Good morning. We're going to
open the second service, singing number 62, Crown Him with Many
Crowns, 62. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him
who died for thee. and hail Him as thy matchless
King through all eternity. Crown Him the Lord of love, behold
His hands and sides, rich wounds yet visible above, in beauty
glorified. No angel in the sky Can fully
bear that sign But downward bends his wandering eye That mystery
so bright Crown him the Lord of life Who triumphed o'er the
grave Who rose victorious to the strife For those He came
to save His glories now we sing Who died and rose on high Who
died eternal life to bring And lives that death may die Crown
Him the Lord of Heavens, one with the Father known, one with
the Spirit through Him given from yonder glorious throne. To Thee be endless praise, for
Thou for us has died, Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days
adored and magnified. Our second hymn will be number
334. 334, Be Thou My Vision. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart. Naught be all else to me, save
that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day
or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my
true word, I ever with Thee, and Thou with me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I Thy true
Son. Thou in me dwelling, and I with
Thee one. Riches I heed not, nor man's
empty praise, Thou mine inheritance now and always. Thou and Thou only, first in
my heart. High King of Heavens, my treasure
Thou art. High King of Heavens, thy victory
won. May I reach heaven's joys, O
bright heaven's suns. Heart of my own heart, whatever
befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of
all. Bible reading will be Colossians
chapter 3, starting with verse 1. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify,
therefore, your members which are upon the earth. Fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is idolatry, for which things thick the wrath of God
cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which ye also walked sometime
when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. Lie not to one another, seeing that ye have put off the
old man with his deeds. and have put on the new man,
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. Where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on therefore as the
elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving
one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as
Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things
put on charity, or love, which is the bond of perfectness, and
let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also
ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the Word
of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do
in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. We'll stop there. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you. We
thank you for your word. We ask that you would reveal
yourself to us in your word this morning. We ask that you give
us your spirit, that our worship might not be in vain, that our
time here would be a blessing to each one of us. We pray that
you'd be with Eric as he brings the message. Give him everything
he needs. encouragement in Christ and clear
mind to speak. We ask that you'd be with us
as a church body. We ask that you'd give us unity
and love in the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that you'd grow us in
the knowledge and love of our Savior. And we ask that you'd
go further with us into the future unknown to us. We ask this all
with the forgiveness of our sins in Christ's name. Amen. Good morning. When we were singing that first
hymn, 62, there, I noticed at the bottom, it actually says
that there's a higher key to sing it in. There's a higher
tune that you could use. And I thought, wow, I think that
was already pretty high. I mean, maybe that piano was
in that higher tune already, but yeah. All right, brethren,
let's go to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. And our text will be looking
from verses 1 through 14. And I want to begin with verse
14, because it speaks to religion in not only
our day, but in every day, in every age. man is seeking to
come to God and to worship God on his own terms. And when man
is worshiping God and trying to please him, it's always without
Christ. It's always without Christ. Look
at verse 14. I just want to start there. So
John 6, 14, it says, then those men, when they had seen the miracle
that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth, that prophet that
should come into the world. And that sounds good. But what
their intent was was to take Christ, make him king, and get
him to, well, they would fight behind him to overthrow the rule
of the Roman government over them. They weren't looking to
Christ as the God-man mediator, as the redeemer of sinners. the one who was sent of God to
put away sin. And we know Christ didn't go
with them. As it says, look back in John
2. John 2, at the end of the chapter, verse 23, it says, now when Christ was
in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed
in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. And the
miracle of the first one being what he did at Cana of Galilee
when he turned the water into wine and then he came to Jerusalem
and with great authority drove out the money changers and the
