Tag Archives: temple

Sunday – October 18, 2020 Book of Acts – Acts 24:1-27 “The Preacher and the Politician”

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday – October 18, 2020

Problems viewing?

Word On Worship – Sunday – October 18, 2020

Acts 24:5-8
“We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him.”

If this world were made up of basically good people, a man of integrity would be well loved and have no enemies. But since this world is made up of people who love darkness rather than light, and since a life of integrity exposes their evil deeds, the world will often slander the man of integrity. We are naïve if we think that if we live with integrity, we will be protected from false accusations and slanderous attempts to bring us down. Living with integrity will not shield us from slander.

In our passage, Tertullus presents his shaky case against Paul. Tertullus’ strategy was to hope that, based on the Jews’ testimony, Felix would act in his usual insensitive manner and have Paul executed. Tertullus flatly lies when he states that the Jews arrested Paul in the act of trying to desecrate the temple (24:6). The fact was, the Jews mobbed Paul with the intent to kill him, but the Roman commander intervened to save his life. But in spite of such blatant falsehood, all of the Jews joined his attack, asserting that the charges against Paul were true (24:9).

In Paul’s defense, he points out that his accusers should have been present (24:19), Paul was raising a point of Roman law, which imposed heavy penalties on accusers who abandoned their charges. Without the appearance of his accusers should have meant the withdrawal of a charge. Paul concludes by pointing out that the only supposed misdeed that any of his accusers had against him was his statement of being on trial before them because of his belief in the resurrection of the dead. Paul answered his accusers by speaking the truth.

We have no guarantee that everything will go well with us when we walk uprightly before God. Joseph acted with godly integrity when he resisted the seductive moves of Potiphar’s wife, and it landed him in prison for several years. But the Lord was with him there, and it’s better to have the Lord with you in prison than to have sinful pleasure without the Lord. It’s better to be in custody with a clear conscience, as Paul was, than to have power and money, but be alienated from God, as Felix was. However difficult your circumstances here, you will sleep well knowing that you will dwell in heaven with God throughout eternity.

Sunday – July 14, 2019 Gospel of Luke – Luke 19:45 to Luke 20:18 “Tempest in the Temple”

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday – July 14, 2019

Problems viewing?

Word On Worship – Sunday – July 14, 2019

Luke 20:1-2
One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”

The problem that the Jewish leaders faced was Jesus and His authority confronted their authority. Through the years they had their share of run-ins with Jesus. At the start of His ministry, Jesus had also gone up to Jerusalem and cleansed the temple (John 2:13-22). But then He left town and had pretty much kept to the north, while they had continued to run the religious establishment in Jerusalem. Jesus had come to town a few times and stirred things up, but He always had left and things had gone back to normal. But now things were coming to a head.

The problem the Jewish religious leaders faced is the same problem that every person who comes into contact with Jesus faces: His authority confronts my authority. At first, maybe it’s just an irritating sermon that makes you a bit uncomfortable. You don’t like it, but you brush it aside and continue on with your agenda for your life. Then a passage in the Bible steps on your toes. Your level of discomfort goes up a notch. You realize that if He takes over your life, there are going to be some radical changes, and you’re not sure that you want to relinquish that much control. So, you try and dodge the implications of who Jesus is by raising all sorts of intellectual questions. But Jesus keeps coming to town and confronting your authority to run your own life. Sooner or later, you come to a crisis point where you have to deal with the question that these Jewish religious leaders asked: “By what authority does Jesus say and do these things?”

If Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, who gave His life for you on the cross, then He is the absolute sovereign who has the supreme right to govern your life. Jesus the Christ could go into the temple, turn over the tables of the money-changers, drive out those who were selling, and confront the religious leaders because He was acting under the authority of the sovereign God. That same authority gives Him the right to confront you and me with the way we are living for ourselves, even if we cover it over with religiosity.

J.C. Ryle perceptively commented, “The ruin of thousands is simply this, that they deal dishonestly with their own souls. They allege pretended difficulties as the cause of their not serving Christ, while in reality they ‘love darkness rather than light,’ and have no honest desire to change.” The question for us today is, how do we respond when He suddenly upends our comfortable way of life? Do we challenge His right to confront us? Or, do we honestly face our own sinful selfishness, our insistence on running our lives on our terms? Do we yield to His rightful lordship? Since Jesus Christ is acting by God’s authority, we had better submit to Him!

Sunday February 18, 2018 Gospel of Luke – “The Last Temptation of Christ” Luke 4:9-12

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday – February 18, 2018 – Read the Word on Worship

Sunday February 18, 2018 Gospel of Luke – “The Last Temptation of Christ” Luke 4:9-12 from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Problems viewing?

Word On Worship – Sunday – February 18, 2018 Download / Print

Luke 4:9-12
“The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.  For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'”

Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”

Have you ever watched a small child learn to trust its father? When Gwen was younger we would sometimes visit a swimming pool. With a little persuasion, I would entice her to jump into my arms in the pool. After a few experiences, no coaxing was needed. In fact, sometimes she would leap when I was not looking, bobbing to the surface with the greatest of delight. It is not difficult to imagine that the Son of God could have felt the same way about jumping from the pinnacle of the temple.

Sonship really was the issue of the third temptation. Israel had failed to grasp what sonship entailed, and rebelled when they became aware of its price. Our Lord understood fully what sonship was all about, and thus each of His responses to Satan came from the one place in the Old Testament which most emphatically taught the meaning and implications of sonship.

We must remember that as Christians we are also “sons of God,” who are to reign with Christ. And as “sons of God,” we are subject to testing and discipline (Heb. 12), although maybe not in the exact ways as our Lord. We are also susceptible to the same temptations to which Adam and Eve and Israel (and all mankind) have failed. Thus, the test of our Lord’s sonship is very relevant to “sons of God.” The father-son relationship is one with a clearly defined chain of command. The father is in authority over the son. The child is to trust and obey the father.

For a “son of God” to put God the Father to the test is to reverse the authority structure which God has established. It is to forget that it God tests us; we are not here to test God. We need proving, not God. We are here to serve God; God is not our servant, standing by ever ready to do our bidding. Was this not the essence of God’s rebuke of Job? All too often, Christians are representing God as the servant of man, who is so eager to have followers that He is ready to do our bidding. Wrong! Sonship means that we are the ones to obey, to serve, and, if it pleases the Father, to suffer according the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is God who tests us; we do not test Him.