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Well good afternoon church, good to be with you, I had a blessed time at Gateway Church this morning, glad to be back with you at my home church, let's repeat the announcements, work day is
May 4th, 930, lunch at noon, home groups begin a new study through the book
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, I don't know if it was announced beyond what was written there, but you can find a
PDF of this, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment online, just put in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment PDF and the whole thing will pop up for you.
Alternatively, I found on Amazon you can get a Kindle version of this if you use Kindle for $2 .99
and I got the one for 99 cents which is in modern English and I've compared it to the original and it's really true to it so you can keep up with either one.
The reading assignment is all of chapter 1 for this coming week, that's 28 pages, seems like a lot, it's an easy read,
I will tell you that Jeremiah Burroughs who wrote it is a Puritan, though unlike John Owen he was not afraid to use a period and end his sentences, so it's a fairly easy read, but get that if you have any trouble with it, get in touch with me, we'll give you the link and be ready for home groups.
The call to worship is in Psalm 40. Then I said,
Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book that is written of me, I delight to do your will,
O my God, your law is within my heart. I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation, behold,
I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord, I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and of your salvation, I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
Well, let's open this afternoon's worship with Rock of Ages, hymn number 421. Rock of Ages, when you have that, please stand with me.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, myself in thee, let the water inside which flowed be of sin that cleansed me from,
God my zeal, no respite, no calm must save, and thou alone, simply to thy cross
I cling, naked covered dress, helpless look to thee for grace, thou light to the wash me safe,
O Lord, I draw this fleeting breath, let's close in death, when
I saw two worlds unknown, see thee of thy judgment cross, cleft for me, let me myself in thee.
Please remain standing for the reading of God's word, if you would turn your
Bibles to John chapter 3. We'll preach from John 3, 16, but I'll begin reading at verse 14 of John chapter 3.
This is Jesus, of course, speaking to Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. In verse 14 he says,
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
God bless that reading, and now the proclamation of his word. Please be seated. It is well said by many commentators and theologians through the years that John 3, 16,
Now that is the thematic statement of the entire fourth gospel. Now that's a bit arguable, because there's others that you could place the entire gospel in that schematic for, but this is really, at least one of them, one of the most prominent of those verses in this gospel that set the tone for all that follows.
Here's Jesus Christ, who Nicodemus came to at night, or he went to Jesus at night, and the teacher of Israel being instructed on the need for rebirth, new birth.
And he says, can a man go into a womb a second time just not getting it? And that whole discussion that most of us are so familiar with.
But this afternoon, to encourage us in our prayer, to prepare our hearts for going to the
Lord together as we do each Sunday afternoon, just this verse, and a simple exposition of it,
I'm going to leave a lot on the table because there's a lot in this verse, could take such a long time to go through. This thematic statement that really sets the tone for everything and has words to speak to us here this day, this afternoon.
You know, when I first saw John 3 .16 in writing was a long time before I was a
Christian. It was at Monday Night Football on TV. Now, I wasn't at any of the games, but that was back when
Monday Night Football was the only premier football game. There wasn't two games on Monday night like they have now.
There wasn't Thursday Night Football, which is a version of Sunday Night or Monday Night, and then there's
Sunday Night now. Back then it was only Monday Night Football. That was the premier event.
And remember, have you ever seen, you can find this easily on YouTube if you want, there were some people who were always able to get this banner behind one of the goal posts in the bleachers there that said
John 3 .16. Have you seen that? Look it up sometime after church. You'll see that. The old
Monday Night Football games, the people would be behind the goal post, so they paid a lot for those seats, and there's this huge banner,
John 3 .16. And I asked my wife what that was, and she's a Christian, it was before I was converted.
She says, well, it's just the most famous verse in the New Testament. And I knew nothing about it, but there it was, John 3 .16.
Later, when I became a Christian, I began to realize, of course, the importance of it.
And the last thing I'll tell you about my experience with John 3 .16, way, way, way back before we actually get into this message, was right here at this church.
The first time I came to this church in the fall of 1999, Pastor George was still the pastor, and he preached, and as he was preaching, as I was watching things and being a part of things,
I thought, I feel like this is the church I should stay at, and of course we did. But after that first day,
I was sitting just about where this gentleman is, and after the final amen, before I stood up,
I was surrounded by this forest of these big, heavily girthed, tall, heavily bearded men.
