Sunday – July 12, 2015 “The Men Who Had Connections with God” Ezekiel 14 verses 12 to 20

Sunday – July 12, 2015 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday – July 12, 2015 “The Men Who Had Connections with God” Ezekiel 14 verses 12 to 20 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Ezekiel 14 verse 19 & 20
“Or if I should send a plague against that country and pour out My wrath in blood on it to cut off man and beast from it, even though Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, as I live,” declares the Lord God, “they could not deliver either their son or their daughter. They would deliver only themselves by their righteousness.”

But maybe you’re thinking, “Does God have favorites? I thought that He received everyone equally.” The answer is, God may not have favorites, but He does have intimates. Some people have connections with God in a way that others do not. When they pray, God listens. In at least two Scriptures, God acknowledges that certain men had special influence with Him. In Jeremiah 15:1 , God tells the prophet that even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Him, His heart would not be with this people, so great is their sin. The implication is that these two men normally had special influence, although in this case, even they would not prevail. This week we will look at Ezekiel 14, where God tells Ezekiel that even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were to pray for this people, He would not grant deliverance, except to these men alone

That’s the context of Ezekiel 14. The city of Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed, but it now was inevitable because God had determined that it must be judged as a testimony of His separation from His people’s sin. God had graciously warned them over and over for centuries. But finally they had crossed the line. Now, not even the prayers of righteous Noah, Daniel, or Job could prevail.

We make a serious mistake if we think that God’s patience has no limit. His grace is great. His patience goes much farther than human patience ever could go. But there is a limit. There’s a limit nationally, when God as sovereign says, “That’s enough!” He told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved in another land for 400 years and then they would return to the land of Canaan. Then God added, “for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete” (Gen. 15:16). God was patient with the immoral Canaanites for more than 400 years, but then He said, “That’s enough!” and commanded Israel to destroy them in judgment. Nations, like ours, that turn from the knowledge of God are presuming on His grace.

Also, there is a limit to God’s patience personally. If we have not responded to His grace, we face that limit at death, which can strike at any moment. But, also, it can come when a person repeatedly hardens his heart against God. He crosses a line where he is so confirmed in sin that even the prayers of the righteous for his salvation will not prevail. We never know for sure when that line is crossed. We know that God is both just and merciful. But the fact that the line exists ought to make us tremble at the thought of continuing in our sinful ways. “Seek the Lord while He may be found.” (Isaiah 55:6)

Sunday May 10, 2015 “The Woman Who Gave Away Her Son” –I Samuel 1 & 2

Sunday – May 10, 2015 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday May 10, 2015 “The Woman Who Gave Away Her Son” – I Samuel 1 & 2 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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1 Samuel 1:9-11
“Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She, greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head.”

Hannah’s story is one of perseverance though adversity. Hannah was a great woman, the mother of Samuel, one of Israel’s outstanding prophets. Had it not been for her agony and the adversity in her life, the birth of her first child would soon have been forgotten. But her years of agony and her tears of distress make the birth of her son Samuel an incident to be remembered. They form the backdrop for her psalm of praise, which has become a comfort and inspiration to saints down through the ages.

Unlike Peniannah, Hannah had the biblical perspective of the goal of motherhood. The biblical perspective sees children as stewardships, gifts from the Lord to be returned to Him. It’s the perspective of preparing children to become servants of God rather than servants of themselves, the parents, or the world. One of the great lessons of this passage is the value of godly mothers, mothers who are devoted to raising their children to know the Lord and who are willing to give their children to God and His service in accord with God’s will for their children.

Hannah’s psalm could not have been written without the suffering which precedes it. It is God who closes Hannah’s womb. It is God who purposes for her to suffer at the hand of her cruel counterpart, Peninnah. It is God who orchestrates all of the painful and pleasant events in Hannah’s life, so that the resulting psalm could become the masterpiece it is. This is the way God employs the human and the divine in the writing of all the Scriptures. While you and I do not write Scripture today, I believe God orchestrates our background and our lives in a way which uniquely prepares and equips us for the ministry He has for us. Let us refuse to see our past difficulties as hindrances to the present or the future. As we look back upon the painful memories of our past, let us look upon them as the foundation stones for our present and future ministry, and then let us rejoice in our tribulations and trials in light of the way God purposes to use them for our good and for His glory.

As Paul makes so clear in his epistles, God’s power is demonstrated at the point of our weaknesses. That is grace. God’s grace does not seek out our strong points and enhance them, so much as His grace seeks out our weakest points so that it may be absolutely clear to all that it is God who accomplishes great things through us. Those things which cause Hannah the greatest sorrow, the greatest pain, are the very things God uses to produce Hannah’s greatest joys. For those who trust in Him, it will always be this way.

