Let's turn back in our Bibles
to John chapter 6, and I'll just read these few verses from John
chapter 6 verse 30. They said therefore unto him, What
sign showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? The Jews
in Israel murmured, didn't they? And all through those wilderness
wanderings, they had their hearts back in Egypt and they were longing
for the jolly leeks and the onions and the garlics there and not
seeing the remarkable provision of the Lord before them. What
sign shall us thou then that we may see and believe? What dost thou work? We've got
to remember the Lord's order of things. Our order of things
is that I must see. That was Thomas' big mistake
after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going
to believe unless I see. The order of things in God's
kingdom is given to Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus
in John 11.40. He said, if you would believe,
you should see the glory of God. Believing comes before seeing. We have to be given eyes of faith
to see. These men didn't believe and
they want a sign. Then they speak to him, comparing
him to Moses. Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. As it is written, he gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, verily,
verily, solemnly, solemnly, truly, truly, I say unto you, Moses
gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God is he. That's the title of my message.
The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
life unto the world. Now these are not ignorant, unlearned
men. These were Jews on their way
to a festival and they are quoting to the Lord Jesus Christ, a quotation
from Psalm 78 verse 24 and Psalm 105, so they know their scriptures
and they're off to a religious festival. And so often we think
that because we live in this pagan, atheistic world that evangelism
is harder, and that ways to connect with people so they understand
need to be figured out and so we have to sort of manipulate
and massage the gospel in order to make it palatable to men. It wasn't palatable to these
Jews. It should. I trust our Lord's
dealings with these people and others. It should cause us to
have great faith in the Gospel. The longer I go on, the more
I love what Romans 1 says. The Gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. The Gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. And without the gospel, there
is no power of God under salvation. Without the gospel, there is
no word from God, and the gospel is a person. And when we're declaring
the gospel, we're giving a description of that person. We're just presenting,
we're raising him up, we're holding the Lord Jesus up as high as
we possibly can. We have that brazen serpent on
a pole, and if there is a lot of fog and mist and rubbish between,
A sinner and the brazen servant, the solution is not to fiddle
with the fold, but to raise the servant higher, isn't it? And
that's what the scriptures do, and that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ does here. He gives these glorious descriptions. In the
midst of these people, he just gives more and more and more
glorious descriptions of himself. The opposition of men to the
Lord Jesus Christ just causes him to be revealed more clearly.
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, he gave them bread
from heaven. Moses didn't give you that bread
from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
We need to remember that these are spiritual pictures. People
criticize people like us for spiritualizing the Bible, but
the Lord Jesus Christ is doing it right here before us, isn't
he? They'd just eaten some bread on the other side of Galilee. 5,000 men had eaten bread, plus
women and children, a crowd maybe of 10,000 people or more. They'd
eaten bread. And then he says, there is physical
bread, just like there was manna in the desert. You've just eaten
bread on the other side of Galilee. There's physical bread and there
is true bread. And this true bread, according
to verse 32, this true bread is given and not earned. What
did you do to earn manna in the desert? This true bread is given. This true bread comes from heaven. This true bread comes from the
Father. Verse 33, for the bread of God
is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the
world. So the true bread comes down
from heaven. It had an existence in heaven before it came down.
The true bread giveth life. It not just sustains an existing
life, but it gives life. If you're not feasting upon He
who is the bread of life, He who is life, then you have nothing
in this world but death. Life is in Him, He is life. The true bread giveth life not
just to the Jews, but to the world, the Gentile world as well,
the Gentile world of God's elect as well as the Jews. Then they said unto him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread, men may seek the bread. in an earthly sense, and not
feast upon this bread, not eat of this bread. Verse 35, and
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. See, the true bread satisfies
eternally, and the true bread satisfies thirst as well as hunger. Isn't it remarkable bread? What
a remarkable description of our Saviour. And the result is these
Jews that had asked begin murmuring almost straight away, don't they?
