I AM: I Am Bread with Pastor Lee Wong

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Hello, everyone watching in Holotus, everyone joining digitally, and everybody listening via podcast.

My name is Lee, as Pastor Clayton said, and it is such a privilege, it's such a pleasure to be here serving my dear friend, Y'all's pastor, giving him an opportunity to get a little rest so that he can get recharged and come back and fire you guys up even more regularly.

And it is even a greater privilege that I get to be a part of this IM 7 series because we are gonna unpack perhaps my favorite account in all of the scriptures, John's account about Jesus.

Now, there is a potential problem that we might have together today, and it's that I have been assigned to the longest section, at least as it's been organized in our Bibles, John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

And so if you are somebody who follows along in the scriptures, you follow along in your Bibles, go ahead and get them out.

Open up to John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

We are gonna journey through 71 verses together.

That is a tall, tall order.

And because it's such a long section, because it's 71 verses, I do believe, and my hope is that by the end of our time today, you will be filled and your soul satisfied in a very supernatural way.

And because it is a tall order, would you guys just join me really quickly in inviting the Holy Spirit to help us in our time together?

Would you join me in a moment of prayer?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for John's eyewitness account that reveals to us who Jesus is and ultimately who you are.

And our prayer is that by your Spirit you would first of all calm our hearts and our minds, that you would help us be centered and focused, drown out any distractions, that we might hear your voice and learn whatever it is you want to say to us through the scriptures.

And so speak to us.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

And everyone who agreed said, Amen.

Now, what idea did John see that was so significant that it took him 71 lines to unpack?

And what did John see firsthand?

And what did John hear firsthand that he wanted you and me to thoroughly understand about Jesus?

Well, for you and for me to best understand the significance of this really long section, it helps for us to first have a grasp on two seemingly impossible events.

And they're events that many of you are perhaps familiar with, and these events are often studied independently and individually, right?

Entire books, entire series are done around each event by itself.

But for our conversation today, it is important that we look at them together because John used them as a setup for the most significant part of what we're going to discuss.

Now, this first event is often considered the feeding of the five thousand.

So here's what happened with that.

Y'all traveled back in time with me to the first century.

At that point in human history, the Roman Empire had occupied land that was inhabited by Jewish people and had taken from them many of their freedoms.

And so many Jews they anxiously awaited for God to send them a liberator that would set them free from Roman oppression.

And a certain peculiar man at that time, Jesus, he is, he was traveling around teaching about God's coming kingdom.

He was performing all sorts of signs and miracles.

And so the people began to ask could this guy, Jesus, could he be the liberator from God that we so desperately desire?

Is he the one that is sent from God that's going to liberate us from Roman oppression?

And so Jesus became extremely, extremely popular.

His popularity was so pronounced, John described it this way, that a huge crowd was following him and followed Jesus everywhere he went because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick.

And to be clear, this crowd that followed Jesus, it wasn't just a small handful of fanatics or groupies like in that movie Forrest Gump, when those runners followed Forrest everywhere that he went.

No, the details that John recorded reveal that when Jesus retreated to a region in the eastern Mediterranean known as Galilee, he had more of a sort of like Justin Bieber in the prime of his popularity kind of status, right?

John said that the men numbered about 5,000.

Now here's what we know.

Scholars have surfaced that at that point in human history there was a law where Jewish families they were required, for the sake and the survival of humanity, they were required to have at least one boy and one girl in their families.

And so scholars estimate that at this occasion in the region of Galilee where Jesus had gathered, there were upwards of 20,000 people who were present.

And seeing this ginormous crowd, Jesus, he was like, hey, we've got to feed these people.

And so he did the seemingly impossible.

He took from a little boy five loaves of barley bread and two fish, and then Jesus, he manipulated matter, and then he multiplied that food such that all the people in that massive crowd, the multitudes, were fed.

At least for the moment, the crowd's hunger was sustained and their stomachs were satisfied.

John detailed it this way: that Jesus, he took the loaves, and after giving thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.

