Sunday – December 23, 2012

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December 23, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

What Christmas Is All About from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need to be reminded about what Christmas is all about. And sometimes that lesson comes from learning what Christmas is not about. Christmas is not about elves. Christmas is not about Frosty the Snow Man. Christmas is not about lights- even though they may be really pretty. And Christmas is not about the MAN- one Kris Kringle AKA in the Netherlands from where my family came, Cinder Klaus. There are so many things out there that have nothing to do with Christmas.
Join us this Sunday as we go back to what the Bible has to say about Christmas as we turn to Luke 1:26-38 and see “What Is Christmas Really About”.

Word On Worship – December 23, 2012 Download / Print

Matt 1:19-21
Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Christmas is a celebration of the God who spoke the universe into existence and entered the world of His own creation as a baby. The idea of a “god” entering into the affairs of men is not unique. Before the time of Jesus, many of the Greek gods were known to have had all sorts of entry into history and direct human contact. Even in modern times we have numerous examples of “super-beings” who intervene in human history. Some are larger than life, like the heroes of comic book fame and others are more human than divine such as the sports stars we see competing every week.

None of these inventions of imagination, ancient or contemporary, provide help for us to better understand the doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus Christ – fully God and fully man. Our minds are captivated by the fiction of people able to do more than humans are capable of doing. But nothing in fact or fiction compares with the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Except for a few disregarded prophets, no one anticipated God’s intervention into history by the birth of a child in a manger. Not even Judaism was looking for the Messiah in this way.

Today we have become so accustomed to biblical narratives of Christ’s birth that many have become numb to its significance. And that is the mystery of the incarnation. Something that was not known before is now made known to the world. The all-powerful, supreme God who created the universe humbled Himself, took on human form and entered His creation as a vulnerable infant.

This Christmas, my prayer is that we appreciate this mystery of the incarnation and understand in a new way how incredible it is for God’s greatness to be contained in human flesh. Further, that we take the next step to sincerely ask what this means for each of us. May this be the Christmas where the focus of our celebration is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who entered human existence so that we may be born again, born of God.

Sunday – December 16, 2012

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December 16, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Are We Following the Pharisees Off the Fiscal Cliff? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Divorce has become so common in our culture that hardly a person can be found who has not been affected by it directly or indirectly. Each year in the United States there are over 1 million divorces, which involves over 2 million adults and beneath that rubble are the lives of millions more children who are the secondary casualties on the battleground between spouses. None of them escape unscathed, no matter how amicable the divorce may be.
Sadly, many are so caught up in the emotion and fail to connect any biblical truth to apply to the situation they find themselves or their loved ones in. We will take a second look at Mark 10 verses 1 to 12 and see if we can connect the dots in the passages where Jesus deals with the divorce issue to see the broad context He places it in- adultery, forgiveness, vows, money, and the church’s response to families in crisis. Join us this Sunday as see “Are We Following the Pharisees Off the Fiscal Cliff?” as we continue our study in the Gospel of Mark.

Word On Worship – December 16, 2012 Download / Print

 Mark 10:5-9
“But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. “But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

Divorce has become so common in our culture that hardly a person can be found who has not been affected by it, directly or indirectly. Each year in the United States there are more than 1 million divorces, which involves more than 2 million adults. Beneath that rubble are the lives of millions more children who are the secondary casualties on the battleground between spouses. None of them escape unscathed, no matter how amicable the divorce may be.

Many decades ago, the vast majority of marriages held together and divorce was the rare exception. There are many reasons for this stability. The family was a moral force which held marriages together in hard times. This was not the case just in the immediate family, but the extended family as well, as the example of grandparents, aunts and uncles re-enforced the covenant of marriage. This moral force was reflected back by the community. Society recognized the value of a strong family unit and the legal system protected the biblical model of the family. All of this was tied together by teaching from the pulpits of churches across every branch of Christianity. The church strongly supported family life and just as strongly opposed divorce.

Sadly today, in the name of Christian love, many not only condone divorce, but insist that sometimes it is God’s will. Even when Christians go to Scripture for guidance concerning divorce, they come with so many preconceptions and predispositions which make responsible interpretation impossible. A human standard may be more lenient or more restrictive than Scripture, but it can never be better. When God’s Word is ignored or twisted in any area, tragedy is always the consequence. This is most evident in the standards God has set for marriage and when divorce is permitted.

