This Sunday we had the privilege of having Mr. Brock Page visit Providence and preach from 1 Peter 5:6-7.

Brock worked with Pastor Jake at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Florence, SC, where he is currently the pastoral assistant. Brock also attends LAMP Seminary.

Our passage reminds us of a simple, yet glorious truth: only Jesus can satisfy the hunger of your soul. Certainly this is true for a non-Christian seeking to fill that “gospel shaped hole” in their heart. But isn’t it also true for each of us that are Christians, that we tend to forget this simple truth. It’s so easy to jump into the rat race of life in order to chase worldly pleasure believing those things are going to make our lives better.

Instead of relying on worldly pleasure, we must rely on Christ.

We’re all running a spiritual race, whether or not you recognize it, and staying on course in order to achieve the goal of salvation is what we’re all chasing after.

But it’s really easy to get off course!

In our passage we see the crowd asking Jesus what works they must perform to please God.

We’ve found ourselves in another long discourse this morning. But this discourse is about Jesus being the bread of life. It’s another one of those passages that really hangs together as a unit, but if preached as a unit, we’d be here all week.

So I’m going to break this passage up into more digestible bites, so that we can try to plumb the depths of this passage. You can never do it completely, but hopefully we can do it sufficiently.

As always, it’s important to remember the backdrop of the passage. Jesus had fed the five thousand earlier in chapter 6, hid from the crowd, and walked across the sea to meet up with the disciples.

One of the reasons that the Bible is an incredible book is because it isn’t written flatly. It has contours, mountains, and valleys. It has substance and depth in part, because it isn’t written by one author in one particular style. There’s narrative, poetry, prophecy, letters, and so on. And it’s critical that you recognize this in order to help you better understand the God of the Bible and His message.

We all know people believe conspiratorial things like the earth is flat, 9/11 was staged, the moon landing was staged, or Al Gore invented the internet.

But have you ever had a conversation with something that held a wild belief? Their whole worldview is built upon this belief. And they interpret everything through it. Every piece of evidence you present against their view somehow always ends up supporting their view. You cannot convince them otherwise. They’re totally convinced and their conviction is unmovable.

James Peck was a federal judge in the early 1800s and he was involved in several land claim disputes associated with the Louisiana territory. In one case, he ruled against the client of lawyer Luke Lawless.

So Lawless did what any disgruntled lawyer would do: he wrote an anonymous hit piece against Peck in a local newspaper.

The Sabbath is a glorious thing that has been graciously given to us from the Lord! But legalism will destroy the Sabbath. We see three ways that legalism destroys our enjoyment of the Sabbath in our passage this morning.

First, legalism will destroy your rest (vv. 9b-10). Second, legalism will destroy your joy (vv. 11-15). And third, legalism will destroy your need for the gospel (vv. 16-18).

August 14th marked one year since the church plant was officially approved by the Blue Ridge Presbytery, I was called to be the church planter, and the support raising process began.

Over these past 12 months:

• Our family moved back to the area.

• I began meeting with people who were interested in the church.

• Westminster Presbyterian Church allowed me to preach at their evening worship services.

• We hosted Vision Gatherings.

• The Lord provided a location.

• We launched our first worship service.

And most recently…

In case you’re wondering, this portion of the book of John is often referred to as “the book of signs.” And you can probably tell why. This portion of the gospel of John documents miracle after miracle after miracle.

These verses deal with another one of Jesus’ miracles and there will be more!

But it’s important to always remember that Jesus never healed for the sake of healing. It served two purposes: first it demonstrated that he was the Son of God and had divine authority over the natural realm. And second, it points to the fact that we’re all sick with sin and are in desperate need of spiritual healing.

Oftentimes, we don’t know what’s best for ourselves, but God does. The Lord knows what we need better than we do. And this is exactly what we see in our passage.

The church’s relationship with sin has gotten progressively more confused.

Do we discuss our sin in order to make us more relatable to the outside world? Or do we only reference sin in order to make Christianity more palatable to non-christians?

How should we talk about sin?

This past Sunday while Pastor Jake was away, we had the privilege of hearing Rev. Doug Hart preach on Psalm 77.

Is there any doubt that we live in a performance driven society? Your success or lack of success is the direct result of your performance. We’re always analyzing data in order to better inform our decisions.

Analytics are big in everything from business to sports. College and professional football teams now hire analysts. Information and data analysis is a part of the world we live in.

And the church isn’t immune to our performance driven society. It’s standard practice within the church to collect and analyze data. How many people are in attendance? How many baptisms were there? Which service is more popular: the contemporary or traditional?

This week, we’re continuing to look at Jesus's interaction with the woman of Samaria, or as it’s commonly called, “the woman at the well.” Last week we looked at verses 1-15 and a lot of the issues we discussed last week will be relevant once again this week.

Today we’re beginning a four part series looking at Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman or what is often referred to as the woman at the well. When you read this passage, there’s really no good way to break it up because it hangs together so beautifully as a cohesive unit.

There’s a real temptation among pastors that every time they preach they need to say something innovative or unique. To present an angle on a text that you maybe haven’t ever considered before.

I was recently talking about this with a pastor friend of mine and we were talking about how there are some texts that simply don’t allow that. And I think this is one of them.

There isn’t anything unique or special about John’s words. He presents the basic gospel to his disciples. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

Humility is a difficult topic because you can’t claim to be a humility expert and still be humble. Isn’t it prideful to think of yourself as a very humble person? In a similar vein, the desire to appear humble is in fact a demonstration of pride.

We’re at the end of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. And by way of reminder, Jesus explained what it means to be “born again” in verses 1-15, described the depth of God’s love in verse 16, and is now moving into why people don’t put their trust in Him.

It’s still a relevant question, isn’t it? Why don’t more people come to Christ? What exactly is the barrier that prevents people from putting their trust in Him?