sellers of animals. He performed these things and
spoke and did things with authority so that they were amazed at him. But, verse 24, Jesus did not
commit himself unto them because he knew all men. And need it
not that any should testify of man, for that he knew what was
in man." And what John is doing so well by the leading of the
Holy Spirit is he's showing us the emptiness, the vanity of
man's religion. And man is very religious, but
left to himself, it's always at the exclusion of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It lacks the bread of life. And John is continually showing
us how empty, how vain our religion is without Christ, and how desperate
we are for the bread of life there. And so that's where we're
coming to. We're actually coming into 6
where Christ is going to speak of himself being the bread from
heaven. We're not going to get into that
part just yet, but this is beginning. What we see here in this miracle
that we'll be looking at, the feeding of the 5,000, it's beginning
to reveal to us just who is the bread of heaven, who is the bread
of life, whereby the children of God are set down, gathered
around to hear the preaching of Christ, to receive the distribution
of that bread, that they might receive to the full all they
need in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are satisfied with him. It says in verse 13, John 6,
13, Therefore they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets
with the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained
over and above unto them that had eaten. And so there's great
abundance and nothing is ever wasted. The Lord doesn't waste
his bread He gathers it up and receives to himself all that
he came to save and to minister to. All right, now, let me just
say a few things in the beginning of this text. Let's read verses
one and two, John 6, one and two. After these things, these
things being a good while later, but after what we had just read
in John chapter five, John chapter 5, John here says that we're
coming up to another Passover and John Gill thinks this is
a good year between what we just were reading in John chapter
5. I don't know but But there's good reason to believe that much
time had passed and the other gospel writers, they give an
account of what we're coming upon here. All four of them write
of the miracle of the feeding of 5,000. It's the only miracle
besides his crucifixion, our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection.
It's the only miracle that all four of the Gospel writers actually
record for us. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
all write of the feeding of the 5,000. All right, now it says
that he went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of
Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him because they saw
his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. All right, and so this is after
the other gospel writers, they give accounts such as this is
after the time when our Lord sent his disciples out and they
preached the kingdom of God was at hand. And they were given
power and authority to heal people of their sicknesses and to cast
out devils. And they had done many things. And it appears now that the Lord
was retiring with them, taking them up to this mount to rest
and to get away because multitudes were beginning to follow after
Christ. So this is speaking of the feeding
of the 5,000, and it's the most public miracle, the one miracle
witnessed by the most number of people at any one time, 5,000
men plus women and children, all right? Now, the time was
near the Passover, and it says in verses three and four, Jesus
went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples,
right? They're getting a little, little reprieve a little rest
from their labors and the Passover a feast of the Jews was not now
I think it's significant that John makes a note to us that
it he calls this the Passover a feast of the Jews all right
and some note rightly that the religion of the Jews had devolved
into just man-made religion it it lacked a the Savior of Christ. I mean, here's Christ, the Lamb
of God, in their presence. And men, it was becoming more
and more obvious how much the flesh despises the Lamb of God. Despises the Lamb of God. But
what I also think that I haven't seen brought out, but what I
see in this, what struck me in this, is that John is John calls it a feast of the
Jews. And when John wrote this gospel,
it had been some time, some years after the other gospels had been
written. We know that John, for a time,
labored among the brethren in Ephesus, Gentiles. And he probably knew many believing
Jews as well. It had been some time. And so
that there were children born to Jewish believers and John
has to tell them. the Jewish believers and the
Gentiles that this Passover was a feast of the Jews. And that
tells us that the Christians weren't practicing, weren't doing
those things that were written in the Law of Moses. They weren't
following the feasts given to the Jews under the Law. Because
he had to spell it out. This Passover is a feast of the
Jews that they keep. And that's actually relevant
today because there's a great movement of people that are going
back to Judaism and trying to practice these feasts and these
things prescribed to us in the ceremonial law. And they feel
like they're Like they're bringing Christ back into these things.
