Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Bible study & Prayer every Wednesday at 7pm.

If you come a little early, we’ll have a light dinner provided for anyone and everyone starting at 6pm, we’d love to have you join us.

Thanks to all who were able to help us during the PRC’s Halloween Parade and Vendor Event.

We had several people come to help us in various different ways—special thank you for Veronica for bagging up all the candy, Natalie for making the arrangements, and Stacey for loaning your popcorn maker to us (and of course, thank you for those who were there to talk with children and their families).

The PRC estimated that they had 150 children registered for the event, I’m not entirely sure how many we saw at our booth, but we did see quite a few; and we’re praying for fruit from that event.

Next week, November 7th, 2021, we have several different things going on.

We of course, have our normal worship service at 10:30am, but directly following that service, we have a quarterly business meeting and an annual budget meeting.

We do need all of our members to plan on being there because we have several things to vote on during those meetings.

In addition, right after the meetings, we’ll have a celebratory one-year meal in the Activity Room.

The church is going to provide the main dish for that meal, but we’ll need some help with sides, desserts, and drinks.

If you’re able to help, there is a sign-up sheet by the entrance.

Also, don’t forget that next week is Daylight Savings Time, so you’ll want to fall back an hour.

We don’t do a lot concerning holidays in our church beyond simple recognition of a few holidays when they occur.

That’s intentional, because many holidays that are celebrated in the US are patriotic or very specific holidays that don’t necessarily apply to the church—while we do celebrate many of those holidays on a personal level, we’ve decided that Sunday morning isn’t for celebrating holidays, it’s for worshiping Jesus, which is why you’ll never hear patriotic songs during church services and you won’t see us focusing too intently on any holiday from the platform.

We worship Jesus, not the US.

Today is a little different, because the holiday involves the church.

And just to clarify, I’m not talking about Halloween.

Every October 31st, there’s actually two holidays—the world typically focuses on Halloween, which is why we have several thousand kids running around in costumes collecting candy, but there is actually another holiday that is important to every church that isn’t Catholic; and that holiday is celebrated on October 31st as well.

Today is Reformation Day, which is the one day of the year that is set aside to reflect on the protestant break from Catholicism in the 1500s—it is a day to reflect on those known as the Reformers, who realized that what the Roman Catholic church taught was antithetical to the Scriptures, so they bravely and courageously led their churches to leave the Roman Catholic Church.

They summed up their main doctrinal points in what they call the Five Solas and these five solas are what many conservative, protestant churches still believe today (including our church).

Those five solas are simple and I would encourage you to write them down and do some study on them later in the day.

As a church, we believe in:

Sola Scriptura—that the Bible alone is all that is necessary to hear from God.

The church is not the ultimate authority, God is the ultimate authority, which is why we put such a huge emphasis on God’s Word.

Sola fide—that faith alone is all that is necessary for salvation; sometimes this is referred to as justification by faith alone.

You don’t need to confess to a priest, you don’t need to earn your salvation, you don’t need to pay penance for forgiveness, you are justified completely on the basis of your faith in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia—by grace alone--the ability that we have to simply believe is availed to us because of the grace of God.

We’re all born in sin, but it is the grace of God alone that draws us to repentance.

Solus Christus—by Christ alone, not by the completing of what are called sacraments.

Jesus and him crucified are all that is necessary.

And Soli Deo Gloria—for the glory of God alone—all of this, from our salvation, our justification, our sanctification and eventual glorification is done for the glory of God alone.

We as a church believe that to hear from God, we need only the Scripture; that to be saved, it is by grace alone through faith alone, that Jesus is all that is necessary; and that all of this was for the glory of God alone.

If you’d like to know more about the Reformation and the heavy influence that the Reformation has had on all churches since, please feel free to talk with me about it after the service, I’d be glad to help you understand why today is such an important day for all churches that aren’t Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.

Before we pray, let me remind you to continue worshiping the LORD through your giving.

To help you give, we have three different ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done through the offering box at the entrance.

If you write a check, please write it to “Grace and Peace” and if you give cash and would like a receipt, please place it in an envelope with your name on it; if you’d prefer, we also accept giving through debit, credit, and ACH transfers.

You can to that in two different ways, either by: (2) texting the number 84321 with your $[amount] and by following the text prompts or by (3) visiting us online at graceandpeacepa.com and selecting “Giving” in the menu bar.

Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Psalm 35)

Our Call to Worship this morning is part one of three from Psalm 35.

Psalm 35 is a rather lengthy psalm, so we’re splitting it into three portions over the next three Sundays.

Psalm 35 is a collection of three of David’s laments over opposition from his enemies.

Each of these laments develop into a cry of deliverance from enemies who disdained him for no apparent reason.

Our first section is Vs.

1-10, which is a prayer for deliverance from people who seek to destroy him.

David essentially prays for God to take care of the destroyers so that he can rejoice in the LORD and exult in his salvation.

Please stand and responsively read with me Psalm 35:1-10.

I’ll read the odd-numbered verses, please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.

