Pastor James will post his Sermon Study Questions every Tuesday with the previous Sunday’s sermon. Our hope is for these study questions to promote deeper personal study and further edify our church body.
Sermon Study Questions – February 9, 2025
1. Read Psalm 46
2. Why is it important to see God as our shelter?
3. What is significant about the psalmist saying that God is “our” refuge?
4. In what two ways is God spoken of as a refuge in Psalm 46?
5. Matthew 7:7-11 was quoted in the sermon. How does Christ give us confidence in seeking God from this passage?
6. How does what the psalmist says about what we are not to fear speak to us of the greatness of God being our refuge and strength?
7. What does the Psalm say to us about the kind of help God is for His people?
8. How does this psalm ultimately speak to us of the blessings we have in Christ?
9. What did Jonathan Edwards say were the three reasons Christians ought to have joy in this life, and how do they speak of the blessings we have in Christ?
10. Pray.
Reading of the Law – Exodus 20:12
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Prayer of Confession
Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, Your commands are true, righteous, and holy. Your statutes reflect all the perfections of Your character as You are righteous and just in all Your ways. All authority in heaven and earth comes by Your all-powerful hand and You have placed over each of us such authorities as mothers & fathers, governors, magistrates, teachers, and employers. And You have done so for our good that we might be blessed. Yet we confess, Father, that we have often rebelled against those You have placed over us as Adam rebelled against You in the Garden. We have not given honor to those it is due; we have sought instead our own honor and have spurned the wisdom and humility that comes from Your created order. In our pride we have not respected Your sovereignty over us, trusted in Your Fatherly care for us in all things, and have disrespected, spoken ill of, and ignored Your authority by dishonoring those You have placed over us.
Please forgive us, Father, and help us to trust You with a childlike faith that we may see all the circumstances in our lives as arising from Your kind hand. Help us by Your Spirit to live as Christ lived. He subjected Himself to those You gave power to so that we might be saved. He preferred to suffer wrong rather than to disobey Your command so that we might be saved. Help us Father to have the mind of Christ in all things that we might love and honor You in all that we do. Cleanse us by His blood and have mercy upon us we pray.
Assurance of Pardon – Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
WLC: 166
Q. 166. Unto whom is Baptism to be administered?
A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible Church, and so strangers from the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but infants descended from parents, either both or but one of them professing faith in Christ, and obedience to him, are in that respect, within the covenant, and to be baptized.
Acts 8:36-37; Acts 2:38; Gen. 17:7, 9; Gal. 3:9, 14; Col. 2:11-12; Acts 2:38-39; Rom. 4:11-12; 1 Cor. 7:14; Matt. 28:19; Luke 18:15-16; Rom. 11:16
NT Reading – Revelation 21:1-4, 22:1-5
Revelation 21:1-4 – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 22:1-5 – Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.