Grace and Peace Home Worship Guide for June 21, 2020 Opening
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Grace and Peace Home Worship Guide for June 21, 2020 Opening Prayer Call to Worship Psalm 65:1-4 Song1 “Better Is One Day” Scripture John 6:60-71 Sermon2 “Take A Good Look” Pastor Jonathan Olsen Prayer Giving3 Song “In Christ Alone” Benediction 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, 28 1 Lyrics are provided in this PDF. 2 A full transcript of the sermon is provided in this PDF. 3 You can give online through our website, our church app, or by mail. Better Is One Day In Christ Alone How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord almighty In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light my strength my song For my soul longs and even faints for You This Cornerstone this solid Ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm For here my heart is satisfied within Your presence What heights of love what depths of peace I sing beneath the shadow of Your wings When fears are stilled when strivings cease My Comforter my All in All, here in the love of Christ I stand CHORUS: Better is one day in Your courts, better is one day in Your house In Christ alone who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe Better is one day in Your courts than thousands elsewhere This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save (Than thousands elsewhere) Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live One thing I ask and I would seek, to see Your beauty To find You in the place Your glory dwells There in the ground His body lay, light of the world by darkness slain (REPEAT) Then bursting forth in glorious Day, up from the grave He rose again And as He stands in victory sin's curse has lost its grip on me CHORUS For I am His and He is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ My heart and flesh cry out for You the living God No guilt in life no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me Your Spirit's water to my soul From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny I've tasted and I've seen, come once again to me No power of hell no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand I will draw near to You, I will draw near to You Till He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand Better is one day, better is one day Better is one day than thousands elsewhere Better is one day, better is one day Better is one day than thousands elsewhere CHORUS CCLI Song # 1097451 CCLI Song # 3350395 Matt Redman Keith Getty | Stuart Townend © 1995 Thankyou Music © 2001 Thankyou Music CCLI License # 3240311 CCLI License # 3240311 The following are questions that can be used for personal reflection or group discussion on Pastor Jonathan’s June 21st sermon: 1) What is hardest thing in the Bible for you to accept as true? What makes it so hard for you? How have you fought to believe it? 2) What would you say to someone who asks you what Pastor Jonathan meant in saying “you can hang out with Jesus and not believe in Jesus”? 3) What most tempts you to stop following Jesus? The offensiveness of the Gospel? The presence of evil and injustice in the world? The imperfections and hypocrisy of churches and other Christians? Other? How can you fight to remain in Jesus? 4) How did Peter respond to Jesus (verses 66-69)? To what degree does his words reflect your attitude towards Jesus today? June 21, 2020 “Take a Good Look” Pastor Jonathan Olsen John 6:60-71 60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.”(For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. What’s difficult in the teachings of Christianity (or the teaching specifically of Jesus) for you to accept? Maybe it's the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity - that there is one God in three distinct persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Maybe it’s the fact that Jesus was one person and yet had two natures - a divine nature and a human nature. He is God and man in one person. Maybe it's the mystery that the Holy Ghost of God simultaneously resides in every single believer and Jesus Christ all over the world. I want to encourage you to take a good look at yourself. Take a good look inside of your heart and think about what you really do with, how you really react to (at least in your heart) hard teachings from the Bible from Christianity from Jesus himself. Well today we see a mass exodus of some of Jesus’ earliest followers. And that is their response to some of his hard teachings. And by way of outline: 1. Take a good look: will you fight? 2. Take a good look: will you believe? 3. Take a good look: will you remain? Now for several weeks we've been studying what's known as the the bread of life discourse. Jesus and many of his curious followers were in a town called Capernaum. And specifically, they were in the Jewish synagogue in Capernaum and Jesus taught that he was the bread, the true sustenance from God, he was the bread of heaven from God for eternal life. The only way to have eternal life is to take him in to eat and drink upon him to feast upon him, by faith. By believing and accepting that he is the provision of God for eternal life, if you will believe. And what one person calls an appendix to the bread of life discourse, we come to our passage today. I. Take a Good Look: Will you fight? 60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Now the numbers have people dwindled down a little bit from the large crowd and the Jewish leaders in the synagogue to just the disciples in general (not just the 12) – those who were curious and following Jesus. And they say to him, this is a hard saying! Who can listen to it? Of course the question is, what is it they were referring to? Well this that they're referring to this is a hard saying. Who can listen to this hard saying who can grasp it who can get it who can get their minds around it? Well it's the very thing that was troubling the Jews. It was troubling the leaders of the Jews. First of all, Jesus said that he functionally was greater than Moses. “It was great what God did through Moses for the people hundreds of years ago. But I am the true bread of heaven. And Moses was pointing to me. I am the greater Moses.” And the hard saying (who can believe it? Who can get their minds around it? Who can listen to it?) Also has to do with what Jesus said last week that we studied. “Look I’m going to give you… give my flesh… myself… over to the world. I'm going to give it for the world.” Which of course is a foretaste, it's a preface, it's a beginning word that he would give his life to death - his perfect innocent human life to death on a Roman cross to absorb and take on the eternal anger of God so that anyone who trusts in his death and in his resurrection three days later would be forgiven of their sins.