And so also with the fish, he did the exact same thing.

And then check this as much as they wanted.

And so, as if satisfying thousands of people's stomachs wasn't wondrous enough, Jesus even over-provided.

John told us this that the disciples they filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over.

And so this first seemingly impossible event that took place, it wasn't so much the feeding of the five thousands, it was the feeding of the tens of thousands.

And John's point is a point that I'm sure you've heard before when you've heard this story that Jesus, He can perform miracles, He can provide for you, He can meet your every need.

However, that is not the primary point that John sought to make.

Remember, we can look at this independently, or we can look at this as a setup for John's major, significant point in this section, and that's what we're gonna do.

So we're gonna keep moving along to the next event that happened immediately after this, subsequently.

Jesus then sent his disciples ahead of him to a place that the scriptures say was his own home or the town called Capernaum.

And so his disciples hopped into a boat, and then given the conditions that they had, that they faced, they had a huge, huge head start over Jesus.

Like even if Jesus, a few minutes after, or maybe a few hours after, had hopped into a boat, after they departed to Capernaum, well, the tumultuous waves that they encountered, it would have made it impossible for Jesus to have ever caught up to them.

Right?

John described the conditions they faced this way: that darkness had already set in, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

A high wind arose and the sea, it began to churn.

And then not only that, this head start over Jesus was so great that these guys were already in the deep of the sea.

John basically was saying to us, he was like, Y'all, look, we were super duper far from the shore.

There was no way in the world that there were any sandbars that could have helped Jesus get to where we were.

He said that they had rode about three or four miles.

And so, the best way to describe what happened next is that something supernatural occurred.

Jesus had somehow broken the natural laws of our physical world in order to just take a casual stroll on the water.

The winds didn't face him, the waves didn't face him, he was in total control over all of the elements, he was in total control over all of creation.

John recorded this second seemingly impossible event this way that they saw Jesus walking on water.

Jesus, this guy that John is introducing to us in his account, not only does he have the capabilities of multiplying matter, but he has control over all of creation.

Let's recap really quickly what he was saying about these two seemingly impossible events.

So the first one is Jesus manipulated and he multiplied matter to feed thousands of people.

John was saying, Jesus can provide, and not only will he meet your needs, he will exceed your expectations.

And then the second thing, immediately after that, with the next event, John said that Jesus has control over all of the elements in our world.

He operates outside of time and space as we know it.

Now, what John recorded next, it brings clarity as to why Jesus performed these two signs subsequently.

And it brings clarity as to why John recorded them.

And it brings clarity as to why we're not looking at them independently today, but we're looking at them collectively as a setup for what's coming here shortly.

John essentially said to you, and he essentially said to me, and anyone who would read his account and ever doubt what he had written, he was saying, Yo, I am not making this up by any means.

Tens of thousands of people who were present there, they can attest to what I'm telling you.

He said it this way the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea, they what?

Saw.

With their own eyes.

If you're somebody who takes notes, if you're following along in the scriptures, that's one of those words to highlight, to underline, and to circle.

They saw that there had only been one boat that departed for Capernaum.

But they also what saw, again, with their own eyes, it wasn't a rumor that they had heard, it wasn't something that had gone through the grapevine.

They saw that Jesus had not boarded the boat with the disciples, but his disciples had gone off all alone.

But wait, there's more.

Tens of thousands of people.

They themselves hopped into their own boats and then they tried to go to Capernaum just the same, looking for Jesus.

And they too, they were dumbfounded at what they soon discovered.

They essentially said, when they got to Capernaum, Jesus, when did you arrive?

How did you arrive here so quickly?

That's impossible.

We saw for ourselves it couldn't have been by boat.

And Jesus, helicopters haven't been invented yet.

There's no way you could attract here by foot.

How did this happen?

And so, the primary reason that John recorded these two signs, the reason we're looking at them collectively right now, was to say to his readers, and was to say to you guys, was to say to me that tens of thousands of people around Galilee, they would have validated for you my claims about Jesus.

