Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / Episode 35 – Bread and Water for Life

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Episode 35 – Bread and Water for Life · #Faith4TodayPodcast

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  And God is the one who sustains us in our life, even when it
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  feels like the wilderness. God does that for us.
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  God doesn't have to do that. This reality that man, if, if
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  Jesus came to save Jesus came to redeem, if my trust in Jesus was
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  simply to the fact that now my sins are washed away and I'm
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  given resurrection life in the future and I can have a
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  relationship with God right here, right now, but he never
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  answered another one of my prayers.
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  It really would be enough. He, he doesn't owe me any.
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  He doesn't even owe me salvation, but he gives it.
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  He, he brings it, he provides it, He sustains it, He
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  strengthens it. He does all those things for us.
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  I think there's something really powerful and purposeful and
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  necessary even about being able to reflect on the things that
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  God has done in ways that He has provided and sustained in your
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  life and my life and recognize it would have been enough.
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  He doesn't owe Welcome to another episode of the Faith for
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  Today podcast. Today is episode 35 and I am
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  thrilled that you are here. My name is Matthew, your host,
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  and today we're going to be diving in to the second part of
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  John chapter 6 and a little snippet in John Chapter 7 where
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  Jesus talks about being bread and water for our life.
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  Our goal on this podcast is to help you have faith for today,
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  not just inspired on Sunday in your faith, but living in
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  loyalty to Jesus, even on a Thursday.
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  And man, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, share this
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  out with some friends really helps get the word out.
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  And again, our hope is that it's encouraging to you, man, we
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  really do. We want to be life giving for
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  you. Whether you're listening in your
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  commute, while you're driving around at work, going on a run
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  or a walk, exercising, whatever it is, man, we're glad you're
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  here along with us as we keep growing towards Jesus together.
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  I'm going to recap a recent Sunday message, share a little
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  bonus content, and then take some time to respond to just a
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  few questions that came in for us.
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  Here we go in John 6, verse 22 through verse 40 is kind of
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  where the main crux of our conversation happened in this
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  message. Now Jesus confronts the crowds
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  who kind of had chased him down after the feeding of the the
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  5000. They they wanted more bread.
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  They wanted more miracles, but Jesus kind of exposed or knew
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  their real, real motives in that he reminded them.
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  And he reminds us that the things that we chase after in
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  this world, whether food, comfort, success, security,
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  they're all temporary. They can fill us for a moment,
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  but they can't last. And fully satisfied.
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  Only Jesus, the bread of life, can satisfy the deepest hunger
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  of our souls. While Western Christianity often
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  drips drifts towards consumerism, the global church
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  seems to be thriving as they hunger for God himself.
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  Philip Yancey puts this really well when he says God goes where
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  he's wanted. That's the question for us,
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  isn't it? Are we hungry for God?
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  Are we hungering and thirsting after righteousness?
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  Or are we hungering and thirsting after the gifts that
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  God would give us? We want to love and pursue a
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  relationship with God, the giver of all things, not just the
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  gifts that he gives us in all things.
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  Now, Jesus is not just our provider, which we saw in the
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  beginning part of John 6 when he feeds the multitudes, the bread
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  and the fish like he multiplied it.
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  Jesus not only our provider, though, as we've discovered as
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  we kept reading in John 6, He's also our sustainer.
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  He came to to help us. He didn't come to be a quick fix
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  or a spiritual sugar daddy, so to speak, but rather the eternal
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  source of life itself. Just as bread and water kind of
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  sustained the body, our essential elements for us, Jesus
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  offers eternal bread and living water to sustain our our souls.
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  In Him we find forgiveness, restoration, and His abiding
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  presence, communion. Even these elements of bread and
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  wine reminds us of this. That ordinary bread and wine
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  points us to an extraordinary Savior who still mends the
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  broken, still satisfies the hungry.
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  He still forgives our sins, and He still blesses his people.
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  The invitation remains the same. Come, eat, drink, and live.
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  Anyone who believes in Him will never hunger or thirst again,
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  Jesus said but in because in Christ we find that life doesn't
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  fade. It doesn't spoil and it doesn't
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  really. And as he promises resurrection
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  life or well, let me give you a little bit of bonus content.