God has not changed His standard just because society has changed its standards. The prophet Hosea was a picture of the power of godly marital love, a living illustration of God’s undying love for His people, Israel. Hosea’s love for his wife Gomer and his commitment to her as his wife, like God’s covenant love with Israel, was exceedingly gracious and forgiving. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God expects His redeemed people in Christ to reflect the original beauty of the marriage covenant as well as the grace of forgiveness. The husband and wife who are walking in the Spirit will be walking in unselfish humility and forgiving, restoring love that always puts the other first.

Sunday – December 09, 2012

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December 09, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

The Great Divorce Debate from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

The construction of a good marriage is very similar to a quilt. We begin with a dream of a relationship far more successful than the imperfect one we may think our parents had. We make our plans, far underestimating the amount of work it will take to blend two lives into one pattern. In our distraction, we miss-stitch our lives day by day, causing painful pricks. We get discouraged because not all the pieces fit together conveniently as we thought they should. Compromises and patching up have to take place as the original design is altered, lest we give up and throw it all away. But if we persevere, allowing God to love and work in us and through us, the marriage takes on a unique beauty as love and grace turn flaws into redemption. It is the example of Christ that shapes our hurts, as ugly as they are, into pictures for the world to see the healing power of God. Join us this Sunday as we look at “The Great Divorce Debate” in Mark 10 verses 1 to 12 this Sunday.

Word On Worship – December 09, 2012 Download / Print

Mark 10:4-8
They said, “Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. “But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

It does not take married couples long to learn marriage is not a fairy tale in happily-ever-after land. The hardness of the human heart has not softened since the days of Moses. The divorce rate in our society reflects most people’s belief that marriage is disposable at will. Every year since 1973, more first-time marriages have ended by divorce than by the death of a spouse. And sadly, this trend parallels the experience of married couples in the church.

Rather than focus on the changes in our society that have contributed to marriage of convenience, the people of God need to take a stand and remember our calling is to be distinct. We are not to be conformed to this world, and this includes its indifference toward the marriage vow. Jesus made radical demands upon those who follow Him and requires His disciples to trust God to empower them to live up to those demands. This requires the church to be proactive in society and seek ways to strengthen marriages and instruct the youth on the sanctity of the marriage vows to counterbalance the message we receive from our culture.

The construction of a good marriage is very similar to a quilt. We begin with a dream of a relationship far more successful than the imperfect one we may think our parents had. We make our plans, far underestimating the amount of work it will take to blend two lives into one pattern. In our distraction, we miss-stitch our lives day by day, causing painful pricks. We get discouraged because not all the pieces fit together as conveniently as we thought they should. Compromises and patching up have to take place as the original design is altered, lest we give up and throw it all away. But if we persevere, allowing God to love and work in us and through us, the marriage takes on a unique beauty as love and grace turn flaws into redemption. It is the example of Christ that shapes our hurts, as ugly as they are, into pictures for the world to see the healing power of God.

Sunday – December 2, 2012

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December 2, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Leading Jesus Style from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Christ’s humility was evident from His perfect obedience to authority and will of His Father. Anyone can claim to be a servant, but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was treated as one and never complained about it. Jesus Christ, the most powerful man to ever walk the face of the earth, was also the most humble man who ever lived. His agenda was never to promote Himself, but to please His Father by loving and serving others. For all who seek to follow in His example, our first call is to imitate His humility. In order to do that we are going to need to learn to lead Jesus way. Join us this Sunday as we return to Mark 9 verses 30 to 50 and find application for Jesus leadership style in our lives today.

Word On Worship – December 2, 2012 Download / Print

Mark 9:35-37
“Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”

Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” The corollary to that statement would be, “If you want to make God laugh louder, tell Him what you know.” Just because it is true does not make it any easier to accept. It is hard to admit we do not know as much as we think we know and we certainly are not in control as much as we would like to think. It is humbling to recognize God is more responsible for the achievements in our lives than we are. Our achievements are not our possession; they are gifts from God for which we will give an account for what we have been given.