Congregational Singing

Reformation Song

Be Thou my Vision

Take my Life and Let it Be

Scripture Reading

I’ve asked Natalie to read our Scripture reading this morning, which is in Romans 5:12-21, but before she comes up here, let me just give a little bit of background information.

Our Scripture Reading this morning is from Romans 5:12-21.

In Romans 5, Paul is explaining the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, in that while the Old Covenant had a purpose, it ultimately was meant to point to Jesus and his New Covenant.

He essentially sums up his argument by explaining that sin came through Adam to the whole world, but salvation comes through Jesus to the whole world as a free gift to all who would believe.

This Scripture reading connects with our sermon this morning because it is through Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice that salvation is provided and in John 12, we’re at the turning point in which Jesus makes it abundantly clear that he needs to be lifted up and the people need to follow him.

Let’s read Romans 5:12-21 together:

Sermon

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you this morning, please turn it to John 12:20-36.

As you turn there, let me just refresh your memories a little by helping you jump into this morning’s passage.

As we continue in the Gospel according to John, it’s of note that the author is, in a sense, switching gears—that switching of gears started in last week’s sermon, but it’s continuing in this week’s sermon as well and all that is happening is that John is now focusing on the last week of Jesus’ life rather than on all the different miracles that Jesus performed to validate his divinity; and as he switches his focus onto Jesus’ last week of life, we start to see Jesus make multiple statements in which he claims to be divine and he teaches several different people (particularly his disciples) the necessity of following him, and we start to realize how God had providentially and sovereignly arranged all of these events during the fullness of time for Jesus to be offered up as the perfect, sinless sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe.

This morning’s message seems almost like it could be a continuation of last week’s message in that it shows us the response of a third group of people towards Jesus.

We’ve seen the Jewish leadership repeatedly reject Jesus, many people who are curious about Jesus (but are otherwise on the fence), and we’ve seen handfuls of people truly repent and believe.

In all those cases, John has focused primarily on Jewish people (though there have been a handful of non-Jewish people involved).

This passage starts by showing us a group of what are called Greeks, which makes it seem like it’s simply continuing the previous passage, but the Bible isn’t just continuing the historical record, it’s showing us a contrast between the Pharisees and the Greeks, but before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s read the passage.

John 12:20-36 says,

As we study this passage together, we’re going to look at it in two parts: Vs. 20-26, The Hour Has Come for the Son of Man to be Glorified, tells us of some Greeks who come and ask to see Jesus.

In this first section, Jesus makes the statement that it is time for the Son of Man to be glorified and he substantiates this statement by providing a brief but profound parable of sorts.

The ESV titles this section as “Some Greeks Seek Jesus,” but the truth is, the statement that “The Hour Has Come,” best explains what this section is about.

Vs. 27-36 Jesus must be lifted up continues Jesus’ discourse by recording a unique situation that occured in the presence of all the people, and then by explaining that situation.

The whole passage ends with Jesus telling them that they need to believe in the light, that they may become children of light.

Prayer for Illumination

The Hour Has Come for the Son of Man to be Glorified (20-26)

This passage starts by telling us about some Greeks who went up to worship at the feast and there’s something of note here, simply in the fact that the Bible calls them Greeks.

Remember that the feast at hand was the Passover and the Bible is very specific in that it tells us that this is the Passover of the Jews.

The Bible is specific in the way that it defines the Passover because the Passover was truly a Jewish holiday meant to celebrate the Israelite’s escape from Egypt.

The Jewish people were the only people to celebrate the Passover because, for the most part, they were the only ones affected positively by the Passover.

However, it is clear that some non-Jewish people celebrated the Passover as well and that’s seen in this verse, because the Bible specifically calls them Greeks.

Throughout the New Testament, the Bible typically does differentiate between Jewish and Greek people and typically when the Bible is referring to the Greek people, you can really just think of these people as all the Gentile nations, which simply means, all that were not Jewish.

And again, that contrasts with the response of the Jewish leaders who openly rejected Jesus to the extent of desiring his arrest and death.

It is notable that the non-Jewish believers of Yahweh would want to see Jesus because the ones who should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah completely missed the point.

Which again is what John is trying to highlight; there is a juxtaposition between how the Jewish leaders responded towards Jesus and how these Greeks responded to Jesus.

Their response is seen seen in their request to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” and that’s the last time that we hear about the Greeks who sought out Jesus and this is all that we know about them:

That they clearly believed in Yahweh, that is why they were in Jerusalem to worship the LORD during the Passover:

When they finally had the opportunity to speak to the disciples, they reached out to Philip; and we don’t really know why they chose to speak to Philip

And their request was simple, “we wish to see Jesus.”

Even though we don’t read anything else about these Greeks, it is their request to Jesus that sets up what Jesus says.

Vs. 22, says that “Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.”

And when Jesus finally had heard about the request of the Greek people, Vs. 23, “Jesus answered them” referring to his disciples, who brought the request to him, and said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also.

If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

Now, I realize that there’s a lot going on in what Jesus has said, so let’s start by breaking it down.

Jesus said that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”