Trinity Presbyterian Church North Bay — Sermons & Sunday School

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/27/2022 in Petaluma, CA, assessing matters of discrimination.

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 10/23/2022 in Petaluma, CA, assessing critical theory in light of biblical teaching.

Sermon preached on Leviticus 23:33-44 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/20/2022 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

At our thanksgiving and dedication night this last Friday, we had the opportunity to consider the three main feasts of Israel in connection with the old covenant temple and in application to our building. Today, I wanted us to continue thinking about the feasts but particularly that Feast of Booths, which is also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, and in Hebrew, Sukkot. The Torah lists instructions for the Feast of Booths here and also in Exodus 23, Numbers 29, and Deuteronomy 16. The fact that this and the other feasts are mentioned in so many places reminds us of their importance under the old covenant. And while these are no longer holy days to observe under the new covenant, they continue to embody rich and significant teaching for us to learn from and make applications today. Today then, we will think about the Feast of Booths as a thanksgiving sermon in light of our nations’ upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

For our first point today, I’d like to draw your attention to verses 33-36. There we learn that the Feast of Booths was to occur on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. To clarify, this seventh month is not referring to July. Israel used a different calendar than what we do today, not only with different names of the months, but their calendar was a lunar calendar whereas our calendar today in the United States is a solar calendar. Many cultures have used lunar calendars, which is to say that their months are tied to the moon cycles, so that each month equals one full cycle of a new moon to a full moon. This is in contrast to a solar calendar which orders its year around the length of time that it takes for the earth to orbit the sun. Neither calendar is perfect, either in tracking the sun or moon, nor when it comes to matching up with our four seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. Our solar calendars have to get corrected every four years by adding an extra day. And lunar calendars add a whole month in their leap years (which happen about every 3 years or so). So then, that means that this seventh month listed in verse 34 is the Jewish month of Tishrei which typically falls in September or October of our calendar. For example, this year the 15th of Tishrei was October 9.

I wanted to talk about where this falls on the calendar so that we understand that this Feast of Booths falls at the end of the harvest season. This was a key part of the significance of this feast. In fact, when this same feast is described in Exodus 23 it is actually called there the Feast of Ingathering; the word ingathering describes the harvesting of crops. So, while we will talk in a moment about why this feast was called the Feast of Booths, I first wanted us to appreciate why it is also called the Feast of Ingathering. God had this feast set at the time of the year when the harvest is drawing to a close. There is an agricultural significance as a key part of this feast. God wanted his people to take time at the end of the harvest and celebrate God’s abundant provision of food and to thank him for it. In other words, this Feast of Booths falls around this same time of year when we in our country are celebrating these same things. Usually toward the end of September we start seeing pumpkin patches popping up and into October we see various harvest festivals starting to happen and then into November it culminates with our national Thanksgiving holiday. If we were to pick one religious festival in Israel’s history that most closely lines up with what we celebrate as a nation during Thanksgiving,...

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/20/2022 in Petaluma, CA, assessing matters of discrimination.

Sermon preached on Ezra 3, 6:13-22 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Thanksgiving and Dedication Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/18/2022 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

The book of Ezra records how God’s people rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem after their exile in Babylon. Our reading in chapter 3 records their beginning of the work and chapter 6 records their completion of it. I thought this record would be a fitting passage to reflect on this evening in our Thanksgiving and Dedication Service for our new building. To clarify, our building is not a temple. What the temple in Jerusalem was under the old covenant is realized in the new covenant spiritually whenever God’s people gather together for corporate worship. Yet, there are several analogies here with our situation that I believe will make for some edifying application this evening.

The first thing I would like us to recognize then is all the joy and thanksgiving and praise that is going on here as they begin the work and ultimately dedicate the new temple to God. One way we see this is the way the text connects their work with the temple with the joy of their annual feasts. Chapter 3 references them starting the temple work with a celebration of the Feast of Booths. And chapter 6 references them dedicating the temple and then celebrating the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread afterwards. These feasts were naturally a time of annual joy and thanksgiving and praise to God. The worship component can be seen especially by all the sacrifices that attended them. I will have more to say about these feasts in a moment, but for now I do note providentially that the timing for our Thanksgiving and Dedication Service coincides with our upcoming national day of Thanksgiving. In fact some people had mistakenly thought this service was intending to be a traditional annual Thanksgiving service and I had to correct them. But we do have much to be thankful for this year as a congregation.

So then, notice their joy and praise when they lay the foundation. In chapter 3, verse 10, we see the priests lead the people with loud and ornate praise, with their trumpets and cymbal in their vestments. They sing to God that refrain common in several psalms, “He is good; his steadfast love toward Israel endures forever.” The people all give a great shout of praise. All of it can be heard from far away because it was boisterous. Likewise, when the temple is completed, we see a similar celebration. A huge amount of animals are sacrificed to God as a sin offering in chapter 6, verse 17. Verse 16 specifically describes such a huge act of worship as what they were doing to dedicate the temple and how it expressed their joy and celebration. So, we see that the people from start to finish dedicated that temple to God in joy and thankfulness that it would be a place of praise and worship to God. So then, surely by extension it is fitting that we this evening recognize how God has provided our congregation a place for us to worship him. It is quite appropriate that we set aside a time of special thanksgiving and praise for this new place. And if you are so inclined, may you also be pleased to give offerings to God by making use of the offering box in the back. This is a time quite appropriate for us to worship our God in thankfulness for his great provision for our church and its ministry.

As we note the joy and celebration that bookended the construction of that temple, let us not overlook the fact that it took approximately 22 years from start to finish to complete this temple. That’s why we had to skip from chapter 3 to chapter 6 to see the start ...

