Sermon Tone Analysis

O Come All Ye Faithful

WELCOME

Good morning family!

In just a moment we’ll read the text for this morning’s sermon in John 6:35

You can find it on PAGE 1060 in the black Bibles.

Turn there now.

While you’re turning, a few announcements:

1) Today we are blessed to have Caleb Figgers with us.

Most of you know his family, but let me tell you a little about Caleb.

He and his wife Jenna and their four-month-old daughter Tabitha live in Minneapolis, MN where Caleb recently graduated with an M.Div.

from Bethlehem College and Seminary.

Caleb is a non-staff elder at Good News Church of Eagan, a new church very recently planted in the Twin Cities area.

Caleb also serves with Training Leaders International, a non-profit ministry launched out of Bethlehem Baptist Church that seeks to strengthen local churches by offering theological education to Christian pastors and church leaders both within the US and overseas.

Caleb is going to share for a few moments about his ministry and how you can pray about getting involved...

Thank you Caleb.

If you’d like to learn more, please talk with Caleb after the service.

He’ll be at the white flag.

2) Christmas in Boutopia

Tonight from 4-7

This is our Christmas gift to you!

3) Christmas Eve service

Saturday at 5PM

In a 2021 poll, Lifeway Research found six out of 10 Americans typically attend church at Christmastime.

Among those who don’t attend church at Christmastime, 57 percent say they would likely attend if someone they knew invited them.

Flyers at the exits

4) Christmas Day

“Canceling church to celebrate Christmas is like avoiding your spouse to celebrate your anniversary.”

That said, it will be a shortened service.

No Sunday School, no PM gathering.

Worship at 10:30 in the chapel

5) Christmas cards in the box

Now look in your Bibles at John 6:35 as Beth Klaassen comes to read for us.

Scripture Reading (John 6:35-44)

Prayer of Praise (Christ our Love), Beth Klaassen

Sing We the Song of Emmanuel

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Prayer of Confession (Disobedience), Sterling Tollison

In Christ Alone

PBC Catechism # 51

What is our responsibility to our church leaders?

We commit to pray for our leaders, submit to them as they submit to Christ, and hold them accountable as they lead us in obedience to Christ.

Pastoral Prayer

Thanksgiving—God the Father

Prayer for PBC—a praying church

Prayer for sister church—GracePoint Church (Bill Dumphy)

Prayer for US—Religious liberty

Help us to be aware of threats to religious liberty

Understanding of religious freedom has shifted from the free exercise of religion (which ensures our freedom to live out our core beliefs in the culture) to the freedom to worship (which allows us to gather like this as long as we keep our unpopular beliefs to ourselves)

Religious liberty vs. erotic liberty

Help us to speak on behalf of religious liberty

Help us to work for religious liberty

Raise up young men and women with sanctified hearts and minds ready to defend this precious right in our country

Even as we are concerned about the erosion of religious liberty in our country, help us not to forget places where there is no religious liberty.

Like the nation or Iraq, one of the worst places for Christian persecution in the world.

Prayer for the world—Iraq

Leader—President Abdul Latif Rashid

Social issue(s)—3.5 million refugees living in refugee camps

Spiritual issue(s)—41 million people, 0.2% evangelical, 98% unreached

Local churches—faithfulness amidst persecution

Laborers

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

Consider with me a tale of two Christmas gifts... [1]

Gift #1.

It’s Christmas morning, and all the family is together today.

Including your very rich and very generous uncle Mortimer, whom you haven’t seen in a few years.

After you finish opening your presents, you head outside to go to church (because why wouldn’t you want to gather with God’s people on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus!?!).

Ahem.

Anyways.

You head outside and that’s when you notice a shiny, brand new vehicle is in your driveway.

It’s the one you’ve always wanted.

And in typical TV commercial fashion there’s a massive 50-pound red bow on the top.

Your rich uncle Mortimer tells you, “I know it’s a lot of money, but it’s yours if you want it.

Paid in full.

I made an agreement with the dealership and the transaction won’t be complete until you drive it out of the driveway.

So here’s the keys, drive it to church and it’s yours!”

That’s an incredible gift—a pricey vehicle for free, if you decide to accept it.

Gift #2.

It’s Christmas morning, and you suddenly wake up.

You don’t know where you are, so you look around until you realize you’re lying on a hospital bed connected to wires and needles.

Your first thought is, “oh man, how am I going to get to church?!?!”

Haha, Just kidding.

Your first thought is, how did I get here?!?

You wrack your brain to remember what happened.

It was Christmas Eve night and you were finishing a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping.

You remember thinking how everybody seemed to be in such a hurry this Christmas season.

You remember wishing it wasn’t like that, but you knew you were part of the problem too.

And then you remembered the crash, and everything going black.

A few minutes later a doctor enters the room.

You were hit by a vehicle flying through the parking lot and you lost a lot of blood.

You should be dead.

In fact, the doctor pronounced you dead earlier this morning, but now your heart is beating.

The hospital staff had pumped blood into your veins when you had bled out from the accident.

That’s an incredible gift—somebody else’s blood for free, put into you when you had no ability to ask for it, resist it, or receive it.

Both gifts were freely given to you.

Both gifts were undeserved.

But one gift is presented for you to either accept or reject, while the other gift is a new quality infused within you.

Which of those gifts best describes the gift of salvation?

Is it a gift we can accept or deny—like the vehicle from Uncle Mortimer?

Or is it something that is worked in us by God’s sovereign, unfailing will—like the blood you received at the hospital?