SonRise Community Church Morning Sermons

About SonRise Community Church Morning Sermons

Features the Weekly Sunday Morning Sermon

Publisher

SonRise Community Church

Category

religion & spirituality

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

21 Jul 2024

Latest episode

25 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

118 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   25 Oct 2026

   On gods and Altars

   Whether youre brand new to SonRise or have been around SonRise for a while, let me briefly state what we seek to accomplish in this sermon moment each week. During the preaching portion of our Sunday morning gathering we employ and enjoy a style of preaching called expositional preaching. Which means that whoever is preaching does not aim at saying anything new but seeks only to say what God has already said, such that the point of the text in view that week is the point of the sermon. In this sense whichever elder preaches the sermon we make it our aim to be the nothing more than servers, whose task is taking the Chefs meal and bringing it to the table without adding to it, taking away from it, or changing it in any way, shape, or form. We dont to do this randomly but orderly, as we work through books of the Bible. So when we come to specific passages week after week we come to them in their own context, having already examined the verses that come before while also anticipating the verses that come after. Or to put it another way, we seek to sit underneath the authority and illumination of the Scripture, rather than standing over it using the Scripture to support our own message. This is our goal, we dont do it perfectly, but we do aim to be faithful handlers of Gods Word. Why remind you of this today? Because today we come to a passage that might challenge our belief in expository preaching. When we read Exodus 20:22-26, many of you might wonder, Is there really a need to focus on this text? I mean, is there really that much to glean from it? Church, let me remind you that we here at SonRise believe in the inspiration, the infallibility, and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Every word of it comes to us from heaven, given by God to build us up in faith. We believe this, truly. Though, when we come to passages like the one weve arrived at today, we must admitthe applicability of every Word in Scripture is not always an easy thing to see. So today we have a task before us, and we must give attention to the preaching of the Word, for I believe in this text we will see how God often works powerful wonders through obscure texts. Hear it for yourself. Exodus 20:22-26, And theLordsaid to Moses, Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven.You shall not make gods of silver to be with Me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.An altar of earth you shall make for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you andbless you.If you make Me an altar of stone,you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. Before I begin, allow me a moment to orient us to whats happening here. This passage marks a shift in the book of Exodus. The laws found in Exodus 20:22 23:33 have historically been called The Book of the Covenant.[1] Why? Because these laws are different and distinct from the Ten Commandments, covering a variety of situations in life. It is explicitly called The Book of the Covenant in Exodus 24:7. More so, Exodus 24:4 tells us these laws were written down by Moses on parchment, not by God on stone tablets. Lastly, these laws are called rules in Exodus 21:1. The word translated rules there is the Hebrew word mishpawt, which is a word often used when one is applying a divine decree to a specific circumstance. Dont lose me Church, I say all that to say this. As Moses goes into the thick darkness that is the presence of God on Mt. Sinai (20:21), God gives Moses this Covenant Code. As we read the Covenant Code we see its a collection of laws suitable to Israels present situation. Really, its the Ten Commandments applied to specific situations Israel will encounter before they become further established as a nation.[2] Now, dont miss how this Covenant Code begins. See it? Here in v22-26 God gives laws about gods and altars. Whats God after in giving them temporary directions about gods and altars? Church, Gods after their worship! Worship is the first thing God addresses with them. AndHe wants them to worship correctly. Let that sink in. Many people worship God, true. But have you ever thought, not all worship is pleasing or acceptable to God? Its a frightening thought isnt it? God does not accept all forms of worship that are offered to Him. This begs us to ask the question of whether or not God accepts our worship. What if our worship isnt acceptable to Him? Well, theres an easy answer to these questions. If our worship isnt acceptable to God, we ought to change our worship! Dont mishear me. Because of the work of Christ we have access to God, we can come into His presence, anytime we so desire. And more, we can come boldly into His presence! Yes and amen. But, while we can come into Gods presence boldly, we must never come smugly as if it were a small thing, or as if we deserved to be there. If Jesus were to walk into this room right now, not one of you would say Hey buddy! and give Him a high five. No, no! Wed all fall at His feet, astonished that He would show such grace to sinners like us! Church, this shows us