And before they asked me my name, they said, John 3 .16, who's the world? I said, well, my name's
Josh, glad to be here to worship with you. Well, who do you think the world is? I said, well, the world is the world, right?
No, it's the world of the elect. Well, this verse has had that kind of controversy for a long time.
The Arminian points to this verse, and he says, well, look, he loved the world, he gave his son that, whoever believes, so all you have to do is believe, exercise your faith.
That really freights this too much, because that's not at all what Jesus is saying. And then the starchy,
Reformed person answers back, said, no, the world means the world of the elect. That's clear, that's obvious, and that freights it too much on the other side.
Both are wrong. We can take John 3 .16 on its own merits at this point in the gospel.
And just for those of us who are Reformed and properly have a view of the sovereignty of God, and that God is the only and the sole acting agent in salvation, understand this.
That what Jesus said here to Nicodemus and what we're going to take apart really pretty briefly this afternoon, we can take on its own merits exactly as He meant it this early in the gospel.
Now, predestination and God's sovereignty, and no one can come to the Father unless the Son reveals
Him, and no one can come to the Son unless the Father sends Him to the Son. God is absolutely the sole agent in salvation, right?
But here in this gospel, this early, before those theologies are well -developed by John and give us that certain and sure foundation for our faith, this early in the gospel, we can just take it for what
He meant and for who He was talking to and for the author, John, the evangelist as we call him, not having developed everything but setting us up for those developments so that when we get to the end of the book, we are sure that God has predestined a people and it's a particular people who benefited from Christ's death.
Let's look at this verse then. This afternoon, we're going to take it just at face value, and we're going to look at what it means to us here in prayer this afternoon.
The title of my message is God has not given up. God has not given up. God has not given up on Israel then, and this is really the message to Nicodemus.
He's saying, you need to be reborn. It's not that God has abandoned. He's given the way that was always meant to be.
All the traditions, the Word of God, the oracles, the prophets, all these things that Israel has had, these precious gifts,
Romans 3, what advantage then has a Jew? Much in every way. And yet, missed the rebirth, the new birth.
Part of the message to Nicodemus then, as the teacher of Israel, is going to teach
Israel this. The reason you can be reborn is because God has not given up.
To say God has not given up, it almost says too little. Because God doesn't give up on something like, okay, this didn't work and I've got to go back.
God's plans are eternal. They never were not, and they never will not come to pass.
But God has not given up and He is not finished. And this is sort of the message that Nicodemus is to bring back to Israel.
Tell them to be reborn. Tell them to have faith in me. Tell them that God is still working today.
And that's one of those themes that works throughout this gospel. Jesus told the Pharisees that my
Father is working and I am working to this day, thus making Himself equal to the Father. What's our context here?
Beyond this nighttime conversation and meeting between Nicodemus and Jesus, I started at verse 14.
And Jesus clearly takes His work, the thing that the Father sent Him for, back to the bronze serpent.
Back to Numbers chapter 20. When the Lord sent those snakes, the serpents, among the people, and they bit and many of them died.
And God told Moses, make a bronze serpent and lift it up high, and whoever looks upon it will live and not die.
And what does Jesus say? What is that bronze serpent about? It's about me. And the work
I was sent to do for the Father. So as the serpent was lifted high and gazed upon with eyes of faith, and that brought healing, so the
Son of Man from heaven will be lifted high so that those who look upon Him with eyes of faith shall be healed not of viper venom, but of sin and of the penalty for it, and of eternal perishing.
So God had not then, has not now, given up on the world. He never did.
Everlasting, everlasting, and all things, be they ever so large and dramatic or minuscule and mundane, all things are under His direct,
His sovereign control, all designed for and moving towards an exhibition of His glory.
So with that serpent in the background, and we'll come back to it a bit later, let's just go quickly through John 3 .16
in the way we were taught in grade school, at least I was. Look at who, what, when, where, why, and how.
About verse 3 .16. We called them the five
W's. Who, what, when, where, how, and why. So who is the acting agent here?