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  Now I want to talk a little bit more about this idea of eternal
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  versus temporary. We, we talked a lot about this.
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  In fact, Jesus in his kind of message and in his conversation
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  with them in, in, in John 6, he's, he's talking a lot about
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  the spirit and life and, and, and the flesh.
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  And he's talking about how the spirit brings life and the flesh
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  doesn't bring anything at all. And Jesus isn't like trying to
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  get us to, to masochistically think about life of the
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  physical. He's not trying to detach
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  spiritual from the physical. In fact, it's, it's absolutely
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  the opposite. He's he's helping us see that
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  there is an overlap between what is spiritual and what is
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  physical and how they so intertwined.
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  But there is an essence. There is a source to everything
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  that we have physical. And if we only settle for the
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  surface or the physical, we never really find satisfaction,
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  which happens on a spirit soul level.
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  There is a spiritual reality to who we are and it it's actually
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  the, the, the deep rootedness is the soil of our whole being.
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  And so in fact, it's Paul who says is that it's because of the
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  Spirit that we live and move and find our very being.
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  So if we were to ignore those things and only settle for
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  physical fleshly components in life, we're missing a whole
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  element. We're we're not even a whole
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  person at that point. And so the understanding that
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  these things are overlapped is a big part of what Jesus is
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  saying. And he's using physical things
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  to help us understand spiritual significance.
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  And he is saying that there are some things that we can do that
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  have long lasting impact in our lives, eternal significance in
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  our lives. And there are some things that
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  are temporary, fleeting, and here and gone in those moments.
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  And they're not all bad. They're just not always lasting
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  in their satisfaction. I heard recently Scotty
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  Scheffler, big golf fan, love watching Scotty play golf.
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  He's on a tear right now, but before the the Open Championship
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  in Europe several weeks ago, I, I remember him at an interview,
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  kind of the pre tournament kind of conference interviews.
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  I remember him saying, and the sound bites kind of went almost
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  viral across across the Internet where where he kept saying
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  there's more to life than winning golf tournaments.
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  In other words, for for Scotty, there are some things that have
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  a greater eternal, ongoing, long lasting impact than just the
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  temporary fleeting joy of winning the trophy of getting
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  the big check. Like those things are
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  consumable, meaning they're not here forever.
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  Like they're not re, they're not renewable.
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  They're just plainly consumable. And so I love that this idea
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  here's here's a man at the peak of success in a sport is sitting
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  back reflecting and he's acknowledging as a follower of
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  Jesus proclaimed in his own way, meaning he has proclaimed faith
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  in Jesus publicly many times. Scotty Scheffler is sitting
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  there saying, listen, there's more to life than just winning
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  championships. There's more to life than than
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  winning and getting more money and building my whole life.
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  Like there are some other things for Scotty that that he just
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  absolutely believes in, including raising the godly
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  family and having a healthy marriage and some some other
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  values that are more eternal, the more significant, more
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  substantial in that way. Listen, our appetite for good
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  musing our our desire for the things that God would do for us.
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  Those things really aren't, aren't the point of it all that
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  all, all of those external things are meant to point to an
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  internal reality are meant to point to a bigger thing.
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  It's it's this idea of there are things in our life that we can
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  do and experience, but that's not the epitome of all of it.
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  It's just a something that is added in.
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  And in other words, it's not that we are after the gifts that
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  God gives us. We're actually after God
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  himself. Jesus is trying to help us
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  realize it. It's not that we need more
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  rituals around Passover for them.
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  He was actually trying to say all of the rituals of Passover
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  are pointing to me and I'm the one.
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  That's the point of it, of it all.
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  And so when we build our life, though, around moving from event
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  to event, height, heightened experience to heightened
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  experience, we, we, we build our life around, you know, being
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  notarized, noticed or recognized rather as, as maybe the best
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  parents around. Or, or we're getting recognized
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  for, for things that we accomplish or things that we
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  achieve or a fashion or we're, or for humor or the things that
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  we're trying to be known for in our lives.