the essence and importance of worship! What does God have to tell His people about worship? He will speak to them about gods and altars in v22-26, see first On gods (v22-23) And theLordsaid to Moses, Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven.You shall not make gods of silver to be with Me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. How glorious is the truth declared to us in the beginning of v22? There God says to us, You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven. My oh my! Church, here is a robust reminder of divine revelation, graciously given to us from heaven. Do you need that reminder this morning? Here in our hands is Gods very Word to us. This is no earthly word to us, no man-made word to us, but the heavenly Word to us, where God Himself speaks to us from heaven by His Spirit. This is the God who has spoken to Israel in the Law, the God who met with Moses on the mountain, the God of heaven come down to speak with us. See then what that glorious reminder in v22 leads to in v23? In v23 God reminds His people to not give any room to idols. The connection between v22 and v23 is clear. Because God is who He is, the God far above us and greater than anything we can conceive, the God who dwells in the heavensbecause God is who He is, and because God is their God who has redeemed them from slavery, Israel is not to make idols. But not just any idols, here it is specifically idols made of precious materials, silver and gold. You would be right to think this is a repeat of the first two commandments, but its also more than that. Its more than that because of the mention of gold and silver. This is a polemical statement, meaning, Gods not only instructing Israel, God is also at the same time condemning the practices of the nations around Israel. You see, the nations around Israel made idols out of gold and silver to worship, that was their normal practice, but though thats normal for the nations, thats not to be normal for Israel, not at all. Theyre not to be what the nations are like, theyre to be what God commands them to be. Yet, God knows Israel would be tempted to be like all those around them, and continues to call them to a better way. Church, they needed the reminder. Yes, Israel would worship the Lord, but they were never very far away from idolatry. As they needed the reminder, we too need the reminder. Idolatry is never far away from us. Christians today might be tempted to mock those of old who bowed before statues to worship. But do we not also keep a few idols close by. Idols of comfort, idols of riches, idols of pleasure, idols of identity, and all sorts of other things we think we must have in order to have a full and meaningful life? Of course we do. Israel needed the reminder that God, who has spoken to them, is in the heavens high above them, and He doesnt share His throne. We need the reminder toobecause we must worship Godnot God plus something else. The timing of this reminder against idolatry is worth noticing. v22-23 come after v18-21. Notice it. Israel had just seen God descend onto Mt. Sinai and heard Him speak His Law. After that they saw the storm, the thunder, the lightning, the trumpet blaring, and the mountain itself smoking. They trembled and stood far off. They know how great God is and they were overwhelmed at His greatness. Right now in this moment they are truly aware of how big God is, and that an idol, fashioned with their own hands, could never capture the essence of who God is, and that it would always fall short. But how quickly they forgetonly a few short chapters from now theyll be pressing on Aaron, their priest, to make a god for them with their own gold. Church, as Israel is called once again in this text to a singular devotion to and worship of the Lord, we are too. Having called His people to worship Him alone and cast away their idols, God keeps speaking to them about worship, but now in v24-26 He turns His attention to altars. On Altars (v24-26) An altar of earth you shall make for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you andbless you.If you make Me an altar of stone,you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. I think a normal response to these verses isWhat?, What does this mean?, or even What am I supposed to do with that? Well, some of these instructions may seem strange. Why would God command His people to worship Him by using an altar made of earth or rough stones, rather than crafted stone? And why are steps not allowed before the altar? Once again, I think the general idea here is that God is calling His people to worship Him, but to ensure that they do not worship Him like the nations around them worship their gods.[3] Israels neighbors were known for their idol worship, yes, but they were also known for worshiping those idols on finely carved altars of stone with high steps leading up to it. They would often worship their idols naked, and include all manner of immorality in those settings. God did not want His people to give themselves over to such practices, so He commands these things to keep them from it. A time will come when the tabernacle and the temple would be built, and they will be as ornate and carefully crafted as you could imagine, and all that detailed design would serve and lead to the glory of God. But that time hasnt come yet for Israel, so these instructions are for their present situation, after they have left Egypt but before the building of the tabernacle.