These things that seem impossible that I've written about, they would tell you they in fact happened.

Thousands of people would have told you if we were to travel back in time, we had the opportunity to have a time machine, that Jesus somehow miraculously fed all of them, generating basically a whole bunch of food from nothing.

And that he mysteriously arrived at Capernaum.

And John was saying, y'all, I am telling you that you can be persuaded.

This guy, he has control over all of creation, he's got control over all of the elements.

You can be persuaded that he can, in fact, manipulate matter, he can, in fact, multiply it and meet your needs.

You can be persuaded that this guy, Jesus, he is not of this world.

And it's critical that we get this.

It's critical that we arrive at this conclusion and we recognize just who Jesus is and what he is capable of.

Because if we don't get this, we sure as heck will not get what else John recorded in the next half of our conversation today.

The point that John was really trying to make for us.

Now, okay, so a former skeptic here kind of tiptoed the line of atheism, and I can understand for some of you, you might be thinking, okay, really?

Like, how conveniently, how convenient that these two impossible events happened before camcorders were ever created.

And how conveniently that 2,000 years ago this happened, and none of those people are alive today for me to interview them personally and see for myself if it really happened.

And so I get it.

I promise you I do.

And the question for us then is how might we be persuaded that what John recorded for us actually happened?

How can we know for sure and believe that these seemingly impossible signs took place 2,000 years ago?

Well, there are many reasons, but two reasons in particular, I am persuaded these signs actually happened and still happen in our world today, are because of two contemporary scholars.

And so the first scholar is Dr.

John P.

Meyer from the University of Notre Dame.

And Dr.

Meyer, he's published over 500 pages that analyze Jesus' miracles.

And he presented a really strong concluding statement concerning these findings, and I've paraphrased his findings this way.

His conclusion is paraphrased this way.

He said, Jesus' miracles are so massively attested, countless people would agree with them.

And coherence is so impressive in various sources and literary forms by the end of the first Christian generation that total fabrication, the idea that what John has written is false and a fairy tale, well, practically speaking, it's impossible.

It is not reasonable, it is not feasible, it is not possible for what we're discussing today to be a fairy tale.

Historically speaking, academically speaking, there is just so much evidence that it actually took place that we can be grounded in the truth.

That these seemingly impossible stories actually happen.

But that's just one reason.

Another reason that I believe Jesus performed those signs and still performs signs and miracles in our world today is because a former atheist named Dr.

Craig Keener.

He is now a world-renowned uh scholar in the New Testament of our Bible.

And Dr.

Keener, he's done extensive work documenting modern-day healings and check this resurrections that have been verified through medical records in a two-volume book titled Miracles.

Now, I'm not going to get into the details with you guys about the contents of the book Miracles, but I want you to hear from Dr.

Keener himself about some of his findings.

Y'all listen to Dr.

Keener.

How valuable is eyewitness testimony?

It's a form of evidence in sociology, anthropology, law, journalism, and of course what I deal with most, historiography.

A smaller number of eyewitnesses should count more heavily than a greater number of skeptical non-witnesses.

We would apply this to most other kinds of claims.

For example, if there's a traffic accident and the officer is interviewing witnesses, and someone comes along and says, Wait, that's not what happened.

Don't listen to them.

And the officer says, Well, can you tell me what you saw happen?

And the person says, Well, nothing happened.

I didn't see it happen because I wasn't there.

Normally we wouldn't take that as a credible uh weight against witnesses, but when it comes to miracles, that's often what we do.

Somebody says, Well, I was miraculously ill.

Well, I didn't see it.

I don't believe it.

Are there some credible eyewitnesses for miracles today?

There was a 2006 Pew Forum survey.

The estimated total of those who claim to be witnesses of divine healing comes out to somewhere around 200 million people.

If you say there's no credible eyewitnesses for miracles, off the bat, you're dismissing 200 million people.

And sure, some of them are not credible, but are we going to off the bat dismiss all of them?

