Sunrise Church

“...to be a Christian is to belong to a church...Looking to Christ as Lord means being united to Christ’s people. It’s automatic, like being adopted means you’ll quickly find yourself at a dinner table with brothers and sisters.” (Jonathan Leeman, Church Membership)

The way of the righteous is the way of Christ. The gospel teaches us that no one is righteous and that unless one’s righteousness far exceeds that of the most religious that we can imagine, we are in the category of them that will perish. Jesus, therefore, came (living a sinless life, dying a substitutionary death and rising victorious from the grave) so that we may escape the way of perishing and enter the way of the righteous, not by our own merit, but by the merits of Christ by faith (Romans 4:23-25). The way of the wicked is the way of sin and denial of our need for God's rescue in Christ.

Jesus came to fulfill the promise made to Abram that all nations would be blessed in him. That blessing, however, comes not in this life, but in the honor of the Father to those who follow Jesus.

The Triumphal Entry was seen by many as the opportunity to seat a new king and finally eradicate the Roman occupiers, but was, in reality, a preconception breaking fulfillment of prophecy about the true nature and work of Christ the Messiah.

Smell can unlock potent memories. It could be a meal, an odor, a chemical or a scent. For Mary, the aroma of the costly spikenard with which she anointed Christ's feet would serve to remind her of the price of Christ's death and the cost of devotion to his mission.

As Jesus fast approaches the final week of his life, we see that he is at war with death and the enemy and that his ultimate aim is to glorify God.

Jesus declared clearly that he and the Father are One which was confirmed by the works that he did. Therefore, he is the true Messiah, sent not to merely deliver God's people from political occupation and oppression, but to deliver all of God's chosen people from sin and the wrath of God.

As the man born blind is cast out by the Jewish leaders, he finds belonging in Christ who is gathering a flock of sheep who know his voice.

The blind man's encounter with Jesus that led to his healing and his encounter with the Pharisees that led to his judgment is a reminder that God’s great big plan of salvation and restoration is in full effect, that allegiance to Christ means broken allegiances in this life and of the dangers of hollow religion that would blind us to the truth.