[4] But I think God is doing more than this. He is indeed keeping His people from worshiping like the nations, but in these commands there are two massive realities present that ought to mark the worship of Israel: simplicity and purity.[5] About simplicity, Church, notice that its all about the altar, that it should be made of plain earth heaped up or just rough stone with no tool to smooth it out. Why does God command this? I think its because the altar is where sinners meet a holy God, and God doesnt want anyone thinking worship is happening because of human ability. Meaning, the altar of our worship was never meant to show off the skill of man. Its meant to show off the sufficiency and beauty and glory of the sacrifice. An altar of earth is itself a sermon that says,Nothing you can do makes this sacrifice more acceptable. God alone provides the means, and God alone ought to receive the worship. This simplicity must mark Israels worship. Church, our worship must be marked by simplicity as well. Were always tempted to improve on Gods ways, arent we? We want to add our polish, our production, our performance, or pizazz. But a worship service that depends on our creative imagination quietly moves the center of worship from God to us. Simple worship keeps the center where it belongs, on God, on His Word, on our praising Him, praying to Him, hearing from Him, and responding to Him. Simple is the kind of worship the Reformation returned to after the worship of the Church had been so manipulated for so long. Pomp and circumstance, tradition and ritual, and rites and ceremonies that werent found in Scripture ruled the day. When the Reformation broke out what they return do? A simpler worship, focusing only on the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. Ordinary means, yes. But ordinary means that reveal extraordinary grace. About purity, Church, notice v26 and the remark about steps. God says no steps, why? That your nakedness be not exposed on it. I want you to hear the thing really in view here. Nakedness after Genesis 3 in the Bible is usually filled with shame. We first meet it in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, they saw they were naked, and hid. Their covering was laughable, and God kindly clothed them. Later, in Exodus 28, God commands linen undergarments for the priests to cover their nakedness when they approach the altar. The point is really the same,sinful people cannot approach a holy God exposed, we cannot cover ourselves. But grace upon grace, just as God came to cover Adam and Eve in the Garden He has come in Christ to cover our many sins. Therefore, worship must never become a place where we try to uncover what God has covered. Thats what these steps are really about. Worship isnt a place for the flesh to be revealed or exalted. And worship is not a place for anything that draws attention to the creature rather than the Creator. This kind of simplicity and purity must still mark our worship today. Look again at v24. Right in the middle of these instructions God makes a promise, In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. God says, I will come to you.Not You will come up to me. Not climb these stairs until youre worthy. God says,I will come. Why does He say this? Because worship is not a ladder we climb to reach up to God. The whole point of worship is that the God who is so high above us, who dwells in the heavens, who has spoken to us from heaven, has come down to us. In Scripture God is always descending to us. He came down in the garden. He came down on Sinai. He came down to dwell in the tabernacle, and then the temple. And Church, all those moments led to the greatest moment when He came down in His own Son, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Why does God come down like this? Many answers could be given here, but a primary answer would be this: God comes down to us, to lift us up to Him. How does He lift us up? By going lower than we ever could. Church, the Son of God didnt just come down to earth. He kept going down, all the way to a cross, where He was stripped and exposed and executed like a criminal. That was our sin and shame He was carrying. There He offered the one sacrifice that could actually take away sin. No human hand shaped it, and no human effort could improve it. God was at work, and through it God now gives all who come what we have always needed: His perfect righteousness, to cover us. The cross makes worshipers out of sinners. Worshipers who love the Lord simply and purely, because they have nothing to add and nothing to hide. And the wonder of the cross is v24. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. He said it to Israel at an altar of earth. He says it to us through His Son. Wherever His name is remembered, whether in this room, in your home, or in your car on a Monday morning, He is there. Not to scold, but to bless. [1] John D. Currid, Exodus vol. 2 - EP Study Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: EP Books, 2014) 56-62. [2] John I. Durham, Exodus - WBC (Waco TX: Word Books, 1987) 318. [3] Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus: Saved for Gods Glory Preaching the Word Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015) 651. [4] John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, quoted in ESV Church History Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023) 113. [5] Ryken, 651.Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywe490Ha6Zk&t=4s

