Trinity Presbyterian Church North Bay — Sermons & Sunday School

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 02/12/2023 in Petaluma, CA concerning matters of justice and conflict resolution.

Sermon preached on Genesis 1:26-2:3 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 02/05/2023 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

Scripture speaks of the idea of singing a new song whenever God does some new amazing thing. So then here, in Genesis 1:27, you have the first new song. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The first poetry in the Bible is as an interlude in the sixth day of creation. Indeed, this climactic creative event is worthy of singing praise to God. As the pinnacle of his creation, God has made a creature in his own image. We celebrate this imago Dei, the image of God, and today we will study it.

Let’s begin with the words of verse 26 that say, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.” Here God first described man as a special creation. Notice the shift in grammar to the first-person plural. “Let us make man,” in “our image”, in “our likeness.” So far, his other divine fiats had been in the third-person singular, “Let there be” this or that, and then it was. So, changing to the first-person highlights something unique is going on when God makes man.

But then God also speaks in the plural here. There are at least two plausible explanations for this. One is that God is speaking here to a heavenly council of angels and speaks to them in a sort of a royal we. The notion of a divine council of sorts is not problematic itself since we see such described elsewhere. But that view does require you to understand the grammar in some majestic plural, to avoid some inference that God and angels together made in some combined shared image, since it is says, “Let us make man in our image”.

And so, an alternative view is that this is a hint at the Trinity. The light of the New Testament teaches that the one God has eternally existed in three persons. Many Christians have found hints at that truth in the Old Testament, including here. Some have wondered if even the very Hebrew word for God here hints at that. Throughout the Old Testament, God is often referred as Elohim, which is actually the generic word in Hebrew for “gods” plural. Yet, whenever it is used of the one true God, it is treated as a singular, so that singular grammar is used with it, and he is expressly described as one God. So then, here in verse 27, if we understood the plural to express an Inter-Trinitarian conversation, that would certainly explain what is going on here. We know elsewhere that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in creation, and so it would not contradict our theology if this literally was saying, “Let us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make man in our divine image and likeness.” While I wouldn’t be dogmatic, this is certainly a plausible interpretation.

Let’s turn next to really dig into the heart of today’s passage and consider what it means for mankind to be created in God’s image. You will note that for all the creatures made so far in Genesis, that repeatedly it is said that God made them all “according to their kinds”. Each kind or main species of plant or animal God made distinct. And humans then would also be its own unique “kind” of creature. (On a side note, this is where the theory of evolution suffers, that they have yet to be able to show one kind of creature actually changing into a different kind through macroevolution, but I digress.) So then, right away we see starting in verse 26 that there is something different about us than all the other creatures. Even people who don’t believe in the Bible typically acknowledge this when they ...

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 02/05/2023 in Petaluma, CA concerning matters of justice and conflict resolution

Sermon preached on Genesis 1:1-2:3 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/29/2023 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

We begin our new sermon series through the book of Genesis. It is the first volume of a five-book series of Genesis through Deuteronomy recorded by Moses, also called the Torah. Thus, the historical context for when Moses recorded and delivered this book is that time in history when God used Moses to lead Israel out of Egyptian slavery in the Exodus and then into the wilderness where he made a covenant with them at Mt. Sinai. There, God gave them the law and promised to give them the Promised Land of Canaan and to have his Spirit be among them especially in the Tabernacle. So, the Torah ends with God’s people on the eve of entering the Promised Land, but it begins here with this grand account of creation. This context for Genesis situates it as the historical background to what God’s people had been experiencing in the Exodus and at Sinai.

Well, if Genesis is a prologue to what God was doing in the life of Israel, today’s passage serves as a prologue to that prologue. Genesis, as a historical narrative about the early days of human history, has a clearly defined structure as a book. It contains ten occurrences of the phrase, “These are the generations”, each marking a new section in the book. But the first does not occur until Genesis 2:4. That means our passage today is sets apart from the rest of Genesis as a prologue. By analogy, the gospel of John mimics this. John opens with the same words, “In the beginning,” with its first 18 verses clearly being a highly stylized prologue to the rest of John’s historical narrative. So too, our passage from Genesis is an artistically beautiful record of creation that stands as a majestic prologue to the whole book.

So then, as we study this prologue, we will learn much about God and his work as creator. We will also think about this in light of God’s later work of redemption for Israel at the Exodus. By extension, we will also expand the application to God’s work of redemption for us in Christ Jesus.