Verse 41, then the Jews murmured at him and because he said, I
am the bread which came down from heaven. Those not given
life by the true bread will murmur against the Lord who is the true
bread. I am that bread of life. This true bread is the word Jesus
Christ. In verse 50, the bread which
comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof. The true bread
can be eaten by man. It's a picture of his life becoming
the life of his people. The true bread gives eternal
life. Verse 51, I am the living bread
which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread which I will give
is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world. So the
true bread, the living bread, the bread that gives life is
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, which can be eaten. by faith. Verse 58, and this is the bread
which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead. He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever. The true bread was pictured in
the manna. The manna gave physical life,
but the true bread gives eternal life, real life. Real life is
always eternal life because it is the life of God in the soul
of men. The Lord Jesus Christ takes the
most common food on the planet to picture himself. And I just
love how John's gospel finishes with those disciples going out
and returning to fishing. and having caught nothing, labored
all night and caught nothing, and then they have a word from
God about where to put their net down. And when they come
to land, we've been looking at crossing the sea, when they come
to land, they saw, John chapter 21, verse nine, they saw a fire
of coals thereon and fish laid thereon and bread. When you come
from the sea and you reach the land where the Lord resides,
you'll see that He provides and He provides miraculously for
you. When all your labours have yielded
nothing, He will be there providing for His people. Oh, may God cause
you to eat of this bread by faith. It means just to rest on him,
isn't it? I do, one of my favorite stories
in all of the Bible is the story of that woman who had a demon-possessed
daughter in Matthew chapter 15. And the Lord ignores her when
she comes and she keeps pleading and the disciples say to him,
send her away, send her away, she's just a pest, she's an embarrassment
to us, crying out all the time. And he says, I haven't come,
I've only come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she
acknowledges the truth of particular and purposeful redemption. And
he calls her a dog, and she stays pleading. It's a remarkable picture
of the Lord meeting with one of his own. And then she says, master's table. I'll take my
place as a dog if a crumb from you falls my way. O woman great is thy faith. These women are pictures of the
church in the presence of God. Be it unto you even as thou wilt
when a daughter was made whole from that very hour. Bread, the bread of God. You see, the bread is a living
bread. It's living bread, the bread
of God. It's a person. He pictures himself in this most
common thing. I used to love making bread. I had a bread making machine
before I went to India. the timing thing on it so I could
put all the things in and press the button so that at six o'clock
in the morning the bread was ready and you'd walk into the
kitchen and I can think of it now and almost start salivating.
It was so nice. It was so yummy. And then I'd
have one loaf for the children to take to school and for us
and then I'd make another loaf and I'd press the button again
and I'd have another loaf for the workers on our farm. that
we could have sort of, especially in the wintertime, we could have
soup and this fresh bread and you walk into the place in the
kitchen at lunchtime and the smell was just amazing. It's
a wonder I wasn't the size of the kitchen, I just loved it
so much. It was so nice. And when fresh
bread, well-made fresh bread, I used to get organic flour and
have all sorts of, it was just so, so delicious. It was just
the nicest thing. But there it is, the most common
thing used among men is a picture that the Lord Jesus Christ uses
of him. And may he open our eyes to see
him as the bread. And may we be caused not just
to savour that bread and to enjoy it from a distance, but to actually
eat it and imbibe it and have it as living part of us. As it
sustained life for those Israelites in the desert, the bread of God
sustains. life here. We have a living hope
and our hope is in the living Lord Jesus Christ. He that has
the Son has life and he that has not the Son has not life,
no matter how much he has in this world. The new creation
lives on this breath and it can live on nothing else. That's
why God's people just feast on the Lord Jesus Christ. I want
to hear a little bit more about him again. I need to hear the
gospel again and again and again. I need to have the bread of life
presented for me so that I can find my nourishment and my rest
and my joy in it. The world can have its husks.
but God's people live on the bread. There is just one gospel,
there is one faith, there's one sacrifice, there's one law, there's
one baptism, there's one marriage covenant over everything regarding
our salvation and our saviour is particular and personal and
singular and he's described and he describes himself and we just
want to continually say This is who He is, again and again
and again. We don't want to have Him distorted
in any way. In fact, we want to have Him
raised up to be seen to be even more glorious. There's just one
God. There's one Mediator. There's
one Savior between God and man. People want to make coming to
Christ a decision. There's only one God. When there's
only one God, you don't have to make a decision. There's only
one God, isn't there? It's not a choice between multitudes
either. That's what Joshua said, you can choose. You can go amongst
all those other gods and choose, but as for me and my house, we
will follow the Lord. Joshua is speaking as the Lord
Jesus Christ across the promised land. Me and my house, we will
follow the Lord. We will feast upon him. There is just one bread, one
life. the living bread which giveth
life unto the world. The bread of God is him, the
bread of God is a person. His words, of course, are spirit
and life, and they're only understood spiritually, and they're only
understood with the childlike simplicity of faith that simply
believes what God says. He's come down from heaven, this
bread, There's not natural bread of this making or providing. Bread is not something that grows
on trees. Bread is something that's made.