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  Man, if we're not building them around the point of it all,
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  which is Jesus, that we're kind of building on a faulty
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  foundation. And there are things that are
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  eternal, that last, that are rock solid.
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  And then there are things that are temporary that aren't, that
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  are here today, gone tomorrow and a passing fade.
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  That's just This is why, like in church world there there there
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  are some phrases that I think are really true.
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  The message doesn't change, but our methods often do.
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  So our methods of maybe how we organize certain elements in a
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  local congregation. Those may maneuver, but there
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  are some things that are eternal truths of God that the message
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  of who Jesus is. It is the same yesterday, today
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  and forever. Like we're, we're not changing
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  the message of who Jesus is or what he has proclaimed or been
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  revealed. He is the bread of life.
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  And so we are linked into that. But we're the, the, the way,
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  maybe the style or the, the approach or the programs or, or
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  some of the, the methods that we use those, those can change.
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  And that's OK. But the main thing is to keep
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  the main thing the main, the main thing.
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  You know, it's interesting as we talk about that, the fleeting,
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  temporary, earthly, non spiritually significant or
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  substantive elements of our life.
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  I read an article just last week from online that was titled The
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  Full Fat Faith. It was talking about how there
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  is a returning to religion in this younger generation in Gen.
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  Z. In fact it said this.
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  Meanwhile, the traditional constellations of a well lived
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  secular life are weakening, it says Romance, friendship, family
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  and materialism figure less prominently as a source of
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  meaning in the lives of a generation that is poorer,
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  lonelier, less sexually active, less sociable, and less likely
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  to even start a family. And in the age of the
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  smartphone, inane short form videos and social media doom
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  scrolling are undoubtedly addictively entertaining, but
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  not very profound or spiritually nursing.
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  It goes on to talk about how there is a growing yearning for,
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  quote UN quote, something huge and beautiful and awe inspiring
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  for something bigger, something more grand, something more
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  substantive. It was talking about goes on to
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  say this as one influential convert.
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  The writer and podcaster Louise Perry puts it flatly.
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  Secularism has failed once and quote UN quote annoying teenage
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  atheist. She now attends a quote UN quote
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  happy clappy church every Sunday with her family.
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  Religious people, she says, are, quote, happier, less anxious,
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  less lonely and more likely to get married and have children.
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  Not having religion in your life is an enormous loss.
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  I think that of all the religious options, Christianity
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  is the one which generates the greatest human flourishing.
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  I couldn't agree more. In fact, what I love is that
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  where there have been almost no limits in a generation, between
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  information, access, experience, pleasure, redefining lines and
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  categories, where where they have denied themselves no, no
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  thing they have found, as the right of Ecclesiastes says, it's
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  all smoke and vanity. It's all meaningless.
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  There has to be something more than just simply chasing our own
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  tail and chasing the next thing. And I love that this, this
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  writer and podcaster has identified that of all the
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  religious options, Christianity generates the greatest human
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  flourishing. This is what Jesus is trying to
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  say in John 6. His way of living, He himself
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  brings a satisfying life. There is no other way to fully
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  and truly be satisfied in your life apart from allowing Him to
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  meet your spiritual and be your spiritual source and sustainer
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  of real life, because He is the bread of life for life and the
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  world is realizing it and taking note.
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  And so there are eternal things and there are temporary things.
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  There are substantive things, and then there are sinful
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  things. There, there are.
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  There are things that have real significance and things that are
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  just sensually pleasing for a moment.
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  And there is a difference between the two.
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  And often we live fooled, thinking one thing will satisfy
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  us when really it will leave us more empty.
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  And cheap substitutes are not satisfying people anymore.
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  And we're seeing that in real time in our communities and in
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  our lives. I love that Jesus additionally,
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  that he points out that the whole point of believing in him
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  isn't just like believing in him.
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  So like, yay, you did something good or yay, you have life.
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  But but it's that there's a promise of a resurrection life
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  that there's something that that while you might taste a little
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  bit of death, there is resurrection coming later.
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  Why? Because Jesus himself would
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  taste death, but resurrection would come later.
