Sunday – September 20, 2020 Book of Acts – Acts 21:17-40 “I Will Never Do That Again”

Sunday – September 20, 2020

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Word On Worship – Sunday – September 20, 2020

Acts 21:22-23
What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you…

Most of us are familiar with the term “armchair quarterback.” An armchair quarterback sits in his comfortable chair, favorite beverage in hand, munching potato chips and watching the quarterback on TV as a herd of 300-pound giants rushes furiously towards him. It’s easy to sit in your comfortable chair and give advice to the guy who is down on the field facing 300-pound gorillas. But it’s an altogether different matter to be the guy down on the field, making split-second decisions under incredible pressure. It’s easy in that situation to make mistakes. We need to be careful about judging someone who made a mistake in the midst of such pressure.

I don’t want to play armchair quarterback on the apostle Paul. It’s easy to second-guess what he did. We can all be instructed if we learn how prone we all are to make mistakes when we’re under pressure. We all err in our personal lives. Sometimes we err in discerning the will of God because it is at best an imperfect and tentative process. We err in our ministries, sometimes misjudging people or situations. We err in our marriages, in raising our children and make financial errors that we wish we could undo. We’ve made major decisions that turned out to be major mistakes. Yet we can be encouraged because if even the godliest of men, such as Paul, make mistakes. God is not thwarted by our mistakes.

Even though Paul erred, God graciously spared his life and will give him the opportunity to preach to the mob that had just attacked him (22:1-21). As a result of his imprisonment, he was able to present the gospel to governors and rulers with whom he otherwise would have had no contact. He eventually got an all-expenses paid trip to Rome and was able to witness to many in Caesar’s household. He had time to write his prison epistles, which are in our New Testament. All of these positive results illustrate the abundant grace of our God, who works all things together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

D. L. Moody said, “If you don’t go to work for the Lord because you’re afraid of making mistakes, you will probably make the greatest mistake of your life—that of doing nothing.” He’s right! We should get out of the armchair and into the game! We all should constantly be examining our lives to identify our sins and mistakes. When the Lord graciously opens our eyes to errors that we have made, we should learn from them and, if possible, try to correct them and ask forgiveness of those whom we have wronged. But in that recognition, we should not despair that we have somehow thwarted God’s plan for our lives. We should realize that in His grace, God works around and through our mistakes for His own glory and marvel that He can use bumbling sinners such as we are!

Sunday – November 30, 2014 1John 4:17-21 “Confidence on the Day of Judgment”

Sunday – November 30, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

1st John 4 verses 17 to 21 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Word On Worship – Sunday – November 30, 2014 Download / Print

1 John 4:16-18
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.”

John knows that in the matter of loving others, it’s easy to be hypocrites. It’s easy to sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus,” while at the same time our homes are a battle zone. We put on our spiritual masks at church, but in our hearts we harbor bitterness toward a fellow Christian who has wronged us. So John once more hits this vital matter of practical love for one another. John is saying, love that comes from God gives us confidence in the day of judgment and must be expressed in love for others in obedience to God’s commandment.

Of all of the important matters in life, none is more vital than the one that John mentions in verse 17—having confidence in the day of judgment. But we need to make sure that our confidence is based on biblical reasons, not on false hope. Polls show that at least 60 percent of Americans believe in hell, but only four percent think there’s a good chance that they will go there. Since we’re talking about eternity in the lake of fire, you need to be sure of where you stand! Since John tells us how to have confidence on that coming day, we all should pay close attention.

From beginning to end, the Bible is clear that there is a coming day of judgment. Jesus spoke often about the judgment to come. The apostle Paul, preaching to the philosophers in Athens, declared (Acts 17:31) that God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” When he talked with the Roman governor Felix, Paul discussed “righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come”.

Our source of confidence is that we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood as the propitiation for our sins. It is only His blood, not our works, that atones for sins. But, how do we know that our faith in Christ is genuine, since it is easy to be deceived? One evidence of genuine faith is when we see God’s love flowing through us to others, especially to others that we would not naturally love. The more you see God’s love surfacing in your life, the more you will “have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming” (1st John 2:28).