Tag Archives: wrong

Sunday – May 23, 2021 Romans Week 8 Rom 2:1-5 “Self Righteousness is Unrighteousness”

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Sunday – May 23, 2021

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Word On Worship – Sunday – May 23, 2021

Romans 2:3-4
But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

Waiting for his first orthodontist appointment, a 12-year-old boy was a bit nervous. He was completing a patient questionnaire and had high hopes of winning the dentist’s favor. In the space marked “Hobbies” he wrote, “Swimming and flossing”. We all want to make a good impression, to portray ourselves to others as better than we really are. But when we do that, we’re forgetting something important, namely, that God knows the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, “all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Heb. 4:13). Someday we will stand before Him to give an account of our lives.

Paul begins to zero in on the moral Gentile or Jew in these opening verses, using the same indirect approach that the prophet Amos (Amos 1 & 2), where he begins by condemning the foreign nations around Israel. Just when the Jews are cheering him on, he moves in to hit them with their sins. Self-righteous people tend to justify themselves by blaming others. Self-righteousness is a very difficult sin to get people to see and condemn in themselves. But it’s a serious sin because it keeps people from seeing their need for the gospel. It believes the lie that we can be good enough in ourselves to qualify for heaven. “Maybe really gross sinners need a Savior. But me? Hey, God wouldn’t judge a good guy like me, would He?” Or, would He?

Paul isn’t condemning the act of judging others per se, in that he expects the moral person to agree with him that the sins of Romans 1 are wrong. The problem with judging others is when you secretly engage in the same behavior that you openly condemn. When a politician postures as standing for family values, but it comes out that he snuck off to visit his mistress in South America, he has condemned himself. Paul is not saying that it is wrong to judge others. Rather, he is saying that it is wrong self-righteously to judge others, while at the same time you’re practicing the sins that you’re judging.

The self-righteous are in error concerning divine judgment. They fail to distinguish between God’s present wrath and His coming (future) wrath. One purpose of God’s present wrath is repentance, leading to salvation. The primary purpose of His future wrath is justice. There is no turning back from this judgment. When we look upon those God has “given over to sin” as eternally doomed, we are just as incorrect as looking upon those who are presently experiencing God’s “kindness” as assured of eternal blessing. For now, both God’s kindness and His severity are directed toward man’s salvation, not his destruction.

Sunday – January 24, 2021 Job 16 “Christian Thinking Durnig COVID 19” Pt 4

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Sunday – January 24, 2021

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Word On Worship – Sunday – January 24, 2021

Job 16:4-5
“I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you. But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.”

Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, have historically been known for offering lengthy speeches that resulted in their being condemned by God (Job 42:7–9). At one point Job, weary of their unhelpful rhetoric, told them, “You are miserable comforters, all of you!” (Job 16:2). But did they get everything wrong? Perhaps they got a few things right.

Job’s friends did at least three things right that can be seen in Job 2:11–13. First, they came to him when he was suffering. Second, they empathized with him: “they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads” (verse 12). Third, they spent time with him. Verse 13 states they were with him for seven days before they offered their advice. They commiserated with their friend in silence. But their silence did not last forever, and these three men gave a series of speeches to Job, recorded in chapters 4—25.

The speeches of Job’s three friends include many inaccuracies as to why God allows people to suffer. Their overarching belief was that Job was suffering because he had done something wrong. As a result, they repeatedly encourage Job to admit his wrong and repent so that God would bless him again. God clearly condemned their advice: “I am angry with you [Eliphaz] and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me” (Job 42:7). For this reason, we should always be careful about how we interpret individual verses from Job. It is unwise to pull an isolated verse from the book of Job and use it to understand God—if the verse comes from a speech of Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar, then we have no guarantee that it accurately reflects the character of God. As with any single verse, we must look at the context.
Much can be learned from the example of Job and his friends. When we are aware of a friend who is hurting, we can follow the positive example of these men by going to the person, mourning with him, and spending time together. Our physical presence with a hurting friend can be a great comfort in and of itself, even if we have no words to say. We can offer great encouragement and hope to those in need, helping those who suffer to see God at work. This is a great application of Romans 12:15: “Mourn with those who mourn.” When we are willing to enter into the pain of a suffering friend, we follow the example of Jesus, who came to bear our pain and suffer in our place. Our help to those in need is ultimately a way we serve Christ.