Who is Jesus talking about in verse 3 .16? With that bronze serpent kind of waiting in the background, just John 3 .16,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
The who is clearly God the Father. He's the agent who acts. Jesus spoke of His incarnation pretty often, but in John's Gospel especially,
He spoke of having been sent. So what we have here is not just God the
Father sending His Son, but there's authority there. Because the
Father can have authority to send the Son. The Son, as Jesus, when
He walked in this world, He says so often in the Gospel of John, He subordinated Himself to the
Father's will. It's not like sometimes He turned on humanity and did something human. Other times He turned on divinity and did something miraculous.
No, He was one. There was no confusion between His humanity and His deity. And yet, in His humanity, subordinated
Himself to the Father's will, came to do the Father's will, and so the Father sends the
Son. He didn't send you or me or anything like that. He sent His only begotten
Son. He is the acting agent here. He is the Sovereign One. Now we know from Ephesians 1 and the opening of it that God determined all this before the foundation of the world.
So John is really writing in space and time here about the sending. So the who is God the Father. He's the acting agent.
He's the agent of salvation. He's the one who sends His Son to bring salvation. It's all to God's glory.
So what? What did He do? Well, we've already talked about it. He sent His Son. But let's go back a little bit.
He so loved the world. The original language is really close to so loved the world that we have in English, but it's like, in this manner,
God loved the world. Because of this love, we could say, because of the way God loved the world, He did something.
Now saying He loved the world, we don't have to dice that up and say, okay, He loved the elect and the elect only and all the others
He hates because He hates sinners every day, as the psalmist says. We don't need to do that here. We can view this as simply what
Jesus said. God is looking upon this world, what He created, what He spoke into existence, and six times said, let there be, let there be, and each time it was good until it was abandoned.
It was very good, and God rested. He's looking upon that world He created, that place that is to be our home.
He said, go forth to subdue the earth, be fruitful and multiply. Ephesians 3 says it's the place
He made so that the church would be in existence upon it and that we would then declare the manifold glories of Christ.
It's Ephesians 3. God looks upon that world, and He loved the world. Now, that does not mean that He loved every person on the world ubiquitously and promiscuously and said,
I'm going to save them all because I love them all. That's not what it's saying here. We don't need to freight it with all that.
He's looking upon that which He made, and He loves that which He made because He made it, and He makes no mistakes, and all that He does is good.
And because of that world and that love that He has for the world, He sent His Son to it.
It's as simple as that. He loved the world, and He gave His Son. So the who is God, the what is that He loved, and He gave,
He loved the world, He gave His Son to the world. The when?
There's two whens. The first when is about 2 ,000 years ago, and that would answer also the where,
Bethlehem. A little bit more than 2 ,000 years ago, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. God became flesh and dwelt among us.
He became flesh when He was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem about 2 ,000 years ago.
So that's the when, and the where I said is in Bethlehem. The other when we've already talked about, before all time.
There was never a moment when God and the Son and the Spirit did not have this covenant together to effect our salvation.
So God the Father, loving, giving, about 2 ,000 years ago in the flesh, before all time and intent, in Bethlehem.
And the why? Why did He act? Well, He acted for love, but why?
To what purpose? Well, the first purpose was to save people. It says it right there in the verse, does it not?
It says, for God so loved the world. In this manner, because of this love that He had, He gave
His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The why is to save.
The why is to take us from the pool of perishing persons to the pool of not perishing.
In other words, from perishing to salvation. From eternal death to eternal life.
Eternal death, just as a quick aside, if you read in Thessalonians, it speaks of eternal dying. Not dying as you have death at any point.
Eternally dying, eternally in the stages of death but never quite getting there. And this is the kind of perishing that Jesus speaks of here that He came to save people from.
To save people from themselves, really. To save us from our sin.
But more accurately, as R .C. Sproul used to point out, what we really need to be saved from is God. From the wrath of God.
The consequences of our sin. Now back to that serpent, which is part of the why.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.
The word must is from the Greek di, D -E -I, if you want to transliterate it.
And it has the flavor of something that is necessary, something that really must be done.
As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Let's put the emphasis back, so must the
Son of Man be lifted up. There's no other name given to men under heaven by which they must be saved. And there's no other way to be saved other than the cross of Jesus Christ and faith therein that on that cross
He died for your sins. There's no other appropriation we can make other than, it's like in Galatians 2 .19,
speaking of the Son of Man, the Son of God, excuse me, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
And so must here does have some freight to it. It does have some that we can load upon it.