But here's John saying, having to tell them this is a feast
that the Jews observe because we as Christians don't observe
these things. This isn't for Christians. This
is fulfilled in Christ. We keep all the things of the
law in our Lord Jesus Christ. And it just shows how man is
so willing to just practice religion. void of Christ, void of our Lord. And it begins right here as they're
in their day practicing their religion, and yet the Lamb of
God is right in their midst, the Bread of Heaven is in their
midst, and it's becoming more and more obvious that man despises
the Savior, and the more religious he is, the less he wants to do
with Christ the Redeemer, Christ the Savior of sinners. All right? And so, you know, another point
that I've noticed, you know, I hear a lot of people, not here,
but in the world, in the world, you see, you speak to many people,
or you listen to the radio, or podcasts, or the news, or whatever
it is, and you hear that a lot of people are very concerned
about the dire state that our nation is in, right? And they
talk about mobilizing and doing all these things. You know, the
time for prayer is over, and it's time for us to move into
action. And I hear many that claim to
believe God. And some even confess, I'm a
Christian, right? Some even confess that they're
Christians. But the one thing that is so
loudly lacking is declaring Christ the Redeemer. Declaring how desperate
we are for the Savior of sinners. So that we're always talking,
man's always talking about what he needs to be doing for the
Lord and about changing things. Now, moving to action and fighting
against these things And so we make these calculations of what's
going on, and the one thing that we never seem to include in the
calculation is the Lord Jesus Christ, crying out to him, begging
him for mercy, asking him to appear and to deliver us and
be gracious to us. All right? And so the one thing
we don't want to miss in being religious is the bread of life. Don't miss Christ. Don't miss
the Bread of Heaven. That's the one God sent. That's
the one whom God said, Hear ye Him. You look to Him, He is your
salvation. He provides everything you need. All right, so I've titled this,
Don't Miss the Living Bread. Don't Miss the Living Bread.
Now, the first thing we see as we come to verse five is the
tender care that our God shows for his people, for his people. When Jesus then lifted up his
eyes and saw great company come unto him, at that time, Matthew
tells us that Christ was moved with compassion toward them and
he healed their sick. He was healing those that came
that were diseased and ill and sick and had problems. And they
needed healing. And Christ went, he got up from
the mountain teaching his disciples and speaking to them, and went
down and healed the people of their diseases. And it got late.
It started getting late. The evening was coming upon them,
and the disciples said, let's send the people away so they
can go into the cities and get food. And Christ said, no. No. I'm not going to send them away
without bread. I'm not going to send my people
away hungry. I'm not going to send them away
without the bread of life, and so he begins by proving Philip. It says there in the second half
of verse five, he saith unto Philip, whence shall we buy bread,
that these may eat? And this he said to prove him,
for he himself knew what he would do. And this, what Philip does,
the response of Philip, it reveals what man always does, myself
included. and yourselves included, I believe. This is what man does. Philip
looks around and he starts to assess the situation. He's looking
at how many people are there. He's saying there's thousands
of people here. There's thousands of men, let
alone women, 7 Philip answered him, 200 pennyworth
of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them
may take a little. Now one penny in that day, one
whole penny was said to be able to satisfy, to fill up and satisfy
the bellies of 10 men, 10 men. So 200 means that if they had
200 pennies in their purse, you know, if Judas was carrying around
200 pennies, they could get enough bread to satisfy 2,000 men. But since there was over 5,000
or around 5,000 plus women and children, they would only be
able to take a tiny amount of that bread if they had it. And
just to get a little tiny a little taste of things. Now, what he
did was he calculated, he assessed the situation, and the one factor
he left out was Christ. He considered all these things,
but he didn't consider the greatness of our God, the greatness of
our Savior. By that time, they had seen many
miracles. They had been taught and instructed
by the Lord In private even. He told them plainly things that
we now hear and believe and rejoice in. What they heard. But even,
not only was it of Philip, but even Andrew as well. said the
same thing. He said, we don't have enough.