There was a 2008 Pew Forum survey where 34% of Americans claim to have witnessed or experienced divine or supernatural healing.

And it's not just people coming from Christian presuppositions saying, okay, well, I got better, so it must have been a miracle.

Millions of non-Christians have been convinced and changed centuries of ancestral beliefs, sometimes at great social cost to themselves, because of extraordinary healing.

Around the year 2000, one source from within the China Christian Council estimated that about half of all new conversions in the previous 20 years were due to what they deemed faith-healing experiences.

In the house churches, the estimate was closer to 90% in the rural areas.

And these were people who were not starting with Christian premises, not starting with a Christian background, and yet they became Christians because they were convinced that something so out of the ordinary had happened.

90% of the converts in Nepal are converted through healing.

Rapid evangelical growth that's been taking place in the last three decades, up to 70% of it has been intimately connected with signs and wonders.

So yeah.

In our world, in our lifetime, performing signs and wonders.

And since he's still at work in our world today, well, you and I, we can be persuaded that what John wrote is in fact true.

You can believe that Jesus, in fact, manipulated molecules and matter in order to multiply it to feed tens of thousands of people.

You can believe that he can, in fact, defy the natural laws of our physical world to walk on water.

You can be persuaded that Jesus operates outside of time and space as you and I know it and beyond our human comprehension.

And the reason that this is critical that we get is because of what John wrote next.

And this is actually where our conversation today really, really picks up.

And so if you've been bored for this first part, I'm so sorry because we've got another whole half to go.

And so what happened next was actually a turning point for Jesus' popularity.

The thousands of people in the first century that heard it, they actually decided, ah, you know, maybe Jesus isn't the guy that I want to follow after all.

And they grumbled based on what Jesus had told them.

They said, This teaching is hard.

Who can accept it?

And then many of his disciples actually turned back.

And they no longer accompanied Jesus.

And so, what was this teaching of these two signs that John recorded in the first 21 lines of the 71 lines?

What was it just set up for?

You know, why did John care that we would be convinced that Jesus in fact had power over the elements and power over matter, and that people would actually attest to him doing the seemingly impossible.

Well, what John recorded concerning Jesus' interaction with the folks that met up with him in Capernaum, it answers those questions.

So after they tracked down Jesus, Jesus immediately cut through their, I guess, their superficial interests in him.

And he said something to the effect of like, okay, guys, crowd, let's be honest here.

All right, you've sought me out, not because you understand the point of these two miracles that I have just performed, but the reason that you sought me out is because of something even wacker than that.

He said, Truly, truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because of the signs that you saw.

No, you have tracked me down because I actually met your physiological needs, your physical needs, and you really just want more of the same.

You want me to continue to provide for you this physical food in your stomachs all day long.

He said, but because you ate the loaves from yesterday and you were filled.

Now, to the crowd's credit, all right, who wouldn't love to have all of their physical and physiological needs met all of the time?

I mean, I sure as heck would.

I mean, when our most basic needs, our most basic physical and physiological needs aren't met, it's hard to believe that there is a God that exists that even cares about us, that he even loves us, right?

When you're currently food insecure or when you're without a job, wondering how you're gonna pay the rent when the lights are out or the water is out.

It's like hard to focus on anything beyond the physical.

And so perhaps for some, the promise of Jesus' daily provision, it was a starting point for pursuing him.

And I don't fault the crowd for tracking down Jesus for those superficial reasons.

And let me just be clear with all of you guys here.

In no way am judging or criticizing anybody who's currently struggling, hoping for some sort of supernatural intervention.

But as Jesus so often did, he turned the crowd's attention to something more significant than the physical realm.

He said to the crowd, and he still says to you, and he still says to me today, guys, look, don't give so much stock to being satisfied and sustained by anything in this physical realm.

Don't put your hope for fulfillment in that which has an expiration date, which is pretty much everything in this world.

He said, Don't work for the food that perishes.