2. 

   18 Oct 2026

   Fear Before the Mountain

   October is a fun month in America, with Halloween at the center of it. Some people decorate their yards with 16-foot skeletons and blow-up creatures. Others, admittedly, dont see the appeal at all. But our culture loves Halloween, and it loves the idea of being afraid. That is why we have entire horror genres, and why theme parks now start their Halloween Horror Nights in early September. People want to feel fear. I think part of the reason is that most of us rarely experience real fear. I tried to think of the last time I was genuinely afraid, and the closest I could come was Hurricane Irma. Nine years ago, our community watched the forecast and was told the storm was locked in, that it was the size of the state, and that it was coming straight for the coast. I was pastoring a church in downtown New Port Richey at the time, and I had the anxiety of knowing what the storm might do to the people I cared for, while also knowing there was very little I could do about it. Then, at the last minute, the storm curved and Polk County took the brunt of it. We woke up to a few tree branches down and a giant tree that had fallen into a parking lot. We cut it up with chainsaws and moved on with life the next week. That was a real fear, but it still doesnt capture what the people at Sinai experienced. Some of you have served in the military, and you know what it is to face the reality that you may die in a given moment. Most of us dont live with that reality. Our text this morning is Exodus 20:1821, but first we need to set the context. For the last 10 or 11 weeks, we have worked verse by verse through the Ten Commandments. Each week we unpacked what each command says, and what it implies for us. Somewhere along the way, its easy to forget what was happening at the mountain. I know I did. We get so caught up in the dos and donts that we lose the scene. Back in May, we arrived at Mount Sinai. After God brought Israel through the plagues, through the Red Sea, through battles and victories, He led them to this mountain and gave them specific instructions. Then, in Exodus 19:1625, God showed up: On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. Picture standing at the base of that mountain. The ground is shaking. Thunder is booming. Trumpets are blaring louder and louder. Smoke is pouring off the peak like a volcano. Think of how a hurricanes wind sounds as it slams against your house, then multiply that by thousands. That is the experience before the mountain. And into the middle of that, God speaks. The Ten Commandments are not handed down quietly. They are spoken in the midst of an awe-inspiring, earth-shaking display of God revealing Himself. That changes how we read them. This was not a passive moment. As we look at the text, there are two kinds of fear at play. The first is the peoples fear. It is an emotional fear that seizes them and causes them to draw back. The second is Moses fear. It is a righteous fear that motivates him to draw near. The people shrink back from God, while Moses pushes forward toward God. Lets look at each. The Peoples Emotional Fear Verses 18 and 19 say: Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. Notice the progression. Just a chapter earlier, in Exodus 19:8, the people answered together, All that the Lord has spoken we will do. They were excited. They were ready to meet God. They reminded themselves of everything He had already done for them: He brought them out of Egypt, He destroyed Egypts armies, He parted the sea, He gave them manna while they complained the whole way. They were on board. Then God actually showed up, and their tone changed. Ah, this is terrifying. They had imagined a cuddly old man who would give them a hug and say, Ive got you. Instead they encountered the majesty of God. This was still only a glimpse of who He is, but it was enough to overwhelm them. Fear froze them, and then it sent them backward. They stood far off. They were walking away from the mountain. The fear that seized them was not entirely baseless, and God had in fact set limits around the mountain. But the people took those limits and turned them into something larger. They concluded that God was so dangerous they needed to back even farther away. He is too terrifying for us to be in His presence. We cant be anywhere near Him. He will just strike us all dead. Here is the heart of it: a false fear is one that makes false assumptions about God as He displays Himself. There is a real truth here. God is a God of wrath. He is a God of judgment. He is a consuming fire. Those things are not wrong. What the people made of those truths was wrong. They concluded that because God is holy, He must be waiting to destroy them. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. Sometimes a correct understanding of God leads to a wrong conclusion. Think of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. One servant is given five talents, another two, and a third one. The first two invest what they are given and multiply it. The third buries his in the ground. When the master returns and asks why, the servant says, I knew you to be a hard man. His view of his master is partly true, but he responds with fear rather than faithfulness. The masters reply is essentially, If you knew who I was, you should have done something with what I gave you, not run and hide. The Israelites are doing the same thing. Their conclusion is, God must be angry, because this sight is terrifying. We must shrink back. We cant be in the presence of this God. Notice something else. Up to this point, God had not told them to stay away. He had given them a boundary, but the text assumes that God expected they would want to draw near to Him. Chapter 19 pictures a people eager to meet God. Their actual response is to say, We need to get as far from Him as possible. That is worth sitting with in your small groups this week. There is also a deeper fear underneath this. It is