Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Don’t forget that this Sunday is a little different, we do have our regular worship time at 10:30am, but we do have an added breakfast for anyone who cares to join us at 9am.

This is really just a fellowship opportunity for all of us and it provides a good reason for people who haven’t been to our church before to visit.

You can feel free to invite your friends and family, we’ll have a great time before we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ during the morning worship service.

I do want you to be aware, that we will have our Wednesday evening Bible Study & Prayer time this coming Wednesday, but note that we won’t have a Bible Study & Prayer time the following Wednesday.

For those of you that ordered t-shirts, I have some bad news.

UPS has assured me that our t-shirts would be here today, but the last time I checked, they guaranteed that the shirts would arrive today by 11:59pm.

So, there’s a possibility that the shirts will arrive sometime in the next few hours, but I’m doubtful.

So, I’ll have them available on Sunday morning for you to pick up.

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

To help you give, we have three ways to do so, (1) cash and checks can be given at the offering box.

Checks should be written to Grace & Peace; debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at www.gapb.church.

Of course, everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now let me talk to you just briefly about tonight’s service, which I’m sure you’ll realize is a bit different from our normal midweek services.

This evening is a little different from our regular midweek services in that we’re meeting on a completely different day and you know that we’re meeting today for a very specific reason.

Today is Good Friday and it is traditionally the day set aside by the universal church to reflect on the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

Every church does this differently and the range of different traditions is wide.

Some churches choose to watch a movie on Good Friday, last year, we offered a dinner, the Lord’s Supper, a brief sermon, and then we watched Sight & Sound’s production of Jesus.

Many churches do what’s called a Tenebrae service, which is a service filled with singing, very similar to our Carols & Christmas service that we do in December.

The difference would be that Carols & Christmas is focused on the birth of Jesus, whereas a Tenebrae service is focused on the death of Jesus.

Consider this evening’s service a little bit of a Tenebrae light service.

We aren’t going all out with a long singing service with candles candles, but we are very much focusing this evening on the death of Jesus Christ.

All of this evening’s songs our focused on Jesus’ death, we’ll be partaking in the Lord’s Supper, which is focused on Jesus’ death, the sermon itself is focused on Jesus’ death.

Tonight is meant to be a somber reflection of the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

Keep this in mind as we worship together.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Congregational Singing

The Communion Hymn 343

The Lord’s Supper

As we move into the Lord’s Supper this evening, let me just start with a little bit of housekeeping.

At Grace & Peace Bible Church, we practice an open communion, which simply means that it doesn’t matter if you’re a member of our local church, all that matters is that you genuinely believe.

If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, please feel free to partake with us.

As the communion plate is passed, please note that each cup has two cups stacked with the bottom cup holding the bread and the top cup holding the juice.

Please take both cups so that you can take part of each part of communion.

As you grab your elements, please hold them until everyone receives them, after which, we’ll pray together and take the elements simultaneously.

Before we pass out the elements, let me remind you of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians.

He warns the Corinthians to not take part in communion in a way that is unworthy because doing so makes you guilty of the death of Jesus and it can make you physically ill.

Instead, he warns them to check their hearts and repent from sin prior to taking communion; and I’m calling you to do the same this evening.

If you are holding onto unrepentant sin, repent before taking communion.

If you’re refusing to repent or you don’t believe, please let the plate pass in front of you.

No one is watching to see what you’re doing, this is between you and God alone.

At this time, we’re going to take about a minute for you to quietly reflect and pray; after which, I’ll pray for the elements and they’ll be passed around.

Prayer for the Lord’s Supper.

“On the night when [our Lord, Jesus] was betrayed, [he] took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.’”

“In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Congregational Singing

My Jesus, Fair 300

Lead me to Calvary 305

Sermon

Introduction

If you have your Bible’s with you this evening, please turn it to John 19:28-42.

I don’t want to spend a tremendous amount of time in introductory material tonight because I think we’ve been very intentional and clear that this evening is focused on the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

So, I think it is pretty obvious then, that our text would be an account of Jesus’ death and burial, which it is.

I do want to make you aware, that John doesn’t give a significant amount of detail concerning Jesus’ death, but he does that intentionally.

Much like this past Sunday in which he didn’t give us a significant amount of detail concerning Jesus’ crucifixion, this evening, we don’t have too much detail about the death itself.

However, let me remind you that John has a purpose that drives the way that he writes his Gospel, he writes it so that people would read it and believe.

Please keep this in mind as we read our text for the evening, John 19:28-42:

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into three parts: (1) Vss.

28-30, Jesus’ Death; (2) Vss.

31-37, The Fulfillment of Scripture; and (3) Vss.

38-42, Jesus’ Burial.

As you can tell, our primary focus is on Jesus’ death and burial, but we’ll spend a little bit of time, again, talking about Jesus’ sovereignty in his crucifixion, death, and burial because the passage reminds us, yet again, that all these events occurred to fulfill Scripture.

We’re going to talk about the implications of Jesus’ death and his burial, what it means for us, and how we should reflect on his death and burial.

This evening is a time of somber reflection that ought to cause us to well up in praise and worship of Jesus Christ.

Prayer for Illumination

Jesus’ Death (28-30)

Our passage for this evening starts off with a section of Scripture that we briefly spoke about on Sunday as well.

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said . . .

‘I thirst.’

A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.”

There are a number of details to note from these verses, but let’s start a bit with context.

Whenever you see words such as “after this” it’s an indicator that this passage is inherently connected with the previous passage.

In this case, what that means is that Jesus’ death is inherently connected with his crucifixion on the cross, which might sound obvious, but we always have to keep every passage in its own context.

In this context, we just read about the crucifixion of Jesus this past Sunday and we came to the realization that one of the key details that John emphasizes in Jesus’ crucifixion is his absolute sovereignty even in the midst of his crucifixion—Jesus’ crucifixion was completely under his control.

With that in mind, we can rightfully conclude that his death and his burial were completely and utterly in his control as well.

And John continues to emphasize how sovereign Jesus is even in the midst of what’s happening in the text.

We see this truth, within a parenthetical phrase in vs. 28, “Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’”

We’re not going to spend a significant time on the fulfillment of Scripture yet because the text calls for us to focus more on it in vss.

31-37, but I do want to make you aware that Jesus’ sovereignty through his death, burial, and resurrection is a key theme in John’s record of Jesus’ life.

John wants us to realize that Jesus was completely in control, which means that Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection was completely intentional and it was done with a purpose.

Jesus is in control.

And he’s in control as he makes the statement, “I thirst.”

There’s another phrase that I want us to look at before we continue, “Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said.”

That does pose a question, what does John mean when he says that “all was now finished?”

It’s important for us to understand the answer to this question because the idea comes up again later in the passage.

In vs. 30, Jesus says “it is finished,” just before dying on the cross.

What does John mean in vs. 28 when he says that Jesus knew that all was now finished?

And what does Jesus mean when he says “It is finished?”

Let me remind you that multiple times through John, Jesus repeatedly states that it wasn’t time yet:

All the way back in John 2, Jesus tells his mother Mary, “my hour has note yet come.”

John 7:6, “Jesus said to them, ‘My time has not yet come”

John 7:8 “8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, because My time has not yet fully arrived.””

John 7:30 “30 So they were seeking to arrest Him; and yet no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.”

John 8:20 “20 These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple area; and no one arrested Him, because His hour had not yet come.”

John 13:1 “1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

John 17:1 “1 Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You,”

What makes John 13 and 17 than the previous four references?