And if you're going to expend so much energy seeking satisfaction or seeking sustenance, then put all of that effort, put all of that energy toward acquiring that which will give you life in its fullest possible capacity in the here and now and for all of eternity.

A life of purpose and passion and peace and power and promise about your future, he said.

But work for the food that lasts for eternal life, which Jesus Himself, the Son of Man, will give you.

Jesus promised you, and He promised me to freely provide for us a food that will forever sustain and forever satisfy us.

He offers you and He offers me something better than bread, something better than fish, something more fulfilling than big red and bottom of coa on a Sunday morning.

According to Jesus, he offers the world an ever-sustaining, ever-satisfying food.

But the crowd, stuck on their desires to have their physical needs met, not able to see past the bread and the fish that they had eaten just the day before, they reminded Jesus, okay, Jesus, here is what a real liberator of God is supposed to do.

Jesus, here is what a real prophet of God is supposed to do.

They reminded Jesus how their ancestors' liberators, 1200 years prior, a man named Moses had provided for them a honey-tasting seed-like food, which we referred to as manna.

And so these folks, they expected from Jesus the exact same provision for him to sustain them similarly.

They said, Our ancestors, Jesus, they ate manna in the wilderness, just as it's written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus corrected them.

And he was kind of like, All right, first of all, the manna that our ancestors ate, it didn't come from a man, it didn't come from Moses, but it was a gift from God above.

And so technically, the manna that they ate, it wasn't simply a physical provision, but it was a sign of the food that it was to come, which is being offered right now.

And secondly, the manna that sustained them physically, it's nothing like the bread from heaven that will sustain them spiritually.

God has something even better than manna to sustain you.

He said it this way: truly, truly, I tell you, Moses didn't give you bread from heaven, but my father gives you true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God gives life to the world.

Jesus' point to them and his point to us today is stop fixating on the physical.

And I know it's hard, and I know it's our natural tendency, but we have got to stop fixating on this world, but turn our attention to the world that is to come.

He was saying, even if I provided for your most basic physical and physiological needs in the here and now, guess what?

You're still gonna die.

And even if I made it rain down, food in abundance, every single day, you still will not be sustained to live forever.

And so you will never be truly satisfied.

None of us will ever be truly satisfied.

In fact, Jesus later told him this.

He said, Your ancestors, they ate manna in the wilderness, and guess what?

They died.

And Jesus later repeated himself to emphasize his point.

He said, The true bread that is from heaven, it's not like the manna that your ancestors ate, and what happened?

They died.

And so, according to Jesus, your true sustenance, which will produce satisfaction, and my true sustenance, which will produce a satisfaction in this life, it won't come from anything in this world.

And because Jesus loves to give, and I am certain that he wants to give you your heart's desire that you might feel fulfilled.

I mean, it's why he created you.

He wants his followers, he wants you, and he wants me to fixate on the provision from heaven that gives life to the full now and for eternity.

That provision that leads to a life of purpose and a life of passion where you're excited to get out of bed every single day, a life of peace where you're able to move past your past, a life of power where you know you can make a contribution and an impact in this world and a life of promise where you have a hope for a future.

He wants you.

He wants me to desire true bread.

I want y'all to just say to yourselves, or if you're comfortable, say to the person near you.

Y'all type it in the comments.

You need to eat that true bread.

So, what exactly is that true bread from heaven that we need to ingest and digest?

What exactly is the bread from God that gives life to the world?

Jesus answered that.

Jesus claimed that he was the provision from heaven that forever sustains and satisfies, that gives life to the full.

He said it this way, and it's our first of the I am seven statements.

And so, y'all write this down, highlight, underline, circle that phrase.

If you're somebody taking notes, he said, I am the bread of life.

Jesus is the bread of life that we all need, that forever sustains and satisfies.

And he wasn't ambiguous about it, and he wasn't subtle about it.

He repeated himself several times.

And y'all, when God himself repeats himself over and over, that is something that we need to pay attention to.

So, y'all, pay attention to what Jesus repeated.