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  And this is a big part of what he was saying in his discourse.
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  Listen, your your answer, sisters, They ate manna and
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  bread in the wilderness, but they still tasted death.
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  I'm here giving you a bread that that helps you.
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  Even if you taste death, you're going to experience resurrection
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  life. Then Jesus is setting up a big
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  understanding that the resurrection life is the point,
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  but the point isn't even, I'll say it this way, Jesus in his
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  discourse about eating my flesh, drinking my blood and the
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  sacrifice, the bread, the wine, all of those things, the point
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  wasn't the sacrifice. The point was actually
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  resurrection life that it was paying for.
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  So the end goal is still resurrection life so that we
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  have a union with God and embodied life with God, full
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  union in real life with God. That's the goal that we're
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  moving towards. That's where he's moving us to.
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  So resurrection is kind of the whole crux and point.
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  And so Jesus saying, listen, if you believe in me, that's the
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  work you need to do in order to, to receive this eternal life,
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  which is life with God, resurrection life to come.
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  It's and, and eternal life is, is, is John's way of writing
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  about the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven.
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  You'll see it later in John 17. But Jesus defines eternal life
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  for us. What is eternal life?
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  That they know you, Father, and the one that you sent.
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  So eternal life is an embodied union relationship of love and
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  loyalty to Jesus and the Father and the Spirit through the
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  Spirit. So this idea of eternal life is
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  seen and epitomized and experienced in resurrection.
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  And the means by which we can experience resurrection is by
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  taking and embodying his blood and his body as we commune with
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  him so that we might believe in Jesus and in believing in Jesus,
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  in doing the work of an embodied, loyal life following,
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  believing, trusting in Jesus that he is who he said he was.
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  That's where life comes. And, and I love that Jesus talks
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  about resurrection life here. He begins to set the stage for
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  the whole point of it all, that there's something significant
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  that is coming, that we as humans who are embodied now
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  receive the life of God now, and it continues into the
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  resurrection and the life in the world that is is to come.
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  Another thing thing Jesus does is he kind of reminds them of
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  what happened in the wilderness. He reminds them of the fact that
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  God, when they had no other option for provision or
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  sustaining life, God did both. God provided and he sustained
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  for them in that space. Like where there is nothing out
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  there, no resource available in the wilderness.
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  God can give bread and water to people in the wilderness, which
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  is really encouraging because no matter what season you're in, if
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  you find yourself in a place where it feels like you're in
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  the wilderness and and the wilderness in biblical language
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  has has a several layers to it, but a a few like just high view,
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  maybe simplified way of understanding the theme of
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  wilderness, that wilderness often is uninhabited territory.
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  It's the space in between where there is no real domain of a
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  God. It's kind of like a free for all
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  where it's, it's chaotic almost it, it kind of has some of those
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  really bewildering elements where there is no God who is the
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  God of the wilderness per SE. Like like that's not a territory
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  owned by, by, by a being. And so that it's kind of like
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  it's the wild, Wild West of spiritual belief, if you will,
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  and in the wilderness. God still came to his people to
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  rescue them. He brought bread and water to
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  them in the in the wilderness. And when Jesus talks about in
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  John 7 about there's a river of living water, there's a spring
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  that flows out of the depths of who you are, he's making
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  illusions again back to the wilderness journey where not
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  only did bread come from heaven, but water came pouring out of a
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  rock. How Moses was able to speak to a
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  rock and strike a rock, that there would be water that would
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  flow and it would be a living water.
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  That there's this idea that Stillwater was dead water, but
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  moving water was alive. That's some of the word picture
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  Jesus is using. And God through his Spirit
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  sustains us and is always on the move and alive in US.
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  And so the life of God is not meant to be stale.
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  The life of God is not meant to be stagnant.
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  Your relationship and faith in God is not meant to be static or
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  or stationary. It's actually meant to be moving
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  out of your innermost being. John 7 says we'll flow rivers of
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  living water and that river of living water is moving water.