He says in verse 8 and 9, one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother, saith unto him, there's a lad here which hath
five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among
so many? And so these disciples And we, like them, speak of so
little, right? So we fail to see the riches
of our God, and we speak of how hard and difficult things are
in the face of almighty, omnipotent God, whose riches and abilities
are limitless, right? He possesses infinite riches. Our God can do all things. And so here they are speaking
of little and having little they can do in the presence of him
for whom nothing is impossible. And our Lord, when he was speaking
to Abraham, when he's a hundred years old and says, next year
at this time, you're going to have a son through Sarah, from
Sarah. And he says, he says, is anything
too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for your
God? Our God is telling us, he's declaring
to us, don't count me out. Don't forget about me. When you
look upon things, you look at them in the light of my grace
and my power and my glory you trust me you look you look to
me all right and so our lord is teaching them that that as
immense as this problem seems to be our lord is the one who
can who can solve it he's the one who performs and does all
things for his people. You know, the disciples will
learn this over a lifetime. You remember how confident Peter
is, how confident, how strong, how arrogant and proud Peter
is, and how quick he was all the time to say things. But we
see that at the end of John, in chapter 21, when our Lord
is speaking to his disciples after his resurrection, He speaks
to them, and he asks Peter, Peter, lovest thou me more than these?
And Peter's response was, Lord, thou knowest. And he asked him
two more times, Peter, lovest thou me? And all Peter could
say is, Lord, thou knowest. Thou knowest all things. Because that's what he's teaching
us. Lord, you know all things. To me, these things are impossible. I don't know what to say or how
to respond to these things, but Lord, nothing's impossible with
you, and you know all things. Lord, I know that you are able
to provide everything for your people. And so our Lord has a
very tender way, and that's what he's That's what he's doing for
you this morning. You that are gathered here, he's
tenderly caring for you. He's gathered you together here
to hear his word to you, filling your bellies with the bread of
heaven, comforting you to know and to hear, do not fear, do
not be afraid. Your God knows all things, right? He knows your trouble. He knows
your fears. and he's providing all things
for you and shall provide all things for you. In Philippians,
it says, my God shall supply all your need according to his
riches in glory in Christ or by Christ Jesus. Now unto God
and our Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. He fills us that he may be glorified
in our eyes. He gives us faith so that we
behold and witness the miracles of our God, who cares for you,
who tenderly cares for you, who's not rebuking you for your unbelief,
who's not beating you for your unbelief, but has gathered you
again, has brought you here to be fed with the bread of heaven,
the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ. Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth
our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." We are dust. And that's each of us here. We're
dust. We see. We see our folly, we see how
quick we are to cry that we're undone and all is lost and it's
over, but your God is assuring you that He provides everything
that you need. He'll heal everything that is
happening, it's according to His will and His purpose. This is needful because it pleases
our God to use his disciples, to use you, his people, his servants. Whoever you are, the servants
of God, this is needful for them. And that's not limited to me
as your pastor. That's not limited to those who
preach for you at times when necessary. That's for all of
you that have been given a heart, who love the Lord, and are just
looking to serve him any way that you can, right? Even if
you're in the back, you know, covering the nursery, it's still
a help because you're there, you're lifting that burden, you're
sharing in that labor and that burden with your brethren, right? So it's for all the servants
of the Lord. He's providing for you, strengthening
you to continue in service to your God and to your brethren.
All right, now, we see this in verse 10. Jesus said, make the
men sit down, right? And Mark said, by companies.
Make them sit down by companies. And now there was much grass
in the place, so the men sat down and number about 5,000,
and they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. That's
from Mark, right? So there's an order. He set the
people down in ranks. And what the Lord is showing
us there is that he does. He teaches us in order. And I've
seen it. We've become more orderly over
time in the sense that your God is maturing you. He's gathering
you together, He's causing you to hear His word, giving you
a heart to serve Him, right? Because God is not the author
of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints,
all right? So He's teaching you, He's giving
you a heart to want to hear Him, He's giving you an ear so that
you do hear Him. More and more, you know right
where I'm going. When we go to certain scriptures,
you know and you can see Christ in it. because he's given you
that ear to hear him, and he's giving you that more and more.