When I was making my bread all those times ago, you had to be
so precise. There were just exact quantities
of things and I had my little spoons out. I can't remember
the recipe now, but I had my little spoons out. And not only
did I have to have all of the ingredients right, the machine
had to do everything else right, otherwise you'd have this little
brick at the bottom of the thing you'd have to get out with a
chisel, instead of this beautiful loaf that sort of almost pushed
the lid off the thing, it was sewn. But it's a precise thing,
isn't it? It's not something that's made,
we have to take wheat or some other grain, but we have to take
wheat and we have to grow it and we have to grind it and we
have to separate it and we have to get the chaff out of it. It
has to be milled in a particular way. And then it has to be put
together with all sorts of ingredients. Bread is prepared food. Bread is prepared food according
to very precise recipes, isn't it? He came down from heaven,
it's not natural bread. But I do love how he describes
himself in Hebrews chapter 10. He says, The true bread from heaven comes
in a body that's prepared. It was prepared by God. A body thou hast prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
thin, thou hast no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I come, in the
volume and the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. This body was prepared by God
the Father in eternity, when God said, Let us make man in
our own image. What was the image? The image
was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. He was prepared. He was prepared
in the eternal covenant of grace. He was set up from everlasting,
our God. He was prepared, prepared before
to be sent down from heaven by God the Father. I come to do
thy will. And there's a particular body,
isn't it? We spoke about it earlier. God made flesh. God incarnate,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. God was manifest in the flesh. He was, as Hebrews 2 said, he
was made like unto his brethren. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were for their lifetime subject to
bondage. For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful shepherd. in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that
he himself has suffered, this body prepared, was suffered,
it was made like unto his brethren, for he himself has suffered being
tempted, his able in our footsteps in this world,
brothers and sisters. I do love that word, sucker.
It means to come speedily to the cry of, have you cried out
to him? And find him to come. He's touched,
a body prepared, prepared to be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. of our sins in his own body on
the tree. I love Hart's first hymn about
Gethsemane, "'Twas here the Lord of Life appeared, and sighed,
and groaned, and prayed, and feared, for all incarnate God
could bear, with strength enough and none to spare. Dispatched
from heaven, an angel stood, amazed to find him bathed in
blood, adored by angels and obeyed, but lower now than angels made. He stood to strengthen the angel,
he stood to strengthen, not to fight. exacts its utmost might. This victim vengeance will pursue. He undertook and must go through. A body prepared from heaven's
glory. A body prepared to come down
to this earth. A body prepared in such a way
that it could be in the womb and reared and nurtured in Mary's
womb and at her breast. A body that's able to bear intercession
for us. A body that was able to be bruised. A body that was able to be crushed. It's a body prepared. Bread is
a prepared food. A wounded body bearing those
marks of his humiliation and his triumph. A body prepared
that he might be the substitute and the sacrifice, the satisfaction. A body prepared that he might,
in that body, be the sovereign saviour. and representative of
his people. A prepared body, God and man
in one body. God alone can satisfy and man
alone can suffer and this body prepared like this bread is the
Lord Jesus Christ. One who can touch God and not
be consumed and one who can touch man and not be defiled. He's
touched by us. and he was touched by lepers,
and they were healed instantly and immediately. He is like this
bread that we enjoy. It's bread prepared, and it's
bread given. This bread is given. It's not
earned, is it? It came down from heaven to be
given. Everywhere God gives, there is, creates a receiving of His gift. He will not be spurned by His
bride. He will not be spurned by His
people for long. He must come. You see, this bread
is given. It's not earned because we don't
merit it and we don't deserve this heavenly bread. It speaks
of grace just like those 5,000 people that were fed on the other
side of the Sea of Galilee. What on earth did they do to
merit His feeding of them? Their actions afterwards show
that they had no regard for the giver. but simply, as he said,
had their bellies full and wanted more of his gifts. It's a bread
given. It's a bread given. As I said
earlier, this bread has a particular recipe. Lisa is an amazing cook. One of the things that's remarkable