Sunday – July 20, 2014 1st John 2:1-2 “The Key to Holiness”

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

1 John 2 verses 1 and 2 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.


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1 John 2:1-2
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”

The Apostle John has spent the first chapter of his letter exhorting us to live in the light as God is in the light. As a person who wants to please God, I find these to be some of the hardest words in Scripture. I want to please Him and yet I know how far short of this simple command I live every day of my life. Then John graciously adds, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” In other words, don’t despair when you sin; there is hope in Jesus Christ.

You may ask why John would say this if his aim was that we not sin. It’s as if he has just succeeded in creating such an impression of the seriousness of sin that we begin to flee from it the way we should, and then he blows it, by giving us an out when we do sin. Instead of calling his wisdom into question, we should humble ourselves and learn from him. The strugglers among us might wish that John had never said in 1:7, “If we walk in the light . . . the blood of Jesus cleanses from sin.” And the strong among us might wish that John had never said in 2:1, “But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” The struggler may feel John makes the ongoing experience of forgiveness dependent on walking in the light, so the gospel is conditional and leaves them in despair. The strong person may feel that when he stresses the advocacy of Christ to Christians who sin, he cheapens the gospel and turns it into license to sin.

So let the struggler and the strong learn from John. For the way of God is not either-or. It is both-and. We must walk in the light if we are to go on experiencing the cleansing of Jesus. And if we sin, we do indeed have an advocate with the Father. There is sin that is unto death and there is sin that is not unto death. And the reason there can be sin that is not unto death is because we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. But not only that, we need to include the first half of Verse 2 in order to understand why we should not despair. “He is the propitiation for our sins.” More literally: He is the payment for our sins.

John’s message to us today is clearly, don’t sin! It is tremendously and terribly serious, causing great pain and hurt in your life and the life of the Church. But if you do sin, don’t despair because your attorney is the Son of the Judge. He is righteous and he makes his case for you not on the basis of your perfection but on his propitiation. Be of good courage, don’t hog Jesus for yourself alone, go and make disciples and tell them the good news – Jesus Christ lives!

Sunday – October 27, 2013 Judges 2:6 to 3:4 “Say it Again Sam(uel)”

October 27, 2013 – Read the Word on Worship

“Say it Again Sam(uel)” Judges 2 verse 6 to 3 verse 4 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

So how will the next generation of Israel learn who God is personally? In the same way the previous generation did. If they go to war and trust in God they will see His works and know Him personally. God wanted this next generation of Israel to know His power and grace, So He left Canaanites in the land. Israel would have to fight in order to know the God they had yet to know by personal experience. That is the problem I see in the church at large today. We know a lot about God but we don’t know Him personally. And that has grown out of our avoiding the battle. We know from Scripture we have already been thrown into a spiritual war, but are we floating with the current or are we fighting against the current? If we are going to do battle, we need to be where the war is – in the workplace, in the culture and in the streets. Only then will we experience Him and know that the Lord is good. Join as Pastor Andy leads our study this week with his message, “Say it Again Sam(uel)


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Judges 2:10
All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.”

I have been a witness to many great things God has done in my life. But the question that often haunts me is does the next generation know the Lord or the work that He has done? That is the very problem facing Israel in our scripture. Based on the text, it is not so much that the last generation were poor teachers, but rather the next generation did not “catch” it. They have heard about God but they do not know Him. And so I must ask myself, how many in the next generation have seen God active in the lives of their parents or grandparents, but have yet to experience God personally themselves?

What is at issue is a personal relationship with God versus personal knowledge of God. Obviously it is important for the next generation to know that God exists, but personally knowing God is what is critical; not just knowing about Him. It is this generation’s failure to know God personally that is the cause for Israel’s trouble we see in Judges 2. The effect of their failure to know God personally is to bow down to the Canaanite gods and earn for themselves the anger of God against them.

God is angry at the sin of the people and turns His hand against Israel. But God does not turn away from Israel, In His mercy and grace He provides judges for Israel. Why are judges a matter of grace? That wonderful topic we tragically think is only a New Testament concept. Repentance is nowhere to be found in the passage. God sends a deliverer before there is any indication of repentance. And even after that deliverer comes and delivers the Israelites for that judge’s lifetime, they are still going to turn away. Whatever good that takes place here has everything to do with who God is. It is His character and His covenant that is the basis for His deliverance of Israel.

So how will the next generation of Israel learn who God is personally? In the same way the previous generation did. If they go to war and trust in God they will see His works and know Him personally. God wanted this next generation of Israel to know His power and grace, So He left Canaanites in the land. Israel would have to fight in order to know the God they had yet to know by personal experience. That is the problem I see in the church at large today. We know a lot about God but we don’t know Him personally. And that has grown out of our avoiding the battle. We know from Scripture we have already been thrown into a spiritual war, but are we floating with the current or are we fighting against the current?  If we are going to do battle, we need to be where the war is – in the workplace, in the culture and in the streets. Only then will we experience Him and know that the Lord is good.