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  It's, it's active, it's it's impacting others, it's bringing
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  refreshment to life of others. And this is the God who not only
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  provides that water in us, but allows us to be a distributor of
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  that life for others. That that if we're going to kind
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  of understand God bringing sustenance in life to us in
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  their wilderness. Well, part of it is recognizing
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  that doesn't matter what season we're in, doesn't matter that
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  the culture we're living in, it doesn't matter the climate,
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  politically, socio, economically, it doesn't matter
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  any when we're in those wilderness that feel God
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  forsaken spaces of life. God can still bring bread for
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  life and water for refreshing of our soul.
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  And our relationship with God isn't meant to be stagnant.
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  It isn't meant to be stationary. It isn't meant to be like a
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  pond, actually meant to be a reservoir, a river of living
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  water. I just love the power that that
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  picture conjures. I love the activity that that
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  picture word picture conjures up.
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  And I love the idea that God is drilling the well in US himself.
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  And Jesus is the one who fills us with his Holy Spirit, and God
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  is the one who sustained them in the wilderness.
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  And God is the one who sustains us in our life, even when it
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  feels like the wilderness. God does that for us.
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  God doesn't have to do that. Like, like Jesus didn't have to
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  give food, Like God didn't owe the children of Israelites
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  anything. It's his goodness that does
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  that. It's his character, his nature's
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  love that does that. It's, it's the embodiment of, of
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  a nourishing, nourishing God that does that.
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  It's, it's him as provider. It's part of who he is.
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  And so there's this, this reality that man, if, if Jesus
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  came to save, if Jesus came to redeem, if, if my trust in Jesus
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  was simply to the fact that now my sins are washed away and I'm
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  given resurrection life in the future and, and I can have a
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  relationship with God right here, right now, but he never
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  answered another one of my prayers.
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  It really would be enough. He, he doesn't owe me any.
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  He doesn't even owe me salvation, but he gives it.
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  He, he brings it, he provides it, he sustains it, he
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  strengthens it. He does all those things for us.
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  There's a really powerful set of scenes in the chosen this last
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  season that that centers around the the Last Supper and several
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  really powerful, vivid ways of, of bringing the scripture into
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  living color for us, which I think is one of the most
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  powerful ways in which the the chosen works is if it brings to
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  life some some things for us. And and it's not meant to be a,
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  a word for word copy of the scripture.
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  That's not really its point, nor is the scripture meant to be
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  some script, but there's beauty in it.
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  And one of the things that they do in, in, in the kind of their
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  the Last Supper scenes is they, they go around and they start
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  this, Hey, if you, if you would have brought us out of slavery,
• 24:52
  but you didn't, you know, give us bread in the wilderness.
• 24:56
  If it would have been, it would have been enough.
• 24:58
  If you would have, if you would have done this, but you didn't
• 25:03
  do more than that, it would, it would have been enough, right?
• 25:06
  If man, if you would have given us the law, but you never, you
• 25:10
  know, got us into the promised land, it would have been, it
• 25:14
  would have been enough, right? They'd go down this list of
• 25:17
  things like, man, if you would have done this, but you didn't
• 25:19
  do this, it would have been enough.
• 25:24
  And I think that there's something profound and right
• 25:30
  about us having the perspective to God that says, God, if you
• 25:37
  would have saved me and forgiven me of my sins, it would have
• 25:43
  been enough. If you never gave me gifts to
• 25:47
  use in this life, it would have been enough If you, if you gave
• 25:50
  me gifts to use in this life, but you, you never, you never
• 25:56
  spoke to me again personally, it would have been enough.
• 25:59
  Like if I, I think about in my own life, Lord, if you would
• 26:02
  have, you know, brought me a, a, a wife and a partner in life,
• 26:07
  but you didn't give me 3 kids, it, it would have been enough.
• 26:11
  I think that I'm I'm grateful, Lord, you gave me 3 kids, but if
• 26:15
  you never let me lead in your church, it would have been
• 26:19
  enough. I think there's something really
• 26:22
  powerful and purposeful and necessary even about being able
• 26:28
  to reflect on the things that God has done in ways that he has
• 26:32
  provided and sustained in your life and my life and recognize
• 26:38
  it would have been enough. He he doesn't owe you or me
• 26:45
  anything, but He's good and He's faithful and He's true and he's
• 26:51
  steadfast and he's loyal to His word and I'm so thankful that he
• 26:58
  does. God doesn't owe me anything, but
• 27:02
  man, can I be honest? I owe God everything and even if
• 27:09
  I gave my everything, it wouldn't have been enough.