Sermon preached on Luke 20:45-21:4 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/13/2022 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

Today we get to talk about scribes and widows.  Our opening section mentions both, with a focus on condemning certain scribes.  The second section doesn’t mention scribes, but does feature Jesus commending a widow.  So, we’ll have a chance to think about both scribes and widows today.  And while Jesus hands out both condemnations and commendations here, we should note in verse 45 that he does this in the hearing of all the people.  In other words, this is a public action he’s doing; he is public calling out and condemning the practice of so many scribes, while at the same time giving public commendation for this widow and any like her.  Let us dig and study these things to see what Jesus would have us to learn from this today.

Let us begin then by studying the first section in verses 45-47.  Here we see a warning and frankly condemnation of the scribes.  Let us note that Jesus is not,  strictly speaking, condemning all scribes.  In verse 46 he says to “Beware of the scribes who…, and then describes the actions of the scribes he’s critiquing.  That being said, it seems safe to assume that Jesus’ critique was a common enough example that this effectively comes across as addressing the stereotypical scribe at the time.  While surely there are scribes who didn’t fit this description, Jesus addresses here all the many who did fit this description.

So then, stepping back, let’s make sure we understand who these scribes are.  The scribes were the experts in Jewish law and theology.  Sometimes they were also called lawyers, though I remind you that to say they were experts in the law, we are referring to the Mosaic law, and not like Roman civil law or anything like that.  In other words, these were the pastors and bible scholars of their day.  While traditionally, it would have been the job of the priests to be the experts in God’s law, a greater interest in God’s law slowly resulted in a more specialized class of people who devoted themselves full time to the scholarly study of the law.  So these were people whose full time job was to study the law, and they’d have opportunities to teach it and advise on it, and likewise they’d could be consulted in judicial matters as well.  While we often hear of these scribes connected with the Pharisees, it was not necessary that a scribe be a Pharisee.  What I mean is that you could have had such experts in the law who were of either the party of the Pharisees or of the Sadducees.  The main point is that they were full time students of God’s Word and thus were typically held in great honor and high esteem.  People would look up to them and think them to be wise and godly people.

So then, Jesus warns how so many scribes really came to crave such honors.  Ultimately, such scribes were proud, self-centered, and lovers of self.  Look at the list of things they would do.  Jesus says they would go walking around in long robes.  In other words, they had clothing that when they wore it would draw attention to themselves as scribes.  In context, we see that Jesus is especially critical of the way they would do this in order to draw attention to themselves to receive praise from men.  In other words, they’d go for walks in their special robes for the purpose of getting attention.  As an example of this, imagine if someone was a police officer.

Sunday School class led by Rev. W. Reid Hankins at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/13/2022 in Petaluma, CA, assessing matters of discrimination.

Sermon preached on Ephesians 1:3-14 by Rev. Kevin Kirby during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/06/2022 in Petaluma, CA.

Sunday School class led by Elder Marlin Viss at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 11/06/2022 in Petaluma, CA on Acts 4:1-22.

Sermon preached on Romans 15:4 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 10/30/2022 in Petaluma, CA.

Sermon Manuscript

Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.

If you were with us at Sunday School, you know we spoke about how in September 1522 Martin Luther published his German New Testament. So then, this year marks its 500th anniversary of its publication. He would later finish his translation work and in 1534 published the rest of what we know call the Luther Bible. I, however, have never read the Luther Bible. But that is the point. I don’t read or speak German. A copy of the Bible in German isn’t going to help me. It has been a great help to the many German speakers that have read and studied it. The point is that the Scriptures are meant to be studied and understood. That requires them to be in a language that its recipients can understand. The Scriptures have never been like a so-called magic spell that you read and it does something without need to actually understand what is said. No, the Bible is profitable and edifying as its understood – and even then it needs to be understood and received in faith.

So then, then idea that the Scriptures need to be translated into the common tongues of the people was one of the areas of reform addressed in the church at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Roman Catholic church was largely using the Latin Vulgate to teach from to churches that increasingly either didn’t speak Latin or it was a second language to them at best. While we know the chief area of the Protestant Reformation dealt with the doctrine of justification, one could argue that this was a more fundamental concern that needed to get addressed. Because why did such an important doctrine like justification become so obscured in the first place? Well, the Latin Vulgate was translated from the original languages of the Bible back in the late 300s. That was because at that time, that was the common language of the people in the Western church. But then centuries go by, and the language of the people changed, but their Bible’s didn’t. The next thing you know, people are being taught the Bible in a language they don’t understand. So, it is not surprising that over time, important doctrines like justification could be obscured. How could the people be like the Bereans to check that what their pastors were teaching was biblical, if they couldn’t read the Bible? But that’s the other side of why this issue was so important during the Reformation. Because people like Martin Luther and William Tyndale translated the Bible into the common tongues and people started reading their Bibles. They could hear what the Protestants were saying about how the Roman Catholic Church had begun to preach a gospel different from what you actually find in the Bible. It is hard to imagine the Protestant Reformation succeeding if they hadn’t gotten the Bibles into the tongues of the people.

So then, with that introduction, today we will be considering verse 4 here in Romans 15 to establish us in this truth. Verse 4, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Let me begin by setting the context here in Romans 15 for this verse, because it is somewhat like a parenthetical note.Paul just got done addressing conflicts in the church by saying that the stronger in the faith should be willing to put their own interests aside for the purpose of building up the weaker brother. In making his point, Paul quotes Psalm 69:9 in verse 3. That’s the context for Paul to make this point about the Scriptures in our verse 5 for today.