the fear that if we are not close to God, we cannot anger Him. Over the centuries, this kind of thinking produced a whole system of extra rules. The Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament built layers of additional laws around the commandments, so that they would never come close to breaking the original law. The logic goes: as long as I avoid everything that is close to sin, I will never actually sin, and God will always be satisfied with me. That is a picture of God as a capricious deity, waiting for the second you cross the line so He can strike you down. Many of us have joked, when someone says something heretical, Im going to step over here, so when lightning strikes, Im out of the way. God doesnt have good aim anyway. But even as a joke, it reveals a view of God as fickle and quick to anger. That is not who He is. Their false fear does something else. It causes them not only to shrink back, but to ask Moses to stand in the gap for them. We cannot talk to God. We do not want God to talk to us. You deal with Him. You talk to God, and whatever you say, well do it. We just dont want to hear it directly. Its an odd, almost arrogant way to approach God. We dont want what God says, but well accept what someone else tells us He said. Well see how that plays out as the text continues. But notice that their false fear has separated them from God, and then they put someone else in front of them: You deal with it. We do this too. God has given us His Word so we can know Him. He has given us prayer and the church and every tool we need to know Him better and grow in Him. Yet sometimes its much easier to switch off our minds and say, Whatever the pastor or podcaster says, that is what is right. After about 15 years in ministry, Ive had many conversations that started like this: My pastor once told me this, and it became the authority of truth for me. So thats what the Bible must say. Or: My grandmother always said cleanliness is next to godliness. (There is a whole list of things people think are in the Bible that simply arent, and you can find memes about them online.) People take things as truth because they were handed down by authority figures they trust, or by well-meaning people who read Scripture and assumed what they were taught. A common example: you may have heard that the eye of the needle that a camel couldnt pass through was a real gate in Jerusalem, a narrow passage that a camel could squeeze through if it was unloaded. Thats not what Jesus was talking about. Its literally an eye of a needle. People are repeating what others told them. They are appealing to someone elses authority rather than going to Scripture, and in doing so they assume the other person is right. So let me say this clearly. You should not assume that I am always right. You should not assume that we as a church are always right either. We have good motives. We pray, and we read, and we try. But we can get things wrong. We have 2,000 years of church history showing that Christians can get things wrong. God is consistent and never changing, but we are fallible humans. When we put our ultimate trust in fallible human beings to be the source of our faith, we have put them in the wrong place. A lot of life today is shaped by this. We put our faith in false authorities because we are afraid. Its hard work to dive into Scripture and make a choice for yourself. Its much easier when someone just tells you what to believe. You point out how it all fits together, and I say, Yep, done. But knowing God takes work. It takes a real relationship with Him, and that relationship cannot be outsourced to other people. This is not new. In 1 Samuel 8, when Israel demands a king, the reason is that they dont want to follow God. God tells Samuel, They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. They want to be like all the other nations, and they want someone else to stand up on their behalf. Following God is hard, and it is easier to find a human voice that tells you what to do. When fear grips us, the easy move is to find a voice to tell us what to do. Scripture calls us to turn to God instead, to seek Him and His faithfulness. Seek God for who He is. And dont let fear push you into laziness. Moses Righteous Fear So the people have asked Moses to be their representative: You speak to God, because you are clearly good with Gods terms. We are not. We are terrified. Here the text takes a turn. Verses 20 and 21 show us Moses displaying a righteous fear. The point is that fear is not the problem. What matters is what the fear is directed at and how it shapes us. And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. Moses rightly fears God, and because he fears God rightly, he is able to comfort his people. He tries to show them that God is not doing what they think He is doing. Hes not trying to terrify you with who He is. Hes trying to show you who He is, so you can live rightly before Him. Hes revealing a bit of Himself and His Word so that you can understand Him more fully and live in light of that. The people have no concept of what is happening. They are so gripped by their emotions that they cant even listen to God. Their picture is that they are not afraid of Moses. Youre just an old man. Were not scared of you. Were afraid of Him. Moses is saying, in effect, There is nothing to be afraid of in the way you are afraid. There is a fear you should have, which we will unpack in a moment, but the fear they have is not based on who God actually is. Its based on their false image of what God is doing. Moses uses his right understanding of God to comfort them. Properly understanding God leads him to properly instruct them. This echoes what we see throughout Scripture. Again and again, God and His messengers say, Do not fear. Angels come to people and say, Do not be afraid. God shows up at multiple points and says, Do not be afraid. Isaiah 41:10 says it so well, in the middle of Israels turmoil: Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. That