Must be lifted up. Must be lifted up because it's the Father's will. Must be lifted up because it's the only way you can not perish but have eternal life by Jesus, by His sacrifice, by His death, by faith in Him.
That's why it must be lifted up. There's salvation in no one else, no other name under heaven given among men by which you must be saved, only
Jesus. It must be lifted up because it's the
Father's will. Then I said, Hebrews 10 .7, Behold, I have come to do your will,
O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. John 12 .27.
In 28, Jesus speaks of the same kind of imperative when
He says, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose
I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven,
I have glorified it and I will glorify it. The Son of Man must be lifted up to effect our salvation and the
Son of Man must be lifted up because it's God's will. The Son of Man must be lifted up because by that God is glorified.
Now is the Son of Man glorified when the cross was now rising up out of the ground as it were and becoming more and more prominent at the end of His days on earth.
He told Pilate, You say that I'm a king for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.
Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Must. Must be lifted up because that is the truth of God in Christ.
That's the truth of God by the prophets who came before Him. That's the truth of God that the law was to point us to. It's the truth of God that everything in Israel's history and all the past was to have a trajectory towards.
Jesus Christ, His perfect life, His sacrifice for our sin, the cross upon which
He bore our sin, must also because of love.
See, when John writes, For God so loved the world, that word for means as a consequence, as a logical consequence or ramification of what came before, here's what
I have to say. So when he says, For God so loved the world, the for then relates up to those first two verses we read.
Back to the serpent. For that reason stated, because of that serpent, because he was lifted up, because he was lifted up and people looked upon the serpent and were healed of the poison, because of that, because God loved so much that He kept them from perishing in the wilderness, for that reason, the
Son of Man must make the ultimate fulfillment of what that pointed to, of what that really meant.
And it's after the serpent in the wilderness, it's after that that we get, For God so loved the world. The love of God now poured into the hearts of His people.
The other why is to save people from perishing, as we've said. We know that to believe in Jesus means to not perish.
The Greek has in the word, where we have the word that, the Greek has a more powerful word meaning the purpose for this, the intent behind it.
And it's a stronger word than just that. But we can say in order that, for this very purpose, that men should not perish.
Unless God's purposes were somehow thwarted, which they never will be, but unless they were, people were, have been, and are being saved.
And so we could say that God has not given up. You see, God sent Jesus to save people.
God sent Jesus to fulfill the Old Testament. And God has sent Jesus' word today.
He's ascended, He's at the Father's right hand. And when He was there, when He first went there, who did He send?
He sent men, 12 apostles to found the church upon the foundation of the death, burial, and resurrection of Himself.
And today, is God done? No. Today He has churches,
He has us, He has saints like you and me, ordinary people, carrying on that evangelistic fervor.
That's what it means when He says that they may not perish. That we declare
His word. That we bring forth His salvation. We'll pray in a little while, in just a few minutes.
Lord willing, in just a couple minutes, we'll stop and we'll pray. We're going to pray for the ministries of this church.
That we declare that you are going to perish unless you believe in this one and have eternal life.
And here are the two choices, they're that stark. Perish life. Jesus came and declared that during His entire life.
He sent the apostles after His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Sent the apostles. And now as worthy apostles, send us.
Because they're the ones who gave us this completed word of God. By which we have the words of life. Why the image of the serpent?
That leads to this most famous of New Testament verses. Because serpents were killing those people.
Like in Genesis 3, a serpent came and brought death. It's like saying, when they lift up the serpent, the bronze serpent, it's like, look at what you've chosen.
For them back then, it was look with regret, look with repentance. But look with eyes of faith. Because Moses said, if you look at the serpent, you will live.
Who would believe that? Logically, you couldn't. But with faith, they were saved.
They were saved from the poison. They were saved from the adders or whatever those serpents were. Now look.
Now look. Not a serpent that brings death and eternal perishing. But a savior who brings life.
So the bronze serpent, because of love, for God so loved that people that he had drawn out of Egypt, even with their grumbling and complaining.
Now in Jesus, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only son. That whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
He gave his son. Abraham was told to give his son, which he was ready to do.
But God didn't take it. God didn't take Isaac, but gave a substitute for him. Just as he should take us, and yet gave a substitute for us in Jesus Christ.