Let us begin then by considering those opening words in verse 1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This explains the origin of the universe while at the same time telling us so much about God. For the children’s sake, let me teach you a big word: cosmogony. A cosmogony is a story or explanation of the origin of the universe. In the ancient Near East, when Genesis was recorded, the heathen peoples had their cosmogonies. What stands out here in Genesis is that this account of the origin of the universe doesn’t fit the mold of the typical ancient cosmogonies. Those heathen cosmogonies typically involved gods that originated from some primordial chaos and preexisting matter who they or their offspring ultimately subdue to create some order out of the chaos. But you see that is not what we have here. Genesis 1 does not give us any explanation for the origin of God. So then, it is not that God originates out of some primordial matter, but rather God is the origin for all matter that exists today. God created all that there is ex nihilo, meaning, from nothing.

So, this account would have served as a polemic against the false religions of the world, even as it still serves today as a polemic against the false religion of atheism. Atheism has its own cosmogeny that does not differ that much from many of these ancient pagan ones. Atheism would also have us to believe in the preexistence of matter and that somehow from great chaos and through evolution cam...

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/29/2023 in Petaluma, CA concerning matters of justice and conflict resolution

Sermon preached on 2 Peter 1:1-15 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/22/2023 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

How can we know if we are truly saved? Behind that question is an important doctrine, the doctrine of election or predestination. The Bible teaches that when someone becomes a Christian that it is ultimately because God had chosen to save them, that God had predestined them or elected them from eternity. So to ask, “How can I know if I’m saved,” is to ask, “How can I know that I am one of God’s elect, one of the ones he’s chosen to save?” Today’s passage addresses that question.

Now when talking about this doctrine of election or predestination, people often have different misunderstandings about it. It is one of the more complex teachings of Scripture. One common misunderstanding is to think that it does away with man’s responsibility. Some incorrectly misunderstand to think we are saying it doesn’t really matter what we do or not, it just matters if God has elected us. But that is not correct. Rather, the Bible teaches both God’s sovereignty in our salvation and man’s responsibility. While it is true that no one will come to have faith in Jesus apart from God’s intervening work in their heart, it is also true that no human will be saved apart from exercising faith in Jesus. While there is a degree of mystery in relating God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, there is much we can understand about this as God’s word reveals it to us. This passage is one of several that helps us to think about the relationship. While God’s sovereignty is ultimate and overarching compared to man’s responsibility, there is an important place for both. They are compatible, and this passage explains some of that.

So then, we’ll consider this question today, “How can I know if I am one of God’s elect?” We will consider it in three points today, working on this passage from the outside to the inside. We’ll look first at verses 1-4 to consider our calling and election in general. Then we’ll look at verses 8-15 about the value of confirming our calling and election. Then lastly we’ll delve into the middle of the passage to consider verses 5-7 which are at the heart of man’s responsibility of how we are to seek to supplement our faith with the various qualities mentioned.

So then, we begin in verses 1-4 to think of our calling and election in general. These verses speak of the salvation that Christians have been elected and called unto, that it is one of grace through faith, as a result of the monergistic work of God in our lives which is an outworking of his sovereign calling and election. Let me walk you through the verses so you see this.

Verse 1 begins by highlighting that faith is something God gives us according to his choice. Peter says there he is an apostle of Jesus Christ writing, “to those who have obtained a faith… by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ”. That word translated as “obtained” is actually a very colorful Greek word about receiving something by the casting of lots, with the idea that it is the divine will behind what is selected by the casting of the lots, that God has determined it. In other words, verse 1 hits home on the idea of election right away with using a rather colorful word to describe that how if we have faith it is because God has divinely chosen us out of many to have such faith. You don’t believe in order to become one of God’s elect, you believe because you have been elected.

So then, verse 2 goes on to speak of grace and peace being multip...

Sermon preached on Luke 24:13-53 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/15/2023 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

We come to the conclusion of our sermon series through Luke. Luke has taken us through the story of Jesus’ time on earth, from heaven and back again. We’ve read of Jesus’ virgin birth, then his life and death, and now his resurrection and ascension. Luke has so wonderfully recounted to us the story of the Christ, and now as his gospel draws to a close, he records Jesus twice summarizing what Luke has given to us. In verse 26, Jesus summarizes his story in terms of first suffering then glory. These two disciples on the road to Emmaus had described all Jesus’ recent sufferings in verse 20, that Jesus had been condemned by the religious leaders and delivered over to crucifixion and death. But these disciples then recounted how they had received reports of Jesus’ resurrection. While these disciples at that moment were both sad and confused, Jesus says they should not have been. They should have known that this is what had been the plan for the Messiah all along. Jesus himself had told them this on several occasions in various ways. Jesus tells them this yet again in verses 46-47, saying that the Christ had to suffer and rise on the third day and then repentance proclaimed in his name throughout all the nations. And Jesus tells them here twice that this is what the Scriptures themselves had already foretold.