is what God is saying from the mountain too. I am with you. You do not need to be afraid. Look at who I am. This is God, and this is what He is teaching you. But the people are not comforted. They are shrinking back. They are not seeing the wonder and majesty of God in front of them. All they see is terror. Moses, who sees God rightly, is using that understanding to instruct them and change their perspective: See what God is doing. Do not fear the way you are fearing. If we have been moved by a righteous fear, we will comfort even those who have a wrong view of God. We will correct them with truth. Moses is correcting the peoples false view of God, bringing them back to God, and showing them what God is actually doing. Proper, righteous fear leads us to comfort others and to instruct them well. We dont simply say, Youre dumb and you dont understand God. That is not comforting. Instead we say, Here is the wrong view of your fear. Here is the right view of God. This is what God is doing in these commandments. That is what Moses does. God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you. God is giving them Himself, and He is testing them. In Scripture, testing is a refining process. It is not pass or fail. God is drawing out sin so that His people may be righteous. He is growing them in their faith so they will do what He says, not out of fear that He is going to strike them dead, but because they know Him. This is not the fear of a God who is always on the verge of being angry at you. This is the God of the universe who has saved you. Look at the very first words of the Ten Commandments: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Redemption is the first word out of Gods mouth. Motivation comes before the command. And notice that He doesnt list the judgments in the Ten Commandments. There is no list of punishments. The commandments simply describe how to live: do this, dont do that, this is your life. The people are already terrified just by the idea that there is a good and a bad, knowing they cannot live up to it. But Moses, rightly fearing God, instructs them properly. This also echoes Ecclesiastes. After the Teacher has examined all of human history, all of life, and the futility and joys that exist in it, he concludes: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The end of the matter is that we know who God is rightly, and because we know who He is rightly, we live rightly. We are not waiting for Him to drop the hammer every time we mess up. Look at the story of Israels journey. They mess up over and over. They complain about having no food, and God doesnt strike them down. Instead, we see a pattern of grace, and then, after repeated disobedience, corrective discipline. As you get into the book of Numbers, you see these little judgments after lots of grace. Read Deuteronomy and you see a clear if you do this, this will happen, after generations of the same behavior. Through all of it, God is gracious. He is merciful and long-suffering. Repentance and belief run through all of Scripture. It doesnt start in Matthew 1. Repent and believe is not something Jesus invented. It begins in the Old Testament. Acknowledging sin, turning from it, turning to God, and living in holiness in light of the one who has redeemed you. That is why the Ten Commandments begin with the Redeemer. We are always turning back to the one who has saved us. Apart from the saving work of God, the commandments would be nothing more than rote moralism, a way to earn our own goodness. But the Ten Commandments are anchored in Gods redemptive work. That work leads us to repent, and our repentance leads us to believe in the one who has redeemed us and who continues to redeem us. He saves us not only from the forces of the world, but from the pain of sin and death that would condemn us eternally. Because God saves us from that, we need to fear Him rightly. So Moses instructs the people in the truth, so that you may not sin. If you know God, this will keep you from sin. It will keep you from a life that is completely shaped by sin, so that your life is lived in holiness. Leviticus says, Be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44), and Peter echoes that in his letter. But holiness here does not mean perfection. It means knowing that we are sinners in need of a Savior, who will perfect us in the life to come. So we live in holiness, and when sin comes, we repent, believe, and walk in holiness again. We dont wallow in sin as if we could hide from God, like Adam and Eve, hoping He wont see us. We dont shrink back from God. We go to Him, knowing that we have failed and knowing that He is the one who has redeemed us. A proper fear leads you back to Him, drawing you near to God rather than pushing you away. That is exactly how Moses responds. While the people stand far off, Moses draws near to the thick darkness where God is. He has instructed the people, and he is not afraid to draw near to the Lord. A right fear drew him back to God. The New Testament echoes this contrast. Romans 8:15 says, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! We see God rightly as Father: One who loves us and cares for us, but who does not leave us undisciplined. Scripture repeatedly reminds us that a father who does not discipline his children is not a loving father. A father who has no rules and no discipline is not showing love. He is leaving his child to wander into sin and ruin. A good father has rules, has discipline for those rules, and loves within that discipline. That is what God is doing at Sinai. The Father sets limits for His people so they can follow Him with their whole hearts. And this magnificent God is the one who has redeemed them and will continue to redeem them. If this God has saved you, there is no condemnation for you. The fear of Him should motivate you to live for Him, not to shrink back from Him. That is why 1 John turns the idea of fear on its