• 27:14
  And that's the beauty of the immeasurable mercy, kindness and
• 27:19
  benevolence of our God. When we kind of were winding
• 27:26
  down in, in the message and kind of, I was kind of trying to
• 27:31
  tackle some of the, the challenging portions of John 6,
• 27:35
  right? Like Jesus had some really hard
• 27:37
  things to say, hard things to hear.
• 27:39
  Like if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you don't
• 27:43
  have any part of me. If this and, and even the
• 27:46
  disciples were like, this is really, really hard.
• 27:48
  Like I, I'm not sure I fully understand this.
• 27:50
  And like, I'm not sure I'm getting what you're saying.
• 27:52
  And, and this sounds like really out there a little bit.
• 27:55
  And, and she's like, I know, well, if you want to leave, you
• 27:58
  can leave. And there were people who were
• 27:59
  leaving Jesus like they weren't really wanting to follow him.
• 28:02
  They they were just in it for what Jesus would make them feel
• 28:06
  good about themselves. And Jesus was still being honest
• 28:09
  and loving and kind. But then it was some hard
• 28:11
  sayings. And, and in it he talks about
• 28:15
  his flesh and his blood and his body.
• 28:16
  And, and it's a section here in verse like 53 through 58 where
• 28:21
  where a lot of theological bandwidth has been given to
• 28:25
  trying to help us understand a theology around communion.
• 28:30
  And, and I share just some brief probably if I'm being honest, it
• 28:36
  felt a little reductive, not not giving the full scope of some of
• 28:41
  the theological views or the value even in some of the views
• 28:45
  that are held around communion that that exists in our world.
• 28:50
  And my brevity and my point in bringing those things out was
• 28:54
  not trying to diminish any, any view or to try to create some
• 28:58
  straw man argument or even to set myself up to sound like I'm,
• 29:03
  I'm a theological expert on the Eucharist and the, the way in
• 29:07
  which Christ is present in it. And whether Jesus was speaking
• 29:12
  metaphoric, he was speaking symbolic, he was trying to make
• 29:16
  a sign or he was being quite literal.
• 29:18
  Like I, I'm not sure. My, my point wasn't to try to,
• 29:22
  to get into the weeds necessarily into that in the
• 29:25
  message. And, and I wanted to take a
• 29:27
  minute and just kind of first give some, I'll give an overview
• 29:33
  of kind of the, some key theological viewpoints on the
• 29:37
  Eucharist, on communion, on the, the literalness of the blood and
• 29:41
  the blood and body of Christ and what that means and doesn't
• 29:46
  mean. And kind of where I land and
• 29:49
  kind of how I framed some of my own thoughts on this at this, at
• 29:52
  this stage in my life and my, my, my point in studying the
• 29:55
  Scripture, But I'm not an expert.
• 29:58
  I'm not a I'm not a theologian trained classically in the those
• 30:02
  things. I'm more of a practitioner and a
• 30:04
  pastor. I try to to understand theology
• 30:08
  and look for ways to integrate it into my life.
• 30:11
  So it's more of a lived out theology rather than a, a
• 30:16
  staunch theological, perfectly precise thing.
• 30:21
  I want to be a good student. I study to show myself approved.
• 30:24
  I've learned many things. I'm continuing to learn many
• 30:26
  things, always growing. And so I Ioffer these things
• 30:29
  with some humility, but I want I want us to understand it in a
• 30:33
  lot of the theological topics, especially where there's seems
• 30:37
  to be disagreement across multiple streams of the body of
• 30:41
  Christ and where there seems to even be agreement along multiple
• 30:45
  streams of faith in the body of Christ.
• 30:47
  I think it's important to note that many theological topics are
• 30:53
  us in our humanity trying to understand how God does
• 30:58
  something versus just being settled on the fact of what God
• 31:03
  does. I think there's a a need in us
• 31:08
  to, and it's not necessarily a bad one.
