Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Announcements

Join us on Sunday Mornings at 9:30 am dor Sunday School, Wednesday evenings at 6 pm for our Study on Puritan theology.

Next Week is Lords Supper and we will have a potluck dinner following service.

Prepare for Worship

Call To Worship

Scripture Matt 22:34-40

Matthew 22:34–40 (ESV)

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

As we come before God today in our worship meditate on these words, As we worship let us focus our hearts on these two commandments.

Loving the Lord God and loving our neighbor.

Confession

Prayer of Confession

Holy Father, we confess that we may approach you with our mouths and our lips, when our hearts are not in worship.

We confess that we offer to you that which costs us little.

Though you are a great King, we often bring to you the leftovers of our time, energy, gifts, and worship.

We have neglected your commands when it is inconvenient for us to keep them.

We have ignored your laws when it causes us to lose our ease.

We have disregarded our neighbors' needs, and wondered aloud why other people do not meet our needs.

O Father, have mercy on us!

Forgive us of our many debts!

Cleanse us and give us the mind and heart of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.

In His name, and for His sake, we come to you.

Amen

Assurance of Faith

Psalm 103:8-12

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Catechism

Q. 10.

How did God create man?

A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.

Q. 11.

What are God’s works of providence?

A. God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

Worship

5 How Great Thou Art

80 How Deep The Fathers Love For Us

162 Wonderful Merciful Savior

Prayers of the People

Prayer Request

Paul’s Prayer

So as we reach the end of chapter 3, we see something interesting.

Paul closes out this section of the letter with a prayer.

Up to this point Paul has presented a clear explanation of the gospel to the readers of this letter.

He has laid out an overall biblical theology.

He has told us who God is, what God is accomplishing in history, who man is, and the nature of the relationship between God and man.

He presents to the reader how God in his infinite wisdom, has brought about salvation for the all those who would believe in him, and how salvation for all time was meant for all, but that he brought it about through a single people to be given to all.

Then he prays.

Now he had prayed earlier, back in chapter one as well.

After he had given a great explanation o fhte triune God’s work in salvation, he prayed that God make it clear to them.

To open the eyes of their hearts, so that they might know the hope found in Christ.

Here in chapter 3 he prays again, but this time the content is something different.

Eph 3:14-19

I would like to point out the address before we jump into the content of the prayer.

He opens the prayer with the statement “for this reason”, which can also read for this cause.

This is the same opening to the prayer we find in chapter 1.

In both instances, this should alert you to what is coming next.

Unlike the “therefore” we often find in Scripture which tells us to look back and see the reason that preceded, this tells us to pay attention to what comes next.

It is a statement letting the reader know that in the preceeding statements he is clarifying for what specifically he is praying for.

Here at the end of chapter 3, the end of the portion of the letter telling us what is the thing we have hope in, we find Paul praying a prayer for strength.

At first I did not see the significance of the prayer, but in study soon realized just what Paul is praying for.

Now whther it was intentional or not, I found the correlation amazing.

In our call to worship today we read a passage from Matthew, tthis is a very well known passage.

In it we find the Lord confronted by the Pharisees, hoping to catch him in a statement that would tarnish his reputation.

They ask him what is the greatest commandment.

Trying to get him to take sides in an arguement between them and the Saducess.

But Jesus responds in a magnificent way, a way that silences them all.

Scripture says from that day on they no longer dared to question Him.

But what was so profound about what he said?

He tells them Matthew 22:37-39

These are the words we live by.

but what was so profound that it shut them up once and for all?

It was not that Jesus expressed some new concept, but rather he refuted both sides of the argument by highlighting the entirety of the law in two simple statements.

The two tables of the Law explanation.....

Why now we ask is that pertinent to Paul’s prayer here?

we find This first table commandment, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and strength is the focus of Pauls prayer.

With All Your Soul

So Paul says that he bow his knee for this reason… Eph 3:16-17

Ephesians 3:16–17 (ESV)

that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—

For Strength

When we look back at the original statement of the imperative to love God we find it first stated in, Deut 13:3, Deut 10:12, Deut 6:4-5

But when Jesus quotes this, and we see this in all three synoptic Gospels, Luke 10:27, Mark 12:30

It would seem that Jesus expounds a bit on this, he adds the qualifier to Love God with all your strength.

If we look at that closely, it then makes sense what Paul is praying for here.

He is asking God to provide us with strength.

But strength for what?

Our Inner Being

Paul ask that we be strengthened by “the power through the Spirit, in our inner being, so that Christ might dwell in our hearts”

So we have the command throughout Scripture to love God with all of our soul, our inner being.

But we find here in Pauls prayer that we need strength, bestowed by God, so that Christ might dwell within us, so that we might be able to meet that command.

Indwelling Power