Sunrise Church Wrightwood

In all of our lives, there will be a temptation to look back and not go forward with God. What will you do to fight that temptation? The Israelites did not fight this temptation and they were defeated by it. Listen to how we can go forward with God and defeat the temptation of looking back.

Christians sometimes stop before God's blessing can be poured out onto their lives. Instead of stopping or coasting in their Christian life they should go forward by faith to receive the blessing of God. Listen to how we can have a great faith commitment to receive the blessings of God.

God has designed us for something significant. God has a plan for all of us to receive a blessing if we choose to take on this great challenge. Listen to how God can bless us if we take on new challenges.

What will we give the rest of our lives to? It has been said American resolutions is the goals you make for one week at the start of January. That is the trend we tend to follow when we make goals for the New Year. God did not design us to live an insignificant life but a significant one. Listen to how we can make our lives count by making the great decision to go forward with God.

Americans are going to spend just under a thousand dollars on average on Christmas presents. This is a lot of money and this heavy emphasis on presents and lights during Christmas comes from the book of John. Listen to how the grace of God is needed in this world during Christmas and beyond.

We have all heard the story of Christmas and we have seen plays about Jesus being born. But do we really understand the true meaning of Christmas? Listen to how the light being born in a dark world can relate to our lives today.

As most of you know a horrible tragedy took place last Sunday in Texas in a little town and in a small church with no safety or security team. A gunman comes and starts taking lives and John Holcombe who survived lost eight family members including his unborn child. We sometimes think if we follow God then we will not have any bad things happen to us. How do we deal with tragedies like these? Listen to learn about God's love for hurting people.

We will not hear this Bible message from most TV preachers. They try to convince us that if we have enough faith and positive thinking we will have a near perfect life. They try to display that with all of their possessions on TV but that is not reality. In the real world, we have real people with real needs and hurts. Listen to how God can meet those needs for all of us who are hurting.

Stats show that the depression rate in America is at an all-time high. We have more entertainment, materials, and possessions but yet we are more depressed after 30 years. We have become more and more self-focused not having our emotional needs met. God has called us to be something more than depressed selfish people. Listen to how we can be better together by renewing our conduct.

A married couple said they thought they would be better divorced. Narrowing their options to either continuing in the pain or separating. There is a third option, staying together and learning how to have healthy relationships. Listen to how we can be better together by renewing our minds in Christ.

God's people are better together when we work together, pray together, fight together, and sacrifice together. Listen to how Nehemiah can help us achieve this goal of being better together.

The key question is how do you express your differences and disagreements with other people? It is interesting that we have had earthquakes and hurricanes and the media is more focused on if NFL players should kneel or stand before the National Anthem. People have made offensive statements and negatively contributed to the disagreements. Does this help us become united or divided? Listen to how we can become united by the truth to be better together.

How do we have unity and peace in a world that is in disunity and does not have peace? The only way is by joining the body that is being controlled by the same head and that head is Christ. Listen to how we can be better together by being united by truth.

People who do not go to Sunrise Church will often ask why is this church multi-ethnic, multi-generational, and multi-cultural? The answer to that is we wanted to follow God's Word and through searching and studying the scriptures this was the conclusion. It was not a vision of diversity, but a commitment to be relentlessly biblical. Watch or listen to how we can be better together by learning that we were designed for interdependence.