• 31:10
  I mean, it's part of who we are to learn to grow and to to
• 31:13
  understand some things, to discover some things.
• 31:15
  I think that's good. It's a healthy thing.
• 31:19
  But at some point we need to remember that oftentimes
• 31:22
  Scripture just tells us what it doesn't necessarily tell us how
• 31:27
  of some things. Like for example, there are many
• 31:30
  theological debates that has been raging for hundreds of
• 31:33
  years. I say raging.
• 31:34
  Sometimes it's raging. Most of the time it's really
• 31:37
  just good conversation leaning one way, like, like things
• 31:41
  around salvation, a Calvinist view of salvation and atonement
• 31:45
  versus an Armenian view of salvation and the work of
• 31:47
  Christ. And, and the reality is how God
• 31:52
  saves us is not, is not the priority or the point as to why
• 31:59
  God saves us and what God does in saving us.
• 32:03
  Like those are more the preeminent primary questions
• 32:06
  that we want to. And what we find is that in both
• 32:10
  of those conversations, there's a lot of agreement on the what
• 32:14
  and the why. It's the how or the order or the
• 32:18
  the emphasis of free will or sovereignty.
• 32:20
  Do you have a choice or did God already double predestine
• 32:23
  everything? And, and, and there's some give
• 32:25
  and take and to be honest in Scripture, there are scriptures
• 32:29
  that represent both sides. Otherwise neither are neither.
• 32:33
  Perspective would still be around today.
• 32:36
  They would have been cast aside so often how God does something
• 32:41
  and the elements that play into the order of, of like in
• 32:44
  salvation. Well, I think that we have to
• 32:46
  have a little bit of humility and a little honesty in our in
• 32:49
  our intellect to say there's both are represented well and,
• 32:52
  and they probably work more hand in hand and together than than
• 32:55
  the other. It's kind of like, well, it's
• 32:57
  got to be either or and it's usually not.
• 33:00
  It's not either life is physical or life is spiritual.
• 33:03
  It's that both are physical and both are are spiritual.
• 33:07
  That's the point. It's not either or, it's both
• 33:10
  both and talk about security of salvation there.
• 33:12
  There are thoughts around both and oftentimes your perspective
• 33:16
  you bring is trying to extrapolate that perspective
• 33:19
  from a text rather than just maybe trying to look at what the
• 33:23
  text is trying to say and do from a larger picture.
• 33:26
  I'm not saying these aren't worthwhile conversations.
• 33:29
  They are. They're helpful.
• 33:31
  They make us think and and see and reason.
• 33:33
  But how God does something is not normally as important or as
• 33:39
  primary or as pressing of the fact that God does do something.
• 33:44
  So here's another one. Atonement theories, there are a
• 33:49
  few different really well thought out biblically
• 33:53
  represented theories around how Jesus atoned, how the atoning
• 33:59
  work on the cross is applied like how it actually it's all
• 34:05
  the theories agree that Jesus did an atoning work.
• 34:08
  That's not the question. I mean, that's the most
• 34:10
  important thing, but we try to to figure out which one.
• 34:14
  And I tend to hold those with a much more open hand because how
• 34:19
  he does it, that's kind of an interesting understanding.
• 34:22
  It does play into some thoughts down the line, but but by and
• 34:26
  large, the fact that Jesus atoned and that it was necessary
• 34:30
  and I'm grateful for it. And, and the elements of some of
• 34:33
  these theories are actually represented in Scripture.
• 34:36
  So it might not be any one thing exclusively, but maybe combined.
• 34:41
  I think that's an appropriate way of looking at some of these
• 34:45
  things. Many times I think we do try to
• 34:48
  force a theory or an idea of how into an always mode with God.
• 34:54
  And one thing that I think is really clear that there are some
• 34:56
  things that God just doesn't always like.