Sunday – May 21, 2017 Genesis 39:1-33 “From the Penthouse to Prison”

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Sunday – May 21, 2017 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday – May 21, 2017 Genesis 39:1-33 “From the Penthouse to Prison” from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Genesis 39:1-3
“Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.”

Each of us wants to succeed in life. But if we want true success, it’s crucial to work out a biblical definition of the term. Otherwise, you’ll be like the guy who climbed the ladder of success only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall. You’ll waste your life pursuing the wrong goals and making wrong decisions. If our target is wrong, we will fail even if we hit it.

Our American culture defines success primarily in financial terms, throwing in, perhaps, the ideas of power, fame, and the elusive quality: “happiness.” As Christians, we can easily see the fallacy in defining success in those terms, and yet often we are influenced by our culture more than we care to admit. Many pastors succumb to the prevailing definition, thinking that if you pastor a large church, or gain national recognition through writing a book or speaking at important gatherings, you are successful. Christians reveal their skewed definition of success when they rush out to buy the latest story of some celebrity who has made a profession of faith, or when they parade famous athletes before the church as if they were spiritual authorities. So we need to bring into sharp focus the biblical answer to the question, “What is true success?”

Was Joseph more blessed by God or more successful when he was at the top of Potiphar’s household than when he was in the dungeon? They were just different phases of God’s training program in which He was preparing Joseph for the job He had for him under Pharaoh. Joseph was truly successful, whether he was in Potiphar’s house or in the prison, because God’s hand was on him. I believe that is the biblical definition of true success. True success is to have God’s blessing on your life. If you have God’s blessing, you have everything, even if you’re poor and unknown; if you lack God’s blessing, you ultimately will have nothing, even if you’re rich and famous now.

I want each of us to covet God’s blessing for yourself. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, we all should say, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26). You can live a comfortable Christian life, serve in the church and succeed in worldly terms. But if you lack God’s blessing on your life, you’ve missed true success. True success is when it can be said of us, whether we are in Potiphar’s house or in prison: The Lord is with that man or woman. Being blessed by God, we then will be used as His channels of blessing for the nations through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sunday – March 29, 2015 Jude 20 to 23

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Sunday – March 29, 2015 – Read the Word on Worship

Jude 20 to 23 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

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Word On Worship – Sunday – March 29, 2015 Download / Print

Jude 20-23
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

Every thinking person sometimes wrestles with doubt. That’s true not only for thinking Christians, but also for atheists and agnostics. They sometimes wonder, “What if I’m wrong and there really is a God?” And every thinking Christian sometimes wonders, “What if I’m wrong and Christianity is not true?” For some, the bouts with doubt are short and relatively minor. For others, the doubts are deep and disturbing. But wherever you are on the spectrum, if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you have gone through battles with doubt.

The sources of my personal struggles with doubt vary. Sometimes it stems from wrestling with certain difficult theological issues. At other times the problem of unanswered prayer has tripped me up. And I’ve had to face doubts related to the age-old problem of suffering: Why would a good and all-powerful God allow His people to die in the prime of life, while the wicked prosper? How can a loving God allow sweet little children to suffer?

While there are different biblical answers to all of these sources of doubt, there is one answer that under girds them all. I usually come back to it when I’m struggling with doubt. The apostle Paul said that the entire Christian faith rests on one foundation, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Cor. 15:13-19). If that fact of history is true, then our faith has a solid footing in spite of our doubt that we cannot fully resolve. perhaps ever in this life. On the other hand, if Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead, then the strongest faith in the world is useless, because it rests on a faulty object.

If you wait to trust in Christ until all of your doubts are cleared up, you’re not an honest doubter. Rather, you’re using your doubts as an excuse so that you can hold onto your sin. If you don’t repent, you’ll go to your death alienated from the Savior. There is more than adequate evidence to support a reasonable faith that Jesus Christ is the risen Savior. The question is: will you lay aside your doubts, which serve only as excuses, and trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord?