Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Don’t forget, this Wednesday, November 24th in lieu of our usual Bible Study & Prayer Time, we’ll have our annual Pre-Thanksgiving Love Feast at 7pm.

This is really just an opportunity for us all to fellowship with one another, give thanks, and get to know each other.

The evening will conclude with us taking the LORD’s Supper together, so please prepare to take the LORD’s Supper after dinner.

On occasion, I like to mention that if you’re visiting the church or if you’re a regular attender of the church and you have any questions concerning our doctrine, theology, and church, to please don’t hesitate to come and talk to me.

Questions are good; and I’d rather spend some time with you discussing these things so that you can understand them and understand them well than you walk away with unanswered questions.

In addition, if you have been thinking about baptism or church members, I’d love to speak with you today about it, so please reach out to me as soon as the service is over.

Starting next week on November 28th, we’ll be taking a break from our series on the Gospel according to John to prepare our hearts for Christmas.

Last year, we followed the traditional advent themes, but I found it lacking in one respect, it seemed as if we rushed through each theme and we didn’t really get to spend a lot of time discussing and exploring those themes.

So, this year, and for the next few years, I’ve decided that instead of switching themes each week, that we would spend all of the advent season focused on one theme.

So, this year’s theme for our Christmas at Grace & Peace series is Hope—each week leading up to Christmas, we’ll discuss the idea of hope, what the Bible says concerning Christmas and hope, and what the Bible says about our hope in Jesus Christ.

Next year, we’ll take another theme and so on over the next few years.

Think of this as an extended series with a year-long break between each section.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the LORD through your giving.

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

Checks should be written to Grace & Peace; and if you’d like a receipt for your cash gifts, please place it in an envelope with your name on it.

If you’d prefer to give via debit, credit, or ACH transfers, you can do that either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and 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 100)

Our Call to Worship this morning is from Psalm 100, which I recognize is a significant leap from Psalm 36, but with it being the week of Thanksgiving, I thought it would worthwhile for us to focus our Call to Worship, Scripture Reading, and musical worship on giving thanks to the LORD.

Psalm 100 is a shorter psalm, but it’s probably one familiar to you.

It is an anonymous song of praise to the LORD and it follows a simple pattern—Vs.

1-2 and 4 call us to praise the LORD and Vs. 3 and 5 give us reasons for praising the LORD.

Many scholars believed that this psalm would have been utilized as an entrance hymn as people entered the gates of the temple.

Please stand and read Psalm 100 responsively with me: I’ll read the odd-numbered verses; please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.

Congregational Singing

In Christ Alone

My Heart is Filled

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

Scripture Reading (1 Chronicles 16:23-34)

I’ve asked Tara to read our Scripture reading this morning from 1 Chronicles 16:23-34, but before she comes up, let me just give you some brief background information.

The book of Chronicles is a parallel record of the history of Israel and you can find the same account of this passage in 2 Samuel 6:17-19.

In this account, the Chronicler describes the restoration of the ark of the covenant.

After the ark of the covenant was restored David had the ark placed inside the tent that was prepared for it and he appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the LORD by Asaph and his brothers.

That song of thanks starts in Vs. 8 and continues to Vs. 37, we’re reading just a piece of the song from Vs. 23-34, Tara will you please read 1 Chronicles 16:23-34 for us?

Sermon

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you this morning, please turn it to John 13:21-38.

Again, that’s John 13:21-38 and while you turn there, let me just give some brief introductory material.

This is the last message from our series from the Gospel according to John before we jump into our Christmas at Grace & Peace series concerning hope.

And because it’s the last message from John before we switch gears for about a month, we’re taking a section that if we had more time, we could easily split it into a few weeks, but because we’re about to change series, I wanted us to get to the end of chapter 13 before we switched (otherwise, there’s a very real possibility that we would lose out on the main point of the text because we’d simply forget about it before we returned to it).

At this point in the text, we’re still in the Last Supper just prior to Jesus’ arrest and in this text we actually see Jesus allowing the plan of his betrayal to occur.

This is significant because in it, Jesus tells Judas to go ahead and do what he’s going to do, which I think we can all admit the fact that since Jesus knows that it’s going to happen and he encourages it to happen, that there are some significant theological ramifications, which we’ll discuss today.

In addition, we’ll see Jesus give the disciples what he calls a new command, which if they follow this command will show others that they are his disciples.

This week’s message kickstarts a whole series of teachings from Jesus directly to his disciples that end in the high priestly prayer just before Jesus is arrested; and all of these teachings are started just after Jesus tells Judas to go and betray him.

Just like the passage from last week’s message being emphasized due to Jesus’ recognition of his impending death, this week’s message and really every message leading to his arrest, is elevated because he knows that he is about to be arrested, tried, and put to death.

Let’s read John 13:21-38 together.

As we study this passage, we’ll break it into two primary sections: Vs. 21-30, Jesus sends Judas to Betray Him, there are a couple of unique things happening in the first section.

Jesus makes the statement that one of them will betray him and it’s the one who will receive the bread that he gives, but it’s clear that the disciples miss Jesus giving him the bread.

So, after Satan enters into Judas and Jesus tells him to go and do what he’s going to do quickly, no one really understood what Jesus was saying to Judas.

There’s a lot of speculation that we could make in this section, but I want to make it clear that we aren’t trying to speculate this morning, rather we’re going to look at this as an example of Jesus’ authority and sovereignty.

That even when the disciples didn’t understand what was happening, Jesus was still in control.