He again said, I am the bread of life.

This is something he wants us to get.

It's something that John wants us to get.

He went on to say, I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

So, the food that lasts for eternal life that Jesus gives, the food that he wants you and me to consume, is his flesh.

I know for some of you who are kind of new to the faith and you're just a spiritual investigator checking this out, you're like, whoa, what did I sign up for?

This is some like cannibalism kind of stuff.

And so I know that sounds like Jesus promoted cannibalism, but here we are in 2021.

It's obvious he didn't, because then a lot of us would be doing all of that stuff.

So let's get clear.

What did Jesus mean by that statement?

What did Jesus mean by the requirement that we're required to eat his flesh?

And then how might you and I ingest and digest the bread of life?

That's Jesus.

Well, Jesus explained it this way: He said, Everyone who arrives at a certain conclusion about me, well, this person will be forever sustained and satisfied.

He said, No one who comes to me will ever be hungry.

And then he restated that same idea in just like a slightly different way.

He said, Everyone who accepts and everyone who affirms me will have their souls eternally satisfied.

He continued, No one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.

Now, let's put these two statements together for clarity's sake here, so we understand exactly what it means to ingest and digest Jesus' flesh.

Jesus was saying, practically speaking, that you ingest, you digest my flesh, you eat the bread of life that I offer, so that your life, your soul is forever sustained now and for eternity when you arrive at a certain conclusion about me and you accept and you affirm something specific about me.

And so, what is that belief that we have to arrive at?

What must we accept and affirm about Jesus?

One of Jesus' followers, Peter, he said to Jesus something that explains for us that belief that we have to arrive at.

And what he suggests is that you and I must recognize that Jesus is God revealed in human form and that he is God of our lives.

What we believe, that Jesus' spirit and his words alone are the ultimate source of sustenance and satisfaction, that is the conclusion that we have to arrive at.

This is how Peter himself said it, and how John recorded it.

Peter said to Jesus, You have the words of eternal life.

What you're teaching Jesus, the way of life that you're demonstrating for us to live our lives similarly, that is what will produce the satisfaction that we all desire, the peace and the passion and the promise of hope.

He went on to say, We have come to believe and recognize that you are the Holy One of God.

So once again, let's just be clear about this.

When you accept and affirm that Jesus is God of your life, according to Jesus, that is how you eat his flesh.

When we arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is God, that is us eating the bread of life.

We are ingesting and we are digesting this concept, this idea, this belief.

And naturally, of course, the question for us is well, then how?

Like, how exactly is this supposed to satisfy my soul?

How does accepting and affirming Jesus is God of my life, how does that sustain me to get through very difficult times in this life?

Well, Jesus answered that by communicating an idea that's analogous to him making himself at home in your life.

And so Jesus said, for everyone who accepts he is God, well, he will take up residence in that person.

He will dwell, his spirit will dwell in you.

Jesus said, Truly, truly, I tell you, the one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

I will be with that person forever.

You will never be alone.

Meaning, Jesus promised that he will put in you the same spirit of power and the same spirit of wisdom that was within him that led him in how to live his life.

In fact, Jesus even said about anyone that has his indwelling spirit, this that person will do the works that I do.

But not just that, he will do even greater works than these.

And so the impact that Jesus made when he walked the earth, inviting people to follow him, to be a part of God's family and kingdom, we, according to Jesus, will have an even greater impact than he.

And so practically, we can be sustained by the confidence of the power that is within us to make an impact in this world.

We can be sustained knowing that our lives, when we follow Jesus, have value and purpose in joining him in his kingdom movement, in redeeming this world, making it even better.

And this is just one way that the bread of life sustains us and satisfies us, but not just that.

Check this out.

Jesus said, anyone who eats his flesh will have eternal life.

He said it this way: this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live how long?

Forever.

Meaning, no matter our circumstances, you can be sustained.

And I can be sustained with a hope for our future.

