Greetings Redeemer family!

Earlier this week, I decided to take advantage of the wonderful weather by hiking Sharp Top, a ridge just 30 minutes outside of Lynchburg.  There really is no place like the mountains of Virginia in the autumn.  The explosions of color from every hillside are simply amazing.  I’d been looking forward to this hike since I heard the warm weather was returning.  So I drove through Bedford, parked next to other day-hikers, grabbed my iPod, and jumped from my car with eager anticipation.

After a quick 40 minute climb, I was standing at the top of the mountain, looking over the beauty of Central Virginia in the Fall.  Yet I’d forgotten something.  In my haste to get out of my car and to the top of the ridge, I left my water bottle in the car.  And I was thirsty.  The sweat of the hike left me feeling like a wrung-out sponge, and I was a long way from the nearest water fountain.

Thirst is a common thing.  We’ve all experienced that longing, pressing need for the simple provision of water.  You may have read accounts of people being lost in the desert, only to see a mirage in the distance, taunting them with the image of what they desired most.   Perhaps more cruel than this is the sailor lost at sea, surrounded by water that would only leave him more dehydrated for drinking it.

As we come back to John this week, Jesus extends an amazing offer to His hearers:  “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  Jesus promises that, not only will thirsty one be filled, but that person will overflow with living water.

Such an offer comes with an implied and important question: Are you thirsty?

Augustine famously wrote of this deep thirst in his work Confessions: “Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” When we gather on Sunday morning, we ought to come with expectant hearts, knowing both that restless longing, and the promise of God to fill us with Himself.

Our call to worship this week is made up of selections from Psalm 107, and reminds us of the faithfulness of our God to meet the needs of His people in His boundless goodness:

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say this—Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men,

For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. They cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.

He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. He breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron.

Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the LORD.

In our first hymn, we celebrate the fact that God meets with us in corporate worship, blessing us anew with His presence.

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of God’s unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I’m come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let that grace now like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

In verse 2 of this song, there is a reference to an “Ebenezer.”  Most of us hear that word and think of the character from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  Here, however, the reference alludes back to 1 Samuel 7.  The Israelites had won a battle against the Philistines, and Samuel set up a monument as a reminder of God’s help in the victory.  He named the stone “Ebenezer,” which in Hebrew means “stone of help.”  The hymn writer here is using this reference to encourage us to remember specific instances of God’s help in the past, so that we can look forward in faith that His faithfulness will continue.

This trust in God’s continued faithfulness is what gives us courage to praise God in every circumstance.  “Blessed be the Name” draws its inspiration from another Old Testament story of God’s unending care for His people.  Job was a faithful follower of God that enjoyed wealth, family, and comfort.  Yet, in the course of a few short hours, his family and wealth was taken away.  Job’s response was to boldly say: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

Blessed be Your name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name

When I’m found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out

I’ll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in

Lord still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Another way that we see God’s constant faithfulness to us is through church history.  God has preserved a people for Himself – and we call that ongoing community the Church.  When the Church has fallen into error, He has sent prophetic voices to call the Body back to the original Gospel message.  In our church, we celebrate one such time of restoration to Biblical Christianity called the Protestant Reformation.  The key tenants of the Reformation are summed up in 5 statements, called the Five Solas.  We started last week reading together the first two: Scripture Alone and Christ Alone.  This week, we continue with two additional readings.

Sola Gratia – Grace Alone

We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.

Sola Fide – Faith Alone

We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.

We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.

Our Song of Assurance this week reminds us of the grace provided by Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.  I love the simplicity of the chorus: The amazing love that God has shown to us compels us to respond in joyful worship to King Jesus.

I’m forgiven, because You were forsaken

I’m accepted, You were condemned

I’m alive and well, Your Spirit is within me

Because You died and rose again

Amazing love, how can it be

That You my King would die for me?

Amazing love, I know it’s true

It’s my joy to honor You

In all I do I honor You

Following the sermon, we will take a few minutes in corporate confession.  This is a time to remember the fact of our thirst for God, and the fact that we have tried to fill that vacuum with other things.  We turn to those things thinking that they will fulfill our longings, but instead they leave us even more needy than before.  Yet even here God is faithful to seek us out and offer again His grace to cleanse us with the blood of Jesus and fill us with His Holy Spirit.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen.

We close our service this week rejoicing in the faithfulness of our God.  He is a loving father and a good shepherd.  He has promised never to leave us or forsake us.  He is attentive to our every need.  We are not forgotten.  Our thirst will be quenched, our hunger will be filled. His grace is enough.

Great is Your faithfulness oh God

You wrestle with the sinner’s heart

You lead us by still waters and to mercy

And nothing can keep us apart

So remember Your people

Remember Your children

Remember Your promise

Oh God

Your grace is enough

Your grace is enough

Your grace is enough for me

Standing on His promises,

Tim Sharpe

Worship Director

Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Lynchburg VA