Vs 31-38, could technically be split into two sections, but because we’re about to take a break from the series, I didn’t want us to start it and then not finish it until after Christmas.

In this section, we see Jesus giving the disciples a command concerning their love for one another and then we see Jesus telling Peter that he’s going to deny Jesus, but we’re going to focus on this New Commandment that Jesus gives.

What this passage will show us is God’s absolute sovereignty in all matters—even when everything seems out of control, God is still in control; and because he is in control, we ought to obey his command to love one another.

Prayer for Illumination

Jesus sends Judas to Betray Him (21-30)

The Bible tells us that “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.”

Just as means of a reminder, when the Bible says “after saying these things” it’s referring back to the feet washing that Jesus performed for his disciples.

In particular, it’s pointing to the lesson that Jesus had taught them as part of the feet washing process, that if Jesus, who is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator is willing to serve man, how much more should man be willing to serve each other?

And this refers to the brief statement that he makes that whoever receives the Holy Spirit receives him.

It’s after these statements that the Bible tells us that “Jesus was troubled in his spirit.”

We could take time to try and determine what exactly Jesus was troubled in his spirit with, but I think he tells us bluntly what’s troubling him at the end of Vs. 21.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

I think most of us have a fairly decent idea of what it means to betray someone else, but for clarity’s sake: Oxford Languages states that to betray someone means to “expose to danger by treacherously giving information to an enemy.”

Which for those familiar with the life of Jesus, knows that this is precisely what Judas does, he exposes Jesus to danger by giving information about Jesus to the enemy.

Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him and you can almost sense the shocked confusion that the disciples were experiencing.

You have to consider the fact that all of Jesus’ disciples had left behind their lives to follow him, that they had traveled with him for multiple years, and they had all followed his teachings and his way of life.

Typically, when a group of people travel together, live, eat, and work together for multiple years, there develops a bond of mutual friendship and even some amount of brotherly love for one another.

This happens even today with people that you work with, especially if you share a common religion, similar lifestyle, and worldview.

And just like the disciples experienced this uncertainty or confusion over who was about to betray Jesus, you would feel confusion if someone at your workplace betrayed everyone there.

The Bible tells us that Jesus claims that someone is about to betray him, and in Vs. 22-26a, the Bible says that “The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.

One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.

So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’

Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’”

There are a number of points to be made here:

Jesus tells his disciples that one of them is about to betray him, and vs. 22 tells us that “the disciples look at one another.”

Again, this expresses the confusion and apprehension that the disciples had.

The disciples had lived, worked, and served together for multiple years, I’m sure that their relationships were tight enough that they had a hard time comprehending the idea of one of them betraying Jesus.

My assumption is that Judas covered his tracks well enough that no one was suspicious whatsoever, because the Bible says that they were completely uncertain of whom Jesus was speaking about.

And this uncertainty causes the disciples to question the betrayal amongst themselves before one of them asks Jesus outright.

Vs. 23, says that “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motion to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.”

The wording is a little confusing, but essentially, what the author is stating is that the disciple closest to Jesus was the one “whom Jesus loved” and Simon Peter got the disciple whom Jesus loved’s attention to ask Jesus.

We know that the “disciple whom Jesus loved” is the author of the book—it’s the apostle John.

And we know that from a number of reasons, but I think the two most profound reasons include the facts that if you take time to look at every instance of that disciple in John’s writings and you look at all that John writes about the disciple that Jesus loves—you begin to narrow it down and realize that this disciple was one of the few that had “seen [Jesus’] glory” on the mount of transfiguration, that this disciple was at the cross, and was one of the closest disciples to Jesus.

Taken altogether and looking at a few other facts, it makes a fairly good case that when John writes about the “disciple whom Jesus loves,” he’s actually talking about himself.

And I want to clarify, that when John writes this, he isn’t saying that Jesus doesn’t love the other disciples; and he isn’t necessarily saying that Jesus loves him more than the other disciples.

It is a self-designation that he utilizes to speak of himself, and it’s really more revelatory of his own sense of indebtedness to Jesus’ grace.

In addition, consider the fact that John has had a habit throughout his book of not giving significant details in order for the reader to focus on the truth being taught rather than the people themselves.

This is probably an attempt to make sure that the readers focus is on what is being said rather than who said it.

So, Simon Peter gets John’s attention for the purpose of John asking Jesus who it is that will betray him

And the reasoning for this, why Peter gets John to ask instead of just asking himself has to do with proximity.

All twelve disciples are at this table eating supper, obviously if there’s twelve people at a table, someone’s going to physically be further away than the others, and it’s clear that in this case, Peter simply isn’t as close to Jesus as John is so he asks John to ask Jesus.

Now on occasion, when Jesus would respond to questions like this, he would respond by giving a parable or utilizing some sort of figurative language to explain the situation, but in this scenario, Jesus outright tells us who the betrayer will be, but the disciples don’t actually get it, they miss what’s going on and we see their lack of comprehension as the text continues.

Vs. 26, says that “Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.”

Now there’s two things I want to say about this sentence before we continue:

First, there’s a symbolic reasoning behind what Jesus is doing for Judas and this symbolic meaning adds significant depth to what’s occuring as Jesus gives this morsel of bread to Judas.

In our current culture, giving someone a piece of bread isn’t symbolic whatsoever, we share in meals all the time and pass back and forth different dishes.

In first-century Judaism, for the host to give a morsel of bread to a guest was a sign of friendship.