“I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.” Psalm 9:1-2

We certainly have much to be thankful for as we reflect on what the Lord has done this past year in the planting of Providence Presbyterian Church!

He brought and gathered people together during the winter, administered the details for beginning worship services in the spring, and sustained us and added to our number in the summer.

Most recently, He formed stronger relationships among us this fall.

We all have a spiritual addiction to sin. Jesus said it most clearly when he said, “no one is good except God.”

You and I need outside help. We need a spiritual intervention!

And I think that’s precisely what we see in our passage this morning. We see the Lord taking drastic measures in order to redeem sinful humanity.

And how would he do it? By becoming just like you and me. By leaving the heavenly throne room and taking on flesh.

Because ultimately, in order for there to be hope of redemption, God had to intervene. The God of the universe would momentarily suspend the natural laws that govern our world in order to miraculously create a life that would redeem us from our sins.

Perhaps there was a point in time in America when there was a social incentive to refer to yourself as a Christian. Perhaps it got you around the right people. Going to church could function as a great place to network, and the morals that were taught were generally thought of as positive.

With each passing moment, there are fewer and fewer social incentives to refer to yourself as a Christian.

However, even in the face of open hostility and scrutiny toward Jesus Christ, people still get saved.

We see this clearly in John 7:25-31.

In order to be a Christian, you have to accept Jesus exactly the way that He is.

Because Jesus is easy to dismiss if he doesn’t fit into your box and meet your expectations. That’s what we see in our passage.

We all have all sorts of thoughts and opinions but at the end of the day, many of them don’t matter all that much. How you answer which baseball team is the best or who was the greatest American President has little to no impact on your day to day life.

But what you think of Jesus Christ will dictate the direction of your life and your eternal soul.

How do you respond to Jesus Christ?

Who is he and what has he done for you? How you answer that question is everything! The destiny of your eternal soul rides on how you answer that question.

In John 6 we’ve seen several different groups of people respond to Jesus: In previous weeks, we’ve seen how the Jews responded to Jesus, and this morning we’re going to look at how his disciples responded to him.

The Christian faith is marked by an ongoing reliance, trust, and dependance on Christ. It’s being united to Christ by faith is what saves you. Eternal life comes through a deep and abiding connection to Jesus Christ. Which I think helps us understand a passage that is full of language that is highly metaphorical and spiritual.

Christ isn’t directing attention to the Lord’s Supper in general, rather he is directing our attention to what lies beneath the Supper. He’s using language to describe the Christians union to him by faith.

As many of you probably know, on October 31st 1517, one of the most famous events in all of history took place. Martin Luther, a young Roman Catholic monk at the time, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany sparking what we refer to as the Protestant Reformation.

Naturally, many protestant churches celebrate the last Sunday in October as Reformation Day. Last Sunday was Reformation Sunday, but we’re pretending that it’s today this year. Next year I’ll try to get it right.

I think it’s fair to say that in many ways the Protestant Reformation mirrors the passage of Scripture I just read about the rediscovery of God's law under King Josiah. Josiah’s discovery of the Law and the Protestant Reformation share something in common: they both shared a deep value for the Word of God.

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.