Everything in us strains against this because to accept this as fact is to be humbled.  And humility leads to submission. We don’t want to admit God is the giver of every good gift because that would mean that we have to yield to his agenda. Humility and submission are two sides of the same coin. Humility is certainly not natural, so this is another reason we need to learn from the Scriptures. It is only from the Word of God that we gain insight to become the kind of leaders God desires and our world so desperately needs.

The best example of humility is our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus never clung to the outer manifestation of His divinity. Instead, He took the form of a servant. A servant is often taken for granted, overlooked and unnoticed. Our culture has trained us well in the art of assertiveness. On the contrary, humility comes from a disciplined strength which gives us the ability to serve others rather than manipulate them to have our needs met. Because of our identify in Christ, we can serve without being noticed by human eyes, knowing the One we serve always sees and has promised our reward in eternity.

Christ’s humility was evident from His perfect obedience to the authority and will of His Father. Anyone can claim to be a servant, but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was treated as a servant and never complained about it. Jesus Christ, the most powerful man to ever walk the face of the earth, was also the most humble man who ever lived. His agenda was never to promote Himself, but to please His Father by loving and serving others. For all who seek to follow in His example, our first call is to imitate His humility.

Sunday – November 25, 2012

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November 25, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Can We Franchise the Church? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

The disciples, as do many church leaders today, have an over inflated view of leadership. They want to lead so others will serve them. So as the disciples argue with the teachers of the law over their failure to cast out a demon earlier, they have no problem chastising another who is successfully casting out demons in Jesus name because he was not one of them. They want to control the rights to Jesus name, as if they held exclusive rights to the franchise. This elitist worldview has continued down the centuries and infected generation after generation with pettiness and politics. If Jesus were to ask the leaders of the Church today the same question about which we are arguing, would the silence be any louder than it was with the twelve? Join this week as we continue our study in the Gospel of Mark in the first part of Mark 9 verses 30 to 50.

Word On Worship – November 25, 2012 Download / Print

Mark 9:30-31
“From there they went out and began to go through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know about it. For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.”

The ministry of Jesus at this point in Mark’s gospel now shifts from public ministry to a time of intensive training of the twelve. Jesus was never swayed by the adoration of the masses, but now as He turns to Jerusalem one final time, His focus is on these few who will carry the gospel forward to the world. Jesus tells them again His destiny is to be rejected by men who will kill Him but he will be resurrected on the third day. It is here Jesus adds a new detail to His previous statement of suffering: He will be betrayed by one of His own into the hands of men.

They should have been worried about who it will be among them who will betray the Lord of Glory, but instead it becomes a catalyst to debate about who is the greatest. It will continue as they argue with the successful exorcist because he does not follow them. Their need for recognition will also be an issue at the Last Supper as Peter will argue that he will be more faithful than the rest. The picture we are given by Mark is showing Jesus walking ahead to Jerusalem to be sacrificed as the disciples push and shove to establish the order of the procession behind Him.

The disciples, as do many church leaders today, have an over-inflated view of leadership. They want to lead so others will serve them. So as the disciples argue with the teachers of the law over their failure to cast out a demon earlier, they have no problem chastising another who is successfully casting out demons in the name of Jesus because he was not one of them. They want to control the rights to His name, as if they held exclusive rights to the franchise. This elitist worldview has continued down the centuries and infected generation after generation with pettiness and politics. If Jesus were to ask the leaders of the Church today the same question about which we are arguing, would the silence be any louder than it was with the twelve?

The “cult of personality” is alive and well in the church today as it was with the twelve on the road to Jerusalem. How often is the pastor given top billing above Jesus, just as members of the local body seek for their name in the bulletin or church newsletter for their service? Yet our Lord demonstrated His definition of leadership by the cross of Calvary. When leadership is defined by sacrifice, the cross makes sense. The cross is God’s view of leadership. This is the definition of leadership established by Jesus, which He followed to His death. Therefore, any who seek to be leaders must follow Him to the cross to die themselves.