So while pandemics they might impact and affect our job and our finances and put a fear in us about our retirement that we have been saving for our entire lives, while politics may frustrate you and disappoint you or distress you while you might be grieving and mourning the loss of a loved one, which I am terribly sorry if that is something you are experiencing.

I want you to know though, you can also have a hope that you will see them again.

This world is just the beginning, this life is just the beginning.

And on top of that, you can have a satisfying sense of security knowing this: that once this bread is ingested and digested, once we have accepted and affirmed Jesus is God of our lives, then you are forever accepted and you can never be rejected by God.

You are forever secured a ticket to the eternal realm where God presides, peace in God's presence in paradise.

Jesus said of the person who eats his flesh, I will never cast out that individual.

You cannot lose your salvation.

And so let's briefly recap all that we have discussed.

There was a lot of information, right?

71 verses that we have trekked through.

Let's recap this really, really quickly.

And as we do, here's my ask of you guys, ask of you watching digitally, you guys here in the 151 saloon.

I want you to let sink in these truths.

All right?

Ingest them and digest them.

Jesus said that he is the bread of life.

And anyone who accepts and affirms that he is God, who ingests and digests his flesh, these things will happen.

Number one, you will receive his spirit.

The very spirit of power and of love and of wisdom that indwelt Jesus will take up residence in you.

And so you will never be alone, no matter your struggles.

Even when in this physical realm it seems like you're all alone, you are never alone.

Number two, he said that you will do even greater works than he did.

So you can be sustained in knowing that you have a purpose and that you have value, you have a major contribution to make.

Number three, you will be raised to eternal life.

This life is just the beginning.

You've got an entire future ahead of you in God's presence in paradise.

And number four, you will never be cast out.

That's according to Jesus Himself.

Think about all this for just a moment.

Let it digest.

I mean, we get all of this when we simply accept and affirm that Jesus is God of our lives.

Like that is a heck of a package deal, right?

They don't sell anything like this at HEV in terms of the foods that can satisfy us.

How amazing is all that?

It's pretty significant.

That is the practicality of ingesting the bread of life that is Jesus.

And so here's what I'm inviting you guys to do.

I'm inviting you to let Jesus be the source of your sustenance and satisfaction.

Let Jesus' spirit, the bread of life, fill you in a supernatural way.

And for those of you who are atheists, who are spiritual investigators, who are skeptics right now, here's what this means for you.

All right, I get that right now there's a lot of information to take in, and I'm not gonna ask you to make a decision that's not fully informed, but for you, the greatest question that you can ask and answer in your lifetime is was Jesus raised from the dead?

Was Jesus raised from the dead?

Because if Jesus was raised from the dead, it validates everything else, and you can believe every word that he's ever said.

You need to ask and answer that question and arrive at a place where you decide whether or not Jesus was God.

For the rest of us who have already arrived there.

We already knew this stuff, or this was just a reminder to you, and you believe Jesus is the bread of life, but right now you're feeling a little bit discouraged and you're despondent, and you're like, man, where is this satisfaction, this passion, this peace that this guy is talking about that Jesus said he offers?

What I'm encouraging you to do is really assess what your faith hinges on.

Is it Jesus?

Maybe you need to go back to the accounts that are about Jesus, the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And this series is the perfect opportunity for you to get back into the scriptures and study the life of Jesus, this I am seven series.

And so if you don't have a Bible, or if it's been a long time since you cracked it open, make sure you dust that thing off, right?

Download it, join us in John's account about Jesus.

Let's ingest and digest this bread of life and feed off of it every single day.

Now, I know how hokey all of this sounds.

I do.

But I can personally attest to the impact of feeding off of Jesus daily.

So, what many of you guys might not know is that I left vocational ministry, I left church work for a couple of years as I had to do what I was telling you guys to do.

I needed to reset and I needed to reassess.

Because, you know, and I've been open about this and have shared many conversations with Pastor Clayton.

In the church world, sometimes we can really veer off sometimes and focus more on process and methodologies, and we lose sight of why we're here.