Right now, they're being seated. What does that picture, they're
being seated? Well, when we're seated, it's
a cessation from the works of the flesh, right? When we're
up talking and fellowshipping, each one is talking, right? Everyone has something to say,
and we're all participating in that discussion, in that fellowship,
if you will. But notice how the Lord has us
come and sit down, and there's only one person talking, and
it's not me. By the grace of God, it's not
me speaking, but your God ministering to you that bread, where you're
not participating in that actively where you're saying things, but
that the Lord is feeding you. He's distributing bread to you. He's causing, I don't know what
to say, what each of you has need of, but the Lord causes,
you know, me, I study, I have notes, I have an idea of what
I should say, but the Lord brings out things that we need to hear,
that helps us, that ministers a word and season to our own
heart. And so the Lord is using poor,
weak, worthless things, such as this man standing here before
you, to distribute that bread of heaven to you. That he's gathered
you together, caused you to come and be set down right here, right
now, to hear his word. And that's a blessing, brethren. That's gracious. That's merciful,
all right? Now this leads us to the next
point where we understand, oh, this is the church's purpose
here in the earth. It's to distribute the bread
of life to the Lord's people. That's what we're doing here.
We've come here to worship our God and to hear his word for
us this morning. We want to hear. We want to know,
Lord, what have you given to your servant that I may hear
what he says? Lord, help me, right? As our
brother prayed this morning, asking that the Lord help me
to distribute that bread, and that as it's distributed, you
hear, with the ear of faith, you hear the voice of your God
and your Savior, your Lord, teaching you what you have need of hearing.
All right? Now it says in verse 11, Jesus
took the loaves. Here we see this. He took the
loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the
disciples. All right? He, the Lord teaches,
me. I stand before the Lord and ask
the Lord, help me Lord, give me your word for your people.
Give me a message that your people need to hear and minister this
word to them. And it says that he did, all
right, he distributed to the saints, to the disciples and
the disciples to them that were set down, all right, set down. And one thing that strikes me
of that, and that is that, that word was for those men and women
that were set down there. All right, that bread didn't
go out to the surrounding towns. where they all stayed away from
the Lord, where they weren't seeking the Lord, where they
had no heart or desire, but everyone that was set down had bread distributed
to them. You see that? You see the beauty
there and what the Lord is showing us, how he's gathered you, his
people here this morning to hear this word and to give you this
bread. And likewise are the fishes as
much as they would. As much as they could handle,
the Lord was given it. And so that shows us just what
a heart we want to have. When we come here on Sundays
and Wednesdays to hear, Lord, what do you have for me to hear? What are you feeding your people
today? Lord, let me fill up my belly
on it. Let me be full and nourished
with with what you've given to strengthen your people for this
day. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
four. Ephesians chapter four, and we'll
pick up in verse 10. Ephesians 4.10, it's speaking
of Well, our Lord says, he that descended is the same also that
ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things. That declares our Savior who
laid down his life, who went into the grave, who died for
us and was laid in the grave and rose again. And having been
raised, he gave gifts, right? So he gave some apostles and
some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Why? Why did the Lord give these
gifts? For the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive." And I'd never been more stable
and secure than when I began to hear the gospel, the gospel
of my sovereign God, who saves his people. according as he wills. I grew up in religion. I grew
up hearing a lot about God and a lot about Jesus. And I was
tossed all over the place because I wasn't under the sound of the
gospel, the clear declaration of sovereign almighty God who
