obedient to this difficult command. The principle is just as valid today as it was then. You cannot pray by faith for God to fulfill His promises to you or to His church if you’re not obeying Him at whatever points obedience is difficult.

Remember, Jeremiah never lived to see those promises fulfilled. But because he believed in a sovereign God who would fulfill all of His promises to His people, Jeremiah could obey God’s difficult commands and trust that God would do the humanly impossible. Through Jeremiah’s prayer in this difficult and confusing situation, God granted him the understanding he needed to endure.

Sunday April 5, 2015 Jude 24 & 25 “The Guarantee of the Resurrection”

Sunday – April 5, 2015 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday April 5, 2015 Jude 24 & 25 “The Guarantee of the Resurrection” from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 5, 2015 Download / Print

Jude 24-25
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

When we buy something, we ask, “What’s the guarantee?” And somebody says, “There’s no guarantee, it might not work tomorrow.” Will we make the commitment to buy? Or when we enter into a contract of significance, like leasing a dwelling place or a vehicle, we want to see the contract so we know just what kind of deal we are getting ourselves into. But if you heard, “Oh, there’s no guarantee. I might come back and take this house in three days but you have no guarantee.” Only a fool would engage in that kind of commitment.

You have now been told that to follow Christ is a one-way trip, requiring you to pick up your cross daily, to die to yourself in the hope of spending an eternity with Him. You have to give up all to be forgiven, give up all to receive the promise of heaven, only to be told that this deal comes without a guarantee? You’re asking a lot out of me, God. You mean to tell me that I give myself up totally to You to be my Lord and Master that You might not keep me? You might not hold on to me? There isn’t any guarantee? That really makes it even more difficult if not almost impossible to make this level of commitment.

What seals the deal is the guarantee, and that’s true in salvation. Yet it is so sad and tragic and misleading that vast numbers of professing Christians live with the notion they can and may forfeit their salvation and end up in hell if they don’t hang on. So the question is simply this: can one who has been forgiven, justified, regenerated, converted, redeemed, and ransomed yet lose the blessing that came through that saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross? May it never be!

How does God do it then? It is accomplished through the gracious gift of God with a permanent faith, a new heart and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:28) Jesus won’t let go. The Father won’t let go. Who has the power to force Him to release anyone? That’s why in Philippians 1:6 Paul tell us, “He that began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Our God who started it will finish it. God did not resurrect His Son to allow anyone to fall through the cracks. Our Lord has the will and He has the power to preserve us.