And so I stepped away for a little bit, and it was almost as if Jesus knew exactly what I needed when I needed it.

Because I knew while I was away, I was just gonna focus on recalibrating and just study through the scriptures.

And out of nowhere, a gentleman tracked me down who I had never met, and he found me on social media, and he invited me for a cup of coffee.

He had only ever heard me perform poetry like many years prior.

And a project at his job brought me to mind.

He was like, Yeah, I need to connect with this guy.

So I go to coffee with him.

I had nothing else to do, right, at the time.

And over that conversation, we both discovered that we both had a profound interest in better recognizing who Jesus is and getting centered on who Jesus is.

And so after that conversation, we met, we decided to meet again.

It was so life-giving, and we decided to get together one other time.

And then that conversation was really life-giving.

So we were like, you know what?

Let's do another coffee date.

So we had another coffee date.

And then after that one, we were like, man, this is so great.

Let's just do this regularly.

And so every Saturday we would schedule to meet each other for just one hour over coffee to have conversations about Jesus.

And those conversations were so life-giving.

I joked with my friend that they were better than any sermon I had ever preached, any sermon that I had ever heard.

And I would come home so energized that my wife would get a little suspicious about my coffee friend, you know, and so I'd have to break down for her.

Hey, here's what I talked about for the last four hours.

I promise you it's great.

And she decided to join in on the conversation, and she got inspired.

It was so infectious.

And y'all, let me tell you, I would not be standing here teaching right now if not for all those coffee conversations about Jesus.

And here's why.

Because while I might have been ingesting coffee, the reality is I was feeding off of the bread of life.

I was taking my uh ingesting and the digesting of who Jesus is.

And I came to recognize what Peter and John recognize that Jesus is the Holy One of God, that his words alone produce life to the full.

They produce the purpose and the passion and the peace, and he is the source of my sustenance.

And it's why I'm so passionate about this I am seven series that you guys are gonna be going through.

And I feel like this is what Jesus meant when he said it's his spirit that is the one that gives life.

So many of us are looking for life in so many other places, but it is that connection with Jesus, knowing who he is, feeding off of his teachings.

The flesh doesn't help at all.

So this is why it's God's will for you to feed off Jesus.

It's why John spent so much time in this section unpacking all of these ideas.

It's what I want for you guys.

So you need to like I need to ingest and digest the bread of life that is Jesus.

Would you guys join me in praying as we close out?

Father, we thank you for John's account.

We thank you for the eyewitness testimony that we can trust and be persuaded actually happened.

We thank you for modern-day miracles that help verify all that was recorded for us.

And we thank you for the clarity that the life we are seeking isn't found anywhere else but in a person and in relating with Jesus regularly.

And so I pray for everyone who was here today that there would just be a seed that is planted in their hearts.

They would just desire to be sustained and satisfied by you alone, Jesus.

I pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, Meta Church, it has been such a privilege to be with you guys and to kick off this I Am 7 series with you.

A little encouragement for you.

Being the first person in this, Allah, a little pressure on me, because it only gets better from here.

I promise you, everybody that you know is gonna come back and keep going with this series.

So make sure you come back for I Am 7 next week.

Your pastors are gonna be back with you guys.

And just one other thought here.

I am so proud of who you guys are and how this church is moving.

Like the fact that you have welcomed me in such a familial way, I sincerely, sincerely appreciate you guys.

You have a tremendous teaching team.

Pastor Clayton and I, man, like I just love his theological stance.

There are very few people whose theological stance I agree with, and man, I'm a little envious of what you guys get to experience every single week.

And so, with that, if you need to continue the conversation with somebody and want to pray with somebody, bear in mind there are folks who will be praying with you as you go.

And then just a quick reminder: as Pastor Clayton said in the announcements, be sure to uh invest in this kingdom movement and invite people to Easter.

And with that being said, brothers and sisters, I love you all.

May you guys know the true bread from heaven.

God bless you guys.

Enjoy your week.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

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You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.