Sunday – October 7, 2012

October 7, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Does God Ever Lose an Argument? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Does God ever intend on losing an argument? Do you think He ever changes His mind? After declaring all food clean, Jesus begins to go into Gentile territory to begin ministering to those who were outside the children of Israel. Will the ministry to the Gentiles be a second class ministry? Will Jesus with hold healing from the Gentiles or does He need extra persuasion? If you want to know the answers, don’t miss this Sunday’s message from Mark 7 verses 24 to 37 as we see “Does God Ever Lose an Argument?”


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Mark 7:26-27
She kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Why would Jesus show such contempt to a woman only seeking help for her daughter and compare her to a dog? It implies the only legitimate diners are the children of Israel. If you are confused, you are not alone. The response of Jesus to this desperate mother has confounded readers, not to mention scholars, for years. The scene upsets our sense of justice. We do not mind when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, because their sense of entitlement deserves condemnation. But the response of our Lord seems to be out of character for a mother interceding for her child.

To deal with this incongruity of Scripture not meeting our expectations, people have found many ways to excuse the perceived harshness of Jesus. Surely He must have used a gentle, maybe even humorous tone of voice to lessen the sting. Maybe Jesus was not convinced His mission was to include the Gentiles just yet?  Or could this be Jesus testing the faith of this woman? Others, with a low view of Scripture, argue this incident is merely an invention of the Church which was read back into the history of Jesus to demonstrate Jewish prejudice towards Gentiles.

Stop making excuses for Jesus and His response.  A dog is a dog, whether they are pampered pet or feral street hound. No matter how Jesus said it, to call this desperate woman a dog is not a term of endearment. And if this is a test of faith, why does not Jesus commend her faith when it was proved true?  Mark may not be aware of the problems which step on our political correctness, but surely the Holy Spirit who inspired Mark’s account is. We come to the Scriptures with our own bias, expectation and selfish desire. Our bias is to make Jesus more Gentile than Jew because we received Him gladly.  Our expectation is for Jesus to be more favorable to Gentiles because so many Jews have rejected their Messiah. And our selfish desire obligates Jesus to respond to every request made upon Him because we expect Him to respond to our every beck and call.

Our problem with this response of Jesus is we do not understand who we are, unlike the Canaanite woman. We are self-deluded to think Jesus accepts us just as we are. When Scripture filters out our selfish expectation, we see all of our righteousness is like filthy rags and God accepts us only as Jesus is – holy, righteous and pure. We are ready to begin talking about the grace of God in the Person of Jesus Christ only after we know what we truly are without Him. Never forget the only solution for our sin is the harshness of the cross. The cross is the only way sin, Jew or Gentile, could be dealt with to be accepted by God.

Sunday – July 1, 2012

July 1, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Christmas in July from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

This Sunday is your last chance to catch our series in the Book of Malachi. How does the Old Testament end? Look back to the law and forward to the second coming. Join us Sunday morning as we celebrate “Christmas in July”. The great Christmas hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing is all about our text on Sunday- Malachi 4:2 “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” Don’t miss the end of this great series!


Word On Worship – July 1, 2012 Download / Print

 

Malachi 4:2-3

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty.”

Our study in Malachi has presented to us the contrast between those who biblically fear the Lord and those who claim fidelity to God but show by their hearts and actions their distrust of God’s promises and sovereignty. What makes the difference in whether we choose to be those who fear God or those who do not? It is the question about how our ethics (what we do) is changed by our theology (what we believe). While the decisions we make in the 21st century are certainly different, the decisions faced by Malachi’s generation and the decision about how our faith will align with our practice have not changed one bit.

Jesus dealt with the disconnection people have between theology and ethics. In Luke 6:46, Jesus asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Usually our focus is on correct knowledge, but knowledge without a correct response produces the same result as not even having the knowledge. This highlights the struggle of Malachi speaking to Israel and realizing on a heart level we are no better. Just like Israel, we need to reset our hearts, reboot our worship and renew our relationship with the Father — our theme through this Old Testament book.

Malachi’s view of those who fear the Lord are the people whose character has been shaped by a daily walk with Him and whose very thoughts are of Him. They would not be like the priests of Malachi’s day, who would ask “what’s in it for me, right now?” This is the sickness of the Church today, where our eyes are more focused on the numbers in attendance than we are on the amount of Christ likeness that is in our own heart. Is our priority duty or is it discipleship? When we examine our lives, does the priority of our hearts put us on the wrong side of the anticipated Day of the Lord?

Do not let Malachi be a “one and done” study, relegated to the intellectual storehouse of biblical knowledge accumulated in your Christian experience. The call for continual renewal and sanctification is the lifework of those who pursue Jesus Christ, a call to examine and test ourselves regarding how we see our relationship with God. Do we tremble at the prospect of dishonoring Him by not trusting His promises or by living in disobedience to His commands? May we be a part of the remnant which Malachi tells are, “those who feared the LORD, talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored His name.” (Malachi 3:16)