head: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:1819). What John is echoing is the teaching of Christ: true fear leads you to love God and love your neighbor. So this is not fear that drives us away. The fear of the Lord is real. It is the understanding that God is God. This magnificent God is real, and this magnificent God has redeemed us. He is our Father, and we respect and fear Him as we would a good father. We dont disobey willy-nilly. We dont aggravate Him for the sake of it, because we understand that there is discipline and that there are right ways to respond. There is a right fear, and a right fear flows from love. We know that He loves us, and so we fear Him rightly. The discipline of the Lord, the Ten Commandments, are not God being malicious, as if to say, Do these things because I said so. They come from love. The law exists out of Gods love for His people. Too often we treat the law like a list, as if God simply had to have a list of dos and donts, the way every other culture had a moral code that people were expected to follow. But the commandments are for our good. They were for Israels good, and they are for ours. As we have unpacked these commands over the last 11 weeks, we have seen that the explicit and implicit aspects of these commandments are for our spiritual good. They should drive us to know God more, not to flee from Him more. They should expose our sin and lead us to the one who has saved us from our sin, not make us hide all the more. Some of us hear the commandments and think, Thats not what it means. It just means dont stab someone. Thats it. Lets keep it surface-level because surface-level is easy to follow. But the commandments mean far more than that. They are not given so that you can live in fear of punishment. They are given so that you can experience the life God has for us, know Him more, and follow Him more closely. And if all you hear in the commandments is, God is going to punish me for everything Ive done, you are not understanding what God is teaching. Punishment and discipline are different. Discipline grows you in holiness. Discipline may involve correction, because you have done wrong and you need to be set right so that you can do right. If you are never disciplined, you are not growing. But if you feel only punishment, as if Gods job is to keep telling you how bad you are, then you are missing what God is doing. A loving Father disciplines in order to grow you into who He is. This matters most at the end of life. If you are in Christ, if you have seen God for who He is, if you have feared Him rightly, if you have repented and believed, trusting in the Christ who took on the wrath of God for your sins, then there is no fear of punishment in the end. You do not come to your last days hoping God isnt angry about what you did, and fearing that Hell say, Heres everything you messed up, but Ill be nice to you anyway, as if He were just waiting to strike you with a hammer. If you love God and fear Him rightly, you have no fear of that last day, because you know the God who loves you. You know the God who saved you because you know Christ. You know the true and living God, who took the full wrath upon Himself. Think about Mount Sinai again: fire, burning judgment, and a terrifying God. If He were going to exact judgment because I am a sinner who doesnt want to follow Him, that would be a lot of judgment coming my way. But Christ took all of that for all of us, not just one. All believers, He took upon Himself all of that wrath of the Father. If you are not a believer, this is the option God has given you: He will take upon Himself the full wrath that is due you for not repenting and believing in Him. For all who have repented and believed with a right fear of who God is, Christ has absorbed all of that wrath. The terrifying mountain has been taken in Christ. God has taken it on Himself, paying the penalty for our sin. And because He has done that, we now have access in a new and better way. The author of Hebrews paints this picture as he concludes chapter 12, and I want us to hear it from the Word itself, not just from me explaining it. Hebrews 12:1829 contrasts the mountain experience with the gospel experience of Christ. These are not two different gods. The author gives us a fuller picture of what is happening. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Look at what the author does with the mountain. The fire is the same, and God is still a consuming fire. He is still the one who shook the earth at Sinai. The author even reminds us that God will shake not only the earth but also the heavens, so that only what cannot be shaken will remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:2829). So the text brings us all the way back to the beginning. He is still a consuming fire. But now we have the joy of Christ and a kingdom that will not be shaken. If you are in Christ, your life is secure in Him. And in that security, we live for Him. He has taken on the wrath of God, so that we may do all that He has commanded us to do. We can walk out the commandments He has given us, not out of fear that God is going to punish us for every mistake, but out of a righteous fear that God loves us, cares for us, and motivates us to move forward, turning to Him day by day, trusting His work. For He is a great God. The fear of the Lord is not something to run from. It is the right response to a God who is holy, powerful, and utterly good, who has redeemed us in Christ. Like the people at Sinai, we may feel the shaking of the mountain. But we have been brought to Mount Zion, and the One who speaks to us has already taken the judgment we deserved.Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r4RaPqRzTA&t=5s

3. 

   11 Oct 2026

   The Sin Beneath the Sins

   Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81dKp3mr23k

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Contact SonRise Community Church Morning Sermons

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.