saves his people as he wills, as he pleases and does all things
for them in accomplishing their salvation. That's what your God
has done. And as you hear that, He plants
your feet solid down in that gospel, held fast by the Lord
Jesus Christ, so that the things that used to trouble you and
blow you all over the place, and fear and worry, decreases. Those winds get less and less
and less, and you settle right there in Christ. And yet you
may see your own sin from time to time, and you may see just
how wretched you are, but your hope is fixed steadfast in the
Lord Jesus Christ, because you see it all the more plainly how
desperately we are for Him, and how perfect and mighty a God
and Savior our Lord is, and how He keeps us, and how He hasn't
let us go, how He hasn't turned us over to the lusts of this
flesh, but that He's provided everything for us. All right
it says verse 12, when they were filled he said unto his disciples
gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost. You what he's saying there to
you in this hour is you that need God, you that are sinners,
you that see that your works have been nothing but enmity
against God, has been nothing but rebellion against God, because
you're not looking to the Savior. You that see that you have no
hope in yourselves, look to the one whom the Father is holding
up before your eyes, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to him whom
he sent to be the Savior of his people. This is the mystery of
godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
fulfills all righteousness for his people, putting away their
sin by the death of himself. He made sacrifice of himself
unto the father and in the process purged us of our sins, made us
clean and spotless before him so that your God is pleased with
you, his people. He's pleased with you and so
he's accomplished our salvation and so here now he's declaring
what he's done for his children and he's gathering up his children
to himself that we might know Him who loved us and gave Himself
for us, that we might know Him who is our life, by whose life
we now live and serve the Father, and serve our God, and serve
His people, that we might know Him. And so we gather up the
fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. The bride and the spirit
say, come. You that are thirsty, come. You
that are hungry, come. Because God has provided a gracious
Savior, willing and able to save to the uttermost and to do more
than you can even ask or think. Above all that our limitations
hold us in, your God overcomes them. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
look to Him, cry out to Him. You that have nothing and are
struggling and are fearful, cry out to the Savior. Cry out to
your God. beg him for mercy, and he shall
be merciful to all who come to him seeking that mercy." Now
the power, it's not in me. I can't make you look to Christ,
I can't make you receive Christ, I can't make you believe, but
I declare him knowing that he is able to reach right into your
heart, taking out that heart of stone and giving you a heart
of flesh that believes, that loves him and desires him, is
given a stomach, if you will, for that bread of heaven, whereby
you are satisfied with nothing but that bread of heaven. All
right, our God does that for his people. All right, now, a
great miracle was done that day, and it was witnessed by 5,000
men plus women and children. Our Lord made bread and fish
multiply that was not there. There's a few things, but that
means that in omnipotent power, he had to create that which wasn't
there before. And that's what our God does
for his people. He creates life. He creates his
people out of Nothing, right? By his own spirit, by his own
seed, by his own power. It says in 2 Corinthians 4, 5,
and 6, that we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and
ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ Jesus. All right, therefore, he says
in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature. All things have passed away.
Behold, all things are become new. And so that's what our God
does. That's what our Savior does.
He creates anew. You that were nothing, you that
had no hope, you that were sinners of the Gentiles, your God has
created you and formed you in his body whereby we know him,
and serve him, and delight in him. All right, now, we're told
that they ate as much as they would, and they were filled.