Sunday – November 18, 2012

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November 18, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Thankfulness is More Than a Word from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

On September 8, 1860, the steamship Lady Elgin collided with the schooner Augusta in the waters of Lake Michigan. The Lady Elgin was carrying more than 300 souls on the night she began to sink in the early morning hours, costing the lives of 279 people. Students from Northwestern University formed rescue teams to save the few they could from drowning. One student named Edward Spencer saved 17 people before he passed out from exhaustion. Years later R.A. Torrey asked him if anything stood out in his memory of the event, to which Spencer replied, “Only this sir, of the 17 people I rescued, not one of them thanked me.”
This Sunday we learn some lessons in having a thankful heart as we watch Jesus heal 10 lepers in Luke 17 verses 11 to 19 only to have one, a Samaritan, come back and give thanks to the Lord who healed him. This Sunday our message is “Thankfulness is More than a Word”

Word On Worship – November 18, 2012 Download / Print

 Ephesians 5:18-21
“Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”

Thankfulness is an important subject to the Apostle Paul and throughout the  Word of God. Some combination of the word appears times 195 in Scripture and Paul uses it more than 40 times in his epistles. The concept of thankfulness in the New Testament comes from two Greek words. The first is charizomai, which contains the word for “grace.” The second is homologeo which means “to confess or acknowledge”. Thankfulness is the mental and/or verbal expression of your acknowledgment and appreciation of God’s person, grace and sovereign work in one’s life and the world.

So why be thankful? Because it honors our heavenly Father.  When we are thankful, we recognize God exists and acknowledging Him as the very source and meaning of our life. True thankfulness recognizes our dependence on God and acknowledges everything going on in our lives is the product of God’s sovereign control. It is important for us to recognize thanklessness is dangerous to ourselves and to others. A thankless heart leads to proud humanism and dependence on man rather than God. Thankfulness becomes a spiritual barometer, reading the condition of our spiritual lives and providing a warning if we have ears to hear.

But is thankfulness a topic only to be considered at this time of the year? Certainly not. Scripture teaches us thankfulness is one of the primary purposes of prayer in the life of the believer. Thanksgiving turns our eyes from our problems and ourselves to the Lord in order that we might see His sovereign grace. Thankfulness is not saying all things in our lives are pain-free. But even the most difficult of life situations are used by God for the good of making us like His Son. With our eyes already turned toward God in thankfulness, we encourage an eagerness to go to God in prayer to lay our burdens as well as other matters at His feet.

So where does a thankful heart come from? Do not confuse thankfulness with what provides us with pleasure. True thankfulness requires spiritual understanding of the life situations in which we find ourselves.  Because spiritual understanding is so vital to a thankful heart, a Scripture-filled life is necessary. Living in the Word keeps our focus where it needs to be. It is through being in the Word of God that we are encouraged to grow in the Spirit and remember that we are the children of God. May your Thanksgiving this year be the start of a bountiful harvest of joy, as you seek to cultivate thankfulness in your heart and mind about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sunday – November 11, 2012

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November 11, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Pray For Kings and All Who Are in Authority from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

The elections are over, so now what? Maybe your candidate won or maybe they lost, but our job is more than just an election. Now is the time for us to get busy and be in prayer for all who in authority whether they are the President of the United States or local elected officials. Join us as we look at 1st Timothy 2 verses 1 to 4 and see why prayer for our leaders is of first importance and what our prayers can do to make the advance of the gospel possible.

Word On Worship – November 11, 2012 Download / Print

 Matthew 6:32-33
“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

One of our greatest problems with prayer is we do not fully know to whom it is we are praying. We have left God to the realm of human imagination and fantasy such that we say, “I would like to think of God in these terms.” That “I like” mindset guarantees that all concepts of God which come from our speculation and imagination will be seriously wrong. Such ideas continually lead to uncertainty about God because God is not the focus of our lives. The only place we can get a clear picture of the living God and understand why prayer is so essential is from the Bible, where God bears witness about Himself so we may begin to know who He truly is.

To  understand why prayer is so essential, we must first grasp how God is a personal God. Today, many people remove the personal attributes of God and think of Him as a “higher substance.”  Society enjoys the facelessness of such a God because we can collectively leave God on the shelf with our other faceless pursuits of career, family, and education, as if He were a fashion statement to be worn in the right season of Christmas and Easter. In other seasons where our devotion is spent in total pursuit of ourselves, we can fold Him up and put Him away until He is needed. The truth is, impersonal ideas about God will always be inferior to the true nature of God.