So God hadn't given up on Israel. He sent Jesus to save people, to explain to them, to explain to the teacher of Israel the truth that he had all the groundwork for, all the foundation for, but didn't see.
Jesus was working after he ascended on high. He sent the apostles. Jesus is working today in and through the church.
And this means something, and with this we will close. That means he is working today. When Jesus told the
Pharisees and John, that my father is working, and I am working to this day. Brethren, by his spirit, he continues that work.
He continues that work in and with all of us. In you individually, where the Holy Spirit dwells, and in us as a church, as a congregated people.
He's still working. He's bringing you through hard times. Perhaps he's giving you some easier times.
In all these things, making you more and more like Jesus Christ. And if you don't believe in him, then this is a message also for repentance.
That God sent one way to himself, and one way to himself because there's only two choices other than coming to him by faith in his son
Jesus Christ. Perish, or eternal life. Know that God is continuing this work of salvation.
Know that God is still saving people today. Know that you and I have no idea who the elect is.
So let us, as God so loved the world, and gave his son ubiquitously, and we could say promiscuously.
So also, we need to declare this good news that we have. And so also, we need to pray with fervency when we close and go to the
Lord in prayer together. Amen? Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I thank you, Father, for the love of God that you showed in sending your son, and for the love of God that is poured out in our hearts.
I pray, Father, that as we proceed, that we would be confident in that love, that we would know that you,
Father, sent your son to save us, and that we were saved by Jesus Christ. When he says it's finished, it was finished indeed.
So we are indeed saved. But Lord, may we be those who declare this with courage and with clarity.
And Lord, that Jesus Christ would be glorified, that we would bring people to look upon him and be saved by having faith in him,
Father, faith that only you can give. So Lord, continue to accomplish this great work that Jesus started, even through us, we ask in his name.
Amen. If you'll gather yourselves in small groups for prayer, we will start in just a moment.
Let's begin with confession. As you see in the bullet, confession for giving up on the world while God is redeeming the world through Christ.
May Heavenly Father, we do confess that we are sometimes timid, that we are slow of tongue, that we can recede to the background when we have opportunities to speak forth for our
Savior. Lord, we confess that too often we fall back on God's sovereignty as if we know who you will or will not save.
And I pray forgiveness for this, even for myself. And Father, every soul that comes my way, where I have any opportunity to speak for Christ, I should look upon them as one that possibly
Jesus Christ bled for them too. And that they will hear the words of life with ears of faith which only you can give.
So Father, I pray forgiveness for acting as though I know who you have or haven't or will or will not save.
And I pray that we as a people, we as individuals and as a church, with that great fervor, with boldness, would look upon all the people we come across, all who you put in our path, and say,
Jesus Christ may have bled and died for this one. And let them hear the words of life from my lips.
Let them hear about the Son that God gave to the world, that God loved that world, and that by faith in Him they would not perish but have life.
And you, Father, save many by these words that you have given us to speak. Glorify yourself in this.
And Father, we just pray that your church be full, that the angels in heaven would have many opportunities to stop and rejoice before you when a sinner repents.
Use us in this way, Father, if we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I'll ask our brother
Albert to come up and represent the diaconate in praying for our needs within the church.
Come up, brother. If you bow your heads with me.
Mighty and gracious Heavenly Father, we, your people, your children, come to you,
Father, to ask, to pray, and hold up the needs of your people. With a love that is too great and unmeasurable by human standards,
Father, you demonstrated this love on the cross through Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son. Forgive us,
Father, for our complacency in this by not trusting you and for not putting our full trust and hope in this.
The assurance that is in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ should bring boldness, strength, and courage.
But because of our weaknesses, we often retreat and waver. Even when we know we shouldn't, we tend to lean on our own understanding.
A byproduct of such is that we don't pray enough, we don't spend enough time in your word, we don't witness enough, and we don't stand up for that which is truly right.
We feed our complacency by putting our trust in worldly comforts and fleshly things, things that can be destroyed by moths, rust, or be stolen by thieves.
We can be so preoccupied by the pleasures of the world and of things that we forget that this place, this world, is actually the land of our affliction.
We are not of this world, and this is not our home, but still we forget and minimize the blessings that you give us with each renewing day, such as the gifts of life, rebirth, purpose, mercy, and forgiveness.