And that declares to you that Christ is all you need. Christ is all that you need to
come before God, to stand before him, and be received by him in
that great and final day of judgment. There's nothing more you can
add to it. Christ is all. He is sufficient. He's provided
all and He's all that God accepts. He's all that God receives and
all who come to the Father through Jesus Christ are received of
Him and you shall never be ashamed because Christ has made you spotless
and righteous before Him. All right, Colossians 2, 9 and
10 says, for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all
principality and power. And so being filled with him,
be satisfied wholly with his work. You've nothing to fear,
you that trust Christ, you that bring nothing in your hands,
but trust in Christ and Christ alone, because that's what the
Father gives to his people. All right, so this fullness of
his work we see there in verse 13, therefore they gather them
together and fill 12 baskets with the fragments of the five
barley loaves which remained over and above unto them that
had eaten. There's plenteous of forgiveness
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is lacking. All who need
mercy shall find it in Him, because He's a gracious, abundantly gracious,
wonderful, magnificent Savior. And so, I pray the Lord give
you an ear and a heart to hear these things, and that you receive
them in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that He fill your belly,
that you are satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's
what He does for His people. So, I pray He bless that to your
hearts, brethren. Amen. All right, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father. Lord, we rejoice in your salvation. We give you thanks,
honor, and praise for what you have done for us in your Son,
Jesus Christ. Lord, we see just how weak we
are, how easily we forget how great a God we serve. Lord, let
us not be as the religionists that we read here in the scriptures
that were satisfied without Christ, that claim to be children of
God, but have no love for the Redeemer, for the Savior of sinners. Lord, we see what we are because
you've shown us what we are, and you've shown us the Savior,
and you've gathered us together to hear Him. Lord, you've You've
distributed the bread help us Lord to eat it to the full To
be satisfied that nothing be lost or taken away, but that
we be strengthened and nourished and that we would continue in
Under the voice of our God in the leading of him it Lord. I
pray for your people Lord those that are sick those that are
weary, those that are troubled, those that are withering away,
that you would be merciful to them, that you would fill them
with the bread of heaven, that you would strengthen that inner
man, and that you would form us together as the body of Christ
in this location, and that we would be mighty to preach and
distribute this bread to all whom you are pleased to gather.
It's in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that
we pray these things. Amen. All right, brother. Call. Our closing hymn is number 272
in the hardback, 272, The Solid Rock. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When darkness veils His lovely
face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale, My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. He is of His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When He shall come with trumpet
sound, O may I then in Him be found, Dressed in His righteousness
alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid
rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. Especially the second one. If you're thankful, I bless the
Lord. I don't hear nothing I can say. If I mess up, the Lord will help
me. I never had the opportunity to
mention it, except once. I had a fairness to the other
folks. It was good. I just keep that
in my own mind. The mixer place did invite us
back. They opened it up. There may
be some wiping down that has to occur after, or no, I don't
know. So there is that possibility.
The thing to think about is that if there's another thing, though,
they're going to give us a boot. And it's not even like Tom. I
don't even think we can say it. But Tom, I think, was trying
to make a range But if we're really going to
go there, I would want them to really do that. If we did this
by ourselves, is there a, you know, we'd walk away then from
this ability here to go back to something that could then
fall apart. Well, we'd have to get rid of all our chairs and
this furniture we'd have to store. You know, we'd have to rearrange
because we've got all these chairs now and then. Yeah, that's true.
In a sense, we'd be taking a couple steps back. Backwards, you know.
Especially for visitors and stuff, you know, you're kind of losing
some of the... This is nice and clean, you know. We have full
control of this place, too. We can come here other days. It's not just a Sunday thing.
If we ever have a conference, we have full control of this
place. Yeah, the only thing is the rent must be half or less.
That's a biggie. That's what you're paying for,
then, is you're paying more to have a permanent, kind of semi-permanent
location. That's my opinion, though. It's
what everybody else thinks it really is. I mean, just one other
thought, we can get voted out of here just as easily. Sure,
sure. Yep. So pray about it. We wanted
to at least tell you the fairness that you guys can set up. I'm only thinking, you know,
we're just cutting it. Yeah, yeah. Plus, like for Claudia too, I know
it's not about certain people, but for Claudia it would... I'm
driving far, but I don't care, because it's good for Eric too,
coming here on Wednesdays. You know, it's kind of nice that
way. I know it kind of, it's better for you and Nixa too,
but... I know, I know. Yeah. It is something that, yeah, I
would say... I just didn't want to harbor
this information myself and not tell other people. That's not
appropriate. So I called Eric and then we just said we'll spring
it up when we have a little meeting. We kind of missed our meeting
last Sunday. Think about it and discuss it and see what comes
out right. Yeah. Oh, sorry. This one's on.