What we’ll see today is that the story that we’ve found in Luke, the story that Jesus twice here summarizes in verses 26 and 46-47, is really the story of the whole Bible. The Bible is a big book, actually a collection of different books. It contains many different things in it. It has a lot of various doctrines. It contains God’s many laws on how he commands us to live. It has many wonderful proverbs of wisdom. It contains a treasure of many beautiful songs and poems. And it contains all sorts of stories, including various stories of history. But ultimately, through it all, the Bible tells us about one overarching story. It’s the story of redemption. It’s the story of how God redeemed a sinful and fallen humanity, and how he accomplished it through Christ Jesus. Today’s passage teaches us this important truth. It is such a foundational thing for us to recognize that the Bible is ultimately about this one main story. Because this is so foundational, there have been some academic label given to describe the discipline of studying the whole of the Bible to see how this story is developed from start to finish. That label is “Biblical Theology”. The late theologian Geerhardus Vos taught that subject at Old Princeton Seminary and he once said this about the name Biblical Theology:

The term ‘Biblical Theology’ is really unsatisfactory because of its liability to misconstruction. All truly Christian Theology must be Biblical Theology – for apart from General Revelation the Scriptures constitute the sole material with which the science of Theology can deal. A more suitable name would be ‘History of Special Revelation’, which precisely describes the subject matter of the discipline. Names, however, become fixed by long usage, and the term ‘Biblical Theology’, in spite of its ambiguity, can hardly be abandoned now.

Vos goes on to say this about Biblical Theology as a theological discipline:

Biblical Theology occupies a position between Exegesis and Systematic Theology in the encyclopedia of theological disciplines. It differs from Systematic Theology, not in being more biblical,

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/15/2023 in Petaluma, CA concerning matters of abuse

Sermon preached on Luke 23:26-24:12 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/08/2023 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

This passage has a range of emotions and reactions, from people mourning over Jesus to people laughing at him, to people afraid at the angels announcing his resurrection, to people bewildered by its report, to people doubting to people believing. But in all of it, Jesus is about the work his father had given him to do, work that involved his becoming a sacrifice to atone for the sin of the elect, and even a preaching ministry through it all.

We begin in our first point to see a crowd of the people, especially made up of many women, forming and following Jesus as he marched to his death. They are mourning and lamenting for him as they see him led on to Calvary. By this point, his physical exhaustion from everything he endured in that last several hours had reached a point that he could no longer even carry his own cross. So, the soldiers compelled a bystander to help him, this Simon of Cyrene. That this crowd had formed and shown such emotion for Jesus reminds us that not everyone was opposed to him. What had just happened over that night was the engineering of the religious leaders and as many as they could stir up against Jesus. But so many people had loved to listen and learn from Jesus. Remember, that we’ve recently seen that the reason the religious leaders had arrested him secretly was because they feared all the people who had been supporting him. So, surely such people are represented by this great crowd mentioned in verse 30.

We can appreciate why the masses who had been excited for Jesus’ ministry and not to mention all his miracles would be weeping and lamenting here. Here is this Jesus who surely by now looked to be in sad shape after all he had endured. He had already been flogged and already a crown of thorns put on his head. Surely, he got little to no sleep over night. Surely any human in his state would have been a sad sight to see. But to those whom he had been a beloved bible teacher and prophet you had been learning from, this would have been even more lamentable. Of course, there were surely different convictions represented in the crowds. Some might be lamenting here that a prophet is being unjustly persecuted. But who knows, others might be lamenting that a prophet had done something wrong to deserve such a punishment. We don’t know all the motives of these lamenters, but it was definitely a lamentable situation.

So then, while in general this would have been a lamentable sight to behold, let’s really draw out the full picture here. This is the Messiah. The long-awaited King to come from the line of David, who was to reign over an enduring kingdom, this is the one who now is being led captive off to his death like a criminal. Israel’s king is here led captive off to his death, numbered with the transgressors. Of course, this would not be the first time a king or otherwise hero of Israel was led captive off in seemingly defeat. During the last days of Jerusalem’s history before Babylon had previously destroyed it, this happened a few times. An Egyptian Pharoah captured and led away King Jehoahaz, son of King Josiah. And then later the Babylonians did the same to King Jehoiachin and then King Zedekiah. How shameful to God’s people in each of those cases, that their king in the line of King David was so disgraced and defeated. Yet, I would ask that if you were part of God’s people at that time, and you witnessed such shame, what should your response have been? It should be lament and mourning, yes,

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/08/2023 in Petaluma, CA concerning discrimination matters regarding disability and creed.