Father, in your graciousness, you have blessed us and made us fruitful in our land of affliction. Therefore, there is no such thing as a little blessing.
We are but wretched sinners who deserve far less and much worse. How easily we fall into the mindset of, oh, why,
God, do you allow bad things to happen to good people? Father, this mindset keeps us from the reality of what really is.
We should be asking, oh, why, God, do you allow good things to happen to bad people? A sobering reminder of the real reality of who and what we are.
May you bless us, Father, so that we will never forget that. Father, thank you for your unearned love and renewing graces.
Father, with great love and concern for our brothers and sisters, I want to start by praying for those struggling with health issues and health -related uncertainties.
We pray, Father, that you would be with them, that you would comfort them, and that you would heal them. For those undergoing treatments and care from doctors and nurses, we pray that you would bless those health care professionals with that which they need to do their jobs well and provide the care that we all deserve.
We pray that you would give them strength and use them to accomplish your will. Father, with those dealing with the uncertainty of life events such as housing, rent, or looking for new jobs, we pray that you would be with them as well.
All will be done in your time, so we pray that you would bless them with calm minds, clarity, and patience.
We pray for those who are searching for work, that you would comfort them and take away their anxieties as they search, and that you would be glorified as they wait for your blessing.
Whatever their struggle or need, Father, may you please bless them with calmness and stillness to know and never forget that you are
God. And because of who you are and what you have done through Jesus Christ, we should never question and instead rest assured in knowing who you are and that you are faithful.
Father, may you please bless us with that which we need to do right by you, bless us with that which we need to bring blessings upon you, bless us with that which we need so that your will would be done.
May our labor be a blessing to you, an encouragement to others, and a rallying call for your people.
Father, bless us with a clear line of sight that leads to your Son on the cross so that we may never forget your love and assurance that is in Jesus Christ.
And Father, it is in His name, the name of your Son, your great and only begotten Son, that we pray these things.
In Jesus' name, amen. I'll ask our
Pastor Connolly to come and pray for the ministries of our church. Let me go ahead and look up the prayer letter we got this past week.
So this is for Christ Reformed Church in Secunderbed, India.
Praise God for comforting our hearts after a series of church issues, giving us wisdom to handle every situation.
Without His aid, we wouldn't have been able to do anything properly. And three, enabling us to get ready for a new church plant at KPHB Colony, which
I don't know if that's a place or what that is, but... Please pray for God to give us more men for our evangelism, street preaching,
Bible studies, et cetera, that we would be diligent and hardworking, that we would be faithful to the gospel at all times for our finances, and that we plan our time well.
That was Gilbert Dawson, so... And that was Christ Reformed Church in Secunderbed, India.
Let me go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this church in India. It's a place that needs the gospel.
There's so many people in that relatively small geographic area, and so many of them do not know you, do not know your son, so we ask that this church would be a great light within a great darkness.
We pray that you would grant their requests, that you would give them more men, more men to do the work of evangelism and street preaching and Bible studies, that you would grant them hearts that desire to work hard and are faithful to the gospel, and that you would supply them with everything they need financially and with time as well.
We pray all this, but we also acknowledge the good that you have done for them as you have continued to support the work there.
We pray that you would continue to divinely empower it for your glory. And for ourselves,
Lord, in our own ministry here, we ask that you would use the word that is preached here to reach men and women in this area, that they would see the peril that is at hand, that they would realize that they need that Savior who has come into the world, that light who has come into the darkness.
We pray that people would realize that as they visit and they hear the gospel preached here. We pray that people would realize that as we go door -to -door and share the gospel.
I pray that you would bless those efforts so we have not engaged in door -to -door activity since last year, but I pray that we would be able to soon and that you would bless that work.
We pray also that just in our personal interactions with one another that the gospel that we preach would clue men into the peril that they are headed towards.
We ask that people would not continue to mock you, but that they would turn towards you desiring the salvation that only you can provide.
We ask all this for the glory of your son, knowing that it is ultimately in him that salvation is found and ultimately to him that salvation is for, for his glory, for his name, in Jesus' name, amen.
I'll call once again upon Pastor Owens to come pray for the world and our leaders. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, in this passage that we just heard, you spoke of your son, coming into the world, of your love for the world.
We do pray that that love would extend across the world. At this time, at this point in human history, that message, that word, has spread very far, but there are still lands where it has not reached.