that amazes me, I can walk into our kitchen and I can open up
the fridge and look at the cupboards and I can find almost nothing
to eat if I'm looking around for a tin of baked beans or going
into town in a heartbeat. Lisa can go into the same place
and she can actually put together this meal which is so lovely
out of all these bits and pieces and you just put them all together
and you can make she made soup the other night out of two or
three different things that were lying around and the soup was
absolutely delicious you can do that with all sorts of cooking
and you can't do it with bread at all bread as i said earlier
requires a particular recipe My bread making machine had to
be perfect to be good. Lisa couldn't operate it at all
because she just couldn't handle the precision of the half a teaspoon
of this and a little bit of a cup of this sort of thing. It has to be perfect. It has
to be perfect to be really good. That's why the scriptures keep
declaring the character of our God again and again and again
and in John chapter 6 and throughout the rest of John's gospel you
hear the Lord Jesus Christ described in such glorious simplicity and
such wondrous clarity that to get it wrong and to distort the
character of Jesus Christ is an act of willful disobedience
and willful disregard for his person. And this world is now
It is so common for the false Jesuses and the false Gospels
and the false spirits to be around that it becomes a challenge,
doesn't it, for peoples? Which is the true one? Well,
the true one is declared so simply in this book, isn't it? We just
simply believe God. That was one of the declarations
we made in our church in the early days. We just simply believe
God. God says it, that's the end of
it. There used to be a sign that
people put in their fridges, isn't it? God said it and I believe
it and that settles it. What a load of rubbish that is.
Whether you believe it or not doesn't make any difference.
He is who he is. He is who he is. That's why the
scriptures are so wonderful, isn't it? Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's to call, isn't
it? It's to call on a name. It's
to call on this particular Jesus, this particular Lord Jesus Christ. You call on Him and you'll be
saved. You come to Him, you eat of His
bread. You come to Him and you believe
on Him and you are saved. He that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. His name speaks of his character.
It's not just the words, Lord Jesus Christ. The Pope and a
million other false teachers throughout the world will use
all of those names of him, won't they? And then they'll immediately
turn around and deny fundamental things about his character and
they'll always, always, always go to the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ and they'll deny what happened at the cross. You don't
have to go far, you don't have to search hard, and you don't
have to be particularly diligent to find the difference between
the real Jesus, who's this bread, and all the false Jesuses. The
one place, according to Colossians 2, where God, our Saviour, made
a mockery of Satan, the proudest being this universe has ever
seen, is on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's the
one place, it's the one place where he attacks the character
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this world is now full
of these Jesuses, aren't they? The Jesus who loves everyone,
the Jesus who died for everyone, the Jesus who wants to save everyone. It is, it is a delusion of men. The name of the Lord is his character. The sovereign Lord of the universe. The Lord Jesus Christ, the bread
that's come down from heaven, God the Father has set forth
this Lord Jesus Christ in this particular character from Genesis
1 through to Revelation. God's servants are told, as Moses
was, you build this tabernacle exactly as you saw that pattern
in heaven. You don't change a single thing.
What on earth would you ever want to change about the character
of the Lord Jesus revealed in the scriptures? Everything about
him is delightful. Everything about him is comforting
to us. Every attribute of his is glorious
and all of his attributes all fit together in one glorious
God and Saviour. And what a remarkable God and
Saviour who says to us, come and eat. Come and believe. Come and rest. Just simply Simply
rest in who he is. You build things exactly as they
are. You speak exactly according to
the scriptures. That's the gospel, isn't it?
In 1 Corinthians 15, again and again and again he says, according
to the scriptures, according to the scriptures. There is no other foundation.
And there's no other name whereby we must be saved. It's serious. God says his name is serious. We live in this age where we
want to be tolerant. And we want, often for the sake
of our own comforts, to be really nice to everyone that we meet
so that they'll be nice to us in return. And I'm thankful for
a whole lot of niceness, but when it comes to your eternal
soul, the truth matters. This is the true bread, he says.