God is always described as a personal God of real people in Scripture. He speaks of Himself as “I” and addresses humanity as “you.” From Genesis to Revelation, God relates to people personally and is never seen as an “it.” Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to see Him as an object from whom we can stand apart and observe in the way scientists examine an organism through a microscope. God is always the subject, not a mere object, always above us, never below us. He presents Himself in personal terms and so we must always think of Him in personal terms as the God who is eternally here and has His eternal eye on us. He takes an active interest in us just the way we are.

So how does this relate to prayer? Since God is personal, it should be no surprise to find His relationship to humans involves two-way speech, where we listen as well as speak. There is a language between God and us just as there is between you and me.  As God used language to address the people in the Bible, such as Abraham and David, we are called to converse with God using language, seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness. His lessons and commandments as revealed in His wonderful Word remain our enduring and steadfast guide. And none of this would be possible if our heavenly Father were not a personal God who speaks to us and hears our call.

Sunday – November 4, 2012

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November 4, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Where is God on Election Day? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

It is a week away… not the end of the world but if you listen to the advertising you might be convinced otherwise… Election Day. With both sides convinced God is on their side, the question we are all wondering is “Where is God on Election Day?” Join us this Sunday as we take a break in our study in the Gospel of Mark to look at the example of another king who learned a lesson about Who is in charge , even when we have questions about what it all means in Daniel 4 verses 28 to 37 as we try to answer that very question, “Where is God on Election Day?”

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Proverbs 11:10-11
“When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish, there is joyful shouting. By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is torn down.”

Dr. Haddon Robinson, president of the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver has written, “Fundamentalists who preached during the sixties that God and Caesar were to be kept apart, have had a turn of mind about what the Bible teaches. Political involvement now smacks of a religious crusade… The fact is that there has probably been no time in the recent history of our nation when evangelical Christians have been as interested and involved in the political process.” This has brought an equal and fervent response from unbelievers to keep Christians out of the political dialog under the banner of “separation of church and state.”

We often consult the Book of Proverbs for wisdom in many areas of life, but one area it shines a particularly clear light upon is politics. For many secularists, a government which seeks to uphold righteousness in any area but the environment is only out to make life miserable for people. The Book of Proverbs assumes the purpose of government is to promote righteousness because righteousness is mutually beneficial for government and the people. Righteousness is not only right, it is best. When a government promotes righteousness, the people are blessed. But when the government fails to achieve its intended purpose, the people suffer.

The problem is that government is often tasked with matters that are humanly impossible. Righteousness and justice are God-given characteristics. For any government to employ such standards would require it to seek divine enabling to accomplish their purpose. While there is wisdom in separating religious functions from political office, there is no way we can separate righteousness from political office. If the purpose of government is to promote righteousness and punish evil, how can we avoid defining righteousness and defending it as a part of our political obligation to God?

In carrying out that duty, we must recognize any form of power can be prostituted to the advantage of those who wield it. Any power given by God to man is a stewardship. And when power is abused, God may elect to take it away, just as God did with Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. He had received good counsel from his advisors in 1 Kings 12:7 “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” Rehoboam did not learn leadership is really servanthood and rejected their advice. This is what Jesus taught the disciples in Mark 10:35-45. All power is given by God, whether it is political, financial or relational, so that we may serve others. When we forget this truth we are in danger of being set aside.

Sunday – October 28, 2012

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October 28, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Why Is Jesus So Cranky? from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Does Jesus ever get grumpy? Just wake up on the wrong side of the bed after dealing with the disciples with yet another problem? Maybe if we saw Jesus in His full glory on the Mount of Transfiguration we would understand what Jesus sacrificed to come to earth to redeem mankind. Join us this Sunday for our continuing study of the Gospel of Mark in Mark 9 verses 1 to 29 as we look at “Why Is Jesus So Cranky?”

Word On Worship – October 28, 2012 Download / Print

Mark 9:18-20
“I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!”