There are still lands where knowledge of Christ has not reached, and we ask that it would extend to those lands as well.
We pray that you would send it to the islands, send it to the more distant regions of Asia and Africa and Europe where the gospel has not pierced, and we pray that people would listen.
We also pray for lands where the gospel was once very popular, where it was once very well received, even from a cultural perspective, and we ask that you would once again revive those lands where now they are dead and many men reject the gospel.
We ask that you would revive those lands, and we pray that they would reach all of your sheep.
You have a great love for your people in Jesus Christ, and we pray that you would save every last one of them.
We don't know what your timeline looks like. We don't know what the scope of this salvation looks like exactly, but we do know that it is your purpose, and that you will accomplish this in great measure, and so we ask that you would even now be bringing more into the fold, and that this would not be a slow time of harvest, but a uniquely accelerating time of harvest, that you would do this work in great abundance in our own time period, and God, we pray that we would have opportunities to participate in that, both financially, with our own witnessing, with our prayer.
We also pray for our leaders. We pray for our leaders, that they would turn away from their sin, they would turn to Christ and have eternal life.
Most of our rulers and government do not know you. The religions they profess tend to be far from true religion, and so we pray that you would be merciful to them, and that despite their sins against you, despite their dishonoring of you, and the sin that they commit, as many commit, as we have committed in the past, and even in the sins of ruling not in accord with your law, as many do, we pray that you would forgive them of all these sins, and that they would find that forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
We pray that you would turn them to him, they would have eternal life. In Jesus' name, amen.
Let's prepare ourselves for the Lord's table, if you will. We'll close this section, or this facet of our prayers, with hymn number 192 to prepare ourselves.
I would ask as you open your hymnals, if you could move more to the center, it would make it a lot easier for the servants who are going to serve the elements to you.
You can stay in the pew that you are, but if you'd move in a bit, that would be helpful. Hymn number 192,
Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted. Please stand.
Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See him dying on the tree,
Tis the Christ by and affected, Yes, my soul, to see tis he.
Expected wrong, Was the stroke that justice gave.
You think of sin, but lightly, Nor suppose the evil grave.
Here may view it, nature rightly,
Here's the day, may estimate. Mark the sacrament, the vice appointed,
See who bears the awful load. Tis the word, the
Lord's anointed, Son of man, and Son of God.
Here we have a firm foundation, Here the refuge of the lost,
Which we pose for sinners wounded.
Please be seated. As I pray that the servants will come up.
Our Heavenly Father, I pray your blessing upon this time of communion. I pray your blessing upon us as we partake according to the
Lord's command. And that we would look upon these elements with the eyes of faith. Father, the bread, which has been broken, the one bread representing the one body broken in many pieces, which is all of us together making up the body of Christ.
I pray, Father, that we would look carefully upon what this element represents to us, that Jesus' body was broken for us, that he endured the pain and the suffering and the insults and the humiliation that we deserve.
And you took it upon himself for the sake of sinners such as us who deserve none of it. So, Father God, bless this element.
Bless our time with it. Bless us, Father, as we partake. And look to our souls.
Grow us evermore into the image of Christ. Even as we consider these truths, we ask in His name. Amen. The Lord Jesus, on the night when
He was betrayed, 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. And now,
Father, we again pray your blessing upon the wine before us, that you would bless this cup of redemption to us.
We remember, Father, that Jesus' blood was poured out on our behalf, that He truly died on the cross. And by His death, by faith in Him, faith which is a gift of God, we are truly saved.
Oh, Father God, again we thank you for our substitute. We thank you that you provided what we could never have provided for ourselves, what we never would have wanted for ourselves, except you opened our eyes to this truth, that Jesus Christ came to save sinners such as ourselves.
And by His death, by His blood poured out, this, as He said, this new covenant that we have in Him.
Father, we are indeed saved. And so once again, we pray your blessing upon us as we partake of the wine, the fruit of the vine.
We pray, Father, once again, that the truth behind it, that the symbolism that Jesus Christ ordained for us would be something we consider very carefully, the death of Christ on our behalf, so that we might live and even have this celebration here at this
Lord's table this day. Bless us, Father, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. In the same way also we took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant of my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the
Lord's death till He comes. Amen. Let's stand and close with the doxology. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you, be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.