He is the true bread. And what happens if someone comes
and brings another Jesus to you and denies the simplicity of
this name that we keep referring to here? John, who wrote these
words that we have before us, recorded what the Holy Spirit
had written. He says in 2 John chapter, no,
there's no chapter, it's just verse 10. If there come any unto
you, any, doesn't matter what they look like, doesn't matter
what their credentials are, doesn't matter what their history is,
if any come unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him
not into your house, neither bid him God's speed. For he that
biddeth him God's speed is the partaker of his evil deeds. It's
serious. This bread is particular bread. This bread came purposely from
heaven. This bread is made by skillful
hands. according to an exact formula
and an exact method. After I put all the exact ingredients
into my bread making machine, that thing did its own little
thing with its computers. I don't know what it did, but
it would have to stir it all up and then it'd have to wait
and warm it up and then it'd have to do it all again. And
I would hear this little thing going off in the middle of the
night as I was trying to work out what it had to do. But bread
is not just thrown together in a pot. You see, God builds his
church according to an exact formula and an exact method of
placing those elements together. And we're not in the business
of having the right to say, I want to do it my way. We don't have
that right, brothers and sisters. We're not in the place of God.
We simply, as closely and as faithfully as God would allow
us, do things exactly as he said. Everything. That's the nature of this bread.
But the bread must be eaten, must be eaten to enjoy its true
benefits. John 6.53 The Lord said, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his life, you have no life in you. It's not just a matter of knowing
doctrines and knowing scriptures and knowing history. These Jews
knew all of that. They were five-point Calvinists,
for want of a better word. They knew exactly what the history
was. They were going back to remember
the history again and be taught back in Jerusalem again. They
were taught in their synagogues all the time. They knew all those
things, but they didn't eat the bread, and they didn't see the
bread, and they didn't see the bread standing before them. They
were looking for Christ, and they didn't see Christ when Christ
told them that He is the Christ before them. There's one thing. to die from lack of bread. It's
another thing to die altogether because you're stiff-necked and
stubborn. Isn't that exactly what Stephen said? Stephen told
these same Jews, didn't he, in Acts chapter 7. He called them stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy
Ghost as your fathers did, and so you do. You're just repeating
the same old religious error. You resist the Holy Spirit. Why
don't people And if you can feed upon your
own traditions and your own righteousness and your own activities, and
if you can find some nourishment in those things, you don't need
this bread. You don't need this bread. He creates a need. He
took these people into wilderness where the only thing that could
sustain life was him. The only thing that could give
the water of life was him. Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? That's what's necessary to eat,
isn't it? Their souls loathed this light bread. They saw him
as despicable. Men will work so hard for what
perishes. Men demand truth in so many remarkable
ways. You go to the doctor and you
want him to tell you the truth. You go to the mechanic and you
want him to tell you the truth. You go to your accountant and
you want him to tell you the truth. Everywhere you go you
want someone to deal with you honestly and truthfully in everything
you do. And when it comes to the thing
that matters most, People will work so hard for all those other
things that when it comes to the thing that matters most,
the truth about who God is, the truth about the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the truth about this bread that gives life to
the world, people treat it as a light thing. It's extraordinary
how much darkness there is in this world. Extraordinary how
much we need light. These people that ate the manna,
they'll continue looking back and say, I'd love to go back
there and have some garlic. I'd love to go back and have
some onions in Egypt. I love the flesh pots of onions.
They never thought, did they? There was never a mention of
their slavery there. There was never a mention of
Pharaoh killing their babies. There was never a mention of
all the groaning they had down there in Egypt and all the hard
labor. Never a mention. They said, oh no, we want the
garlic. That's how blind people are, unless the Lord comes and
gives them sight, and gives them a sight of Him. And when they
see Him, they'll see themselves, and they'll see their need of
Him, and they'll be hungry. Man is a natural born slave. We're naturally born slaves,
aren't we? We're enslaved to all sorts of
things. You think of all the fashions that have come and gone
in just my short lifetime. There was a time in the Netherlands
when they got passionate about tulips, and tulips are more expensive
than gold. How ridiculous could you possibly
be? They're all puffed up like this great big balloon of rubbish
and then it'll just burst and went away to nothing. They're
just bubbles in the ground, aren't they? They're pretty. Give us
the bread of Egypt. So this bread is to be eaten
daily, the bread of life. Give us today our daily bread. The Lord's mercies are new every
morning. Every day and every moment we need a fresh supply
of grace. Not at any moment have I done
enough, achieved enough to sustain myself for a millisecond. You
can't store it up. There's no reserve for us in
the future. We are to crave. My daughter
Jennifer was down with her baby this week. Maybe Joanie's two
months old. You don't have to train Joanie
about milk, do you? You don't have to train her.