The pandemonium that greets Jesus and the three disciples when they come off the mountain might give Peter new incentive to return to the place of glory to build those shelters, far removed from the noise down below. Coming back from the glory of the Transfiguration and into collapse of the disciples’ failure to cast out the demon was not what anyone expected. How many times have we desired to retreat from life’s failures or from a faithless generation?  I am sure the disciples would understand the commercial that asks, “Want to get away?”

This episode is different from the other exorcisms we have already seen in the Gospel of Mark. The earlier encounters demonstrate the authority of Jesus over the demons but here Mark turns our attention to the failure of the disciples to cast out the demon and the father’s need for faith. The disciples are just like us – beset by failure, eager to engage in arguments, undisciplined in our prayer lives, and more interested in learning technique instead of taking the time needed to walk closely with God. This incident shows us how feeble we all are when we are running on our own steam.

To their credit, the disciples want to learn from their failure. Their question to Jesus reveals their assumption that it is all about their technique. They thought it was all about their skills and power, so the only reason why something went awry had to be the result of poor technique. Power in our spiritual lives has nothing to do with the right combination of words or actions. There is no lamp to rub to get our magical three wishes. The answer Jesus gives His disciples makes it clear that spiritual power has nothing to do with secret lore, techniques or incantations. They had trusted in themselves and their power rather than in God.

Only when we, like the disciples, come up short in failure do we realize that we posses no power in ourselves. Those who belong to the faithless generation do not cast out evil. God does. The power belongs entirely to God and must be received afresh from Him through a life of prayer and self sacrifice. We cannot take a course to learn the ins and outs of spiritual effectiveness, as if the power of God is earned like a merit badge. Our attitude must be like the father in Mark 9:24: “I do believe; help my unbelief.” It is only then we will be useful as healers and agents of comfort for those who suffer.

Sunday – October 21, 2012

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October 21, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

The Most Important Question from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

There are a lot of questions we ask ourselves about our lives. What will do to earn a living, how should we raise our families, how can we define success in our lives. But the most important question any one can ask themselves is who is Jesus of Nazareth? Who Jesus is and what you are going to do with that answer is the single most defining issue you have to make with eternity. Join us this Sunday as we look at "The Most Important Question" from Mark 8 verses 27 to 38.

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Mark 8:34-35
“And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

If ever there was a man who could be right and yet simultaneously wrong at the same time, Peter must be him. In our passage, Peter makes his stunning confession of faith in Jesus being the Messiah. But then Jesus tells the disciples His path will lead to suffering, humiliation and ultimately death on the cross and Peter’s reaction is to tell Jesus no way! One can hardly blame Peter for missing the point since the cross was contrary to every interest in Peter’s life at this time. Are we any different than Peter today?

We need to remember the Jewish method of execution was stoning. When Jesus told them they would need to take up their cross to follow Him, they heard Roman execution. To be Messiah meant possessing the Wisdom of Solomon, providing bread in the Wilderness like Moses, leading in conquest like Joshua and establishing an eternal kingdom like David in the minds of the disciples. Nowhere in their job description for the Messiah was death at the hands of the same Romans they expected Jesus to overthrow. Jesus is heading to His own death and they will be following Him to the same destination.

Following Christ requires the believer to act in ways which are contrary to our basic instincts and interests. Jesus is not going the way our culture is going. That leaves us with the hard choice to follow our goals and self interests or to die to them by taking up a cross, a Roman method of execution. That certainly was no more popular in the minds of the disciples that in our minds today. The gospel is all about taking up our cross and embracing death. The result of following Jesus means our lives will turn upside down. No matter what our culture may be – American, Chinese, Islamic or even Jewish, when you come to Christ He will turn your values upside down. Following Jesus means we are going to die to the way we used to live our lives.

When I read through the Gospel of John, one of the key words is BELIEVE. But here in the Gospel of Mark the key word is FOLLOW. Many would like to apply this as a multiple choice where we can believe or follow Christ. Jesus makes it clear it is both to believe and follow. What do you believe about Jesus ? Will that compel you to follow Him? With what you know about Jesus, are you willing to get behind Him and follow His lead, even when the road He has chosen leads us to Golgotha? We must be ready to follow when Jesus leads us along the roads we would never have chosen for ourselves.