She's just thirsty, isn't she? And then she lies to Jennifer
and to the rest of us. She says, I'm about to die. Unless you
feed me now, I'm dying. You're not dying. You crave,
you can crave the sincere milk of the world, of the word that
you may grow by then. The bread to be eaten. the bread's to be eaten, and
when bread is eaten, it becomes one with us. Doesn't it? It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. That's why the two ordinances
of the church are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism pictures
us being immersed in Christ, dying to ourselves and dying,
and pictures our death with him on Calvary Street. We're crucified
with him, we've died. And the Lord's Supper pictures
Christ in us. And we do this in remembrance
of him. We're remembering his death. We're remembering that
bread that we can eat. This bread, like the gathering
of the manna, it didn't require any qualifications for gathering
the manna. You simply go and gather and
eat. And this bread was able to be
eaten just as it's given from God. doesn't need to be polished in
any way at all it's perfectly fine as it is. And this bread
was given, as our verses say, for the whole world. It wasn't
for the Jews, the mixed multitude that came up out of Egypt with
them. They ate the manna as well, didn't they? It gives life unto
the world, the world of God's people throughout this world.
There is no other way to the Father. And to gather this manna,
to gather this bread, Like the manna, it was in one specific
place for one specific people, and it was at one specific time
of every day. And finally, in closing, what
did you have to do to eat the manna? The same as you have to
do to eat the bread of life. Well, firstly, you can't take
anything with you. You've got to take an empty vessel.
An empty vessel will be filled by the Lord. If you take anything
of your own, you can't. It's going to be rotten and stinking
before you bring your own. The other thing you have to do
is you have to bow. You have to bow to the ground. a little bit and bow, pick up
a little bit and bow. And of course the one who is
stooped and bowed the most is the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't
it? What a picture of humiliation, God, eternal God, coming to this
world. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, there was nothing robbery about it for
him to be equal with God, Philippians chapter 2. who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant who
was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself. It's no harm for you to be humble,
brothers and sisters, in his presence. He humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name
which is above every name. In the name of God. He is God, Jesus Christ is God. That at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow. of things in heaven and things
in the earth and things under the earth, that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Why don't men bow? They have
too much to sustain themselves, too much of this world, too much
of the righteous too proud to eat, too proud to
bow, too proud to be a receiver. We're very happy to be earners
and not so happy to be receivers. But God is a giver. God is a
giver. And just like those in the desert,
Everyone got exactly what they needed for their daily provision,
didn't they? Those that gathered a lot didn't
have any left over and those that only took a little got exactly
what they wanted. The provision of Christ is perfectly
suited to all the circumstances of all of the lives of all of
His people in this world. God is a giver. God is a giver. How wonderfully He undoes the
fall. needs, how wonderfully he sustains
his people. I am the bread of heaven. I am the bread of life. I am the living bread. which
came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." We
have the Lord's Supper as we finish. His life becomes our life. His bread sustains, his blood
washes us from all our sins, that we can live just not now
on him, but live forevermore. Amen. John, can you go and get
the Lord's supplication? Thank you. May the Lord bless
his words to our hearts. Let me pray for us as John gets
these elements. Heavenly Father, we do thank
you for your son being sent into this world, and we thank you,
Heavenly Father, for the glory of his provision, for the wonder
of him bearing the sins of his people in his own body on the
tree, the one heavenly father of all of our sins. way in His
blood, the wonder of Him giving us life from heaven while we
walk through this world. O Our Father, cause us to eat
in faith, cause us to come and to see Him as glorious and to
live upon Him now, live upon Him forever. What a wonder, Heavenly
Father, that your dear and precious Son can take up residence in
people like us, because all of our sins are gone, and a holy
God can dwell with His people and in them, sustain them and
nurture them, and carry us in Him into Heaven's glory to live
forevermore with Him. Cause your Son, Heavenly Father,
to be highly lifted up and esteemed before us in love. For we pray
in his name and for his glory. Amen.