• 34:59
  He doesn't do the same thing the same, the same way situations
• 35:03
  shift and change. That there's certain
• 35:05
  characteristics of God that are immutable, unchangeable, how he
• 35:09
  applies them and how those show up or what he does that that
• 35:13
  could be a little bit different. I mean even thinking about the
• 35:15
  miracle, because Jesus didn't really do any miracle the same
• 35:18
  way. Like we have a great examples of
• 35:22
  a multiplicity of ways how Jesus performs miracles, what he did
• 35:29
  in those miracles, that all changes why he does the
• 35:34
  miracles. Those are all pretty much the
• 35:36
  same, but how he did it. Does he spit in the mud?
• 35:39
  Does he speak to it? Does the water turn to wine?
• 35:41
  Does the fish give the coin? Does the does he just speak?
• 35:44
  Does he touch? Does he lay hands?
• 35:46
  Does he make him go wash? Does it like does he just send a
• 35:50
  proxy? Like how it changed like so the
• 35:53
  method of it does does change and the how seems to shift with
• 35:58
  God in terms of his mode. And and so we have to be careful
• 36:01
  that we're not trying to force scripture to answer one of our
• 36:06
  modern questions when the scripture isn't trying to answer
• 36:10
  our modern questions. And so I think it's a really
• 36:14
  important way of understanding. So take creation, for example,
• 36:19
  the creation account that we have in Genesis.
• 36:21
  Here's here's what creation is not trying to do.
• 36:25
  Creation is not trying to answer.
• 36:27
  Did God make this and how did he make it?
• 36:30
  That's not what the creation account is is trying to reveal
• 36:33
  to us in the Scriptures. What is it trying to create or
• 36:36
  what is it? What is the creation accounts in
• 36:39
  Genesis 1 and 2 trying to do? It's trying to help answer or or
• 36:44
  inform something that the the ancient mind would have been
• 36:49
  wondering. The ancient mind would have been
• 36:51
  wondering which God made this and why.
• 36:55
  Totally different questions. It's not trying to say did God
• 36:59
  make this? It's actually trying to reveal
• 37:01
  which God made creation. And it's not trying to answer
• 37:05
  the scientific question of how was it 6 literal days?
• 37:09
  Six figurative days? Is there a gap in between?
• 37:12
  It's not trying to answer that question of how, it's actually
• 37:17
  trying to reveal why God made what he made.
• 37:22
  So it's important that when we come to the subject of
• 37:25
  communion, we're kind of approaching that in in the same
• 37:30
  in the same way in the book God is on Your Side.
• 37:34
  Joshua Ryan Butler summarizes this section of John Six really,
• 37:40
  really well. I mean, borrow his words here to
• 37:42
  help us understand the different perspectives currently or
• 37:47
  theories around the Eucharist, around communion and its
• 37:53
  substance and its importance and its significance and in the way
• 37:59
  in which Jesus is present while we do it.
• 38:03
  He says this different traditions disagree on how
• 38:08
  Christ is present. Some say the bread and the wine
• 38:11
  become the body and the blood when consecrated by the priest.
• 38:15
  That's a Catholic view. Others say Christ's presence is
• 38:19
  in, with and under the bread and wine.
• 38:22
  That's a more Lutheran view. Others say that the real
• 38:27
  presence of Christ is communicated by the Spirit when
• 38:30
  the bread and the wine are received in faith.
• 38:34
  That's a more reformed view. Others say it's a mystery.
• 38:38
  It's a bit more of an Orthodox way of thinking.
• 38:41
  Yet virtually every major tradition agrees that Christ is
• 38:48
  truly present. Regardless of how you think it
• 38:51
  happens, there is power in the mystery, in the fact that it
• 38:57
  happens. There is something that happens
• 39:01
  of of of significance, of transcendence at the table of
• 39:05
  the Lord. Some of you the the, the
• 39:08
  tangible touch of the bread and the juice itself.
• 39:11
  There's something tangible that that helps you encounter the
• 39:16
  love of God in a, in a new or a, a distinct way.
• 39:21
  That's a beautiful thing to try to tinker with the how
• 39:25
  specifically there's there's a lot of people that are trying to
• 39:28
  to navigate those. But I think again, the idea of
• 39:33
  the bread and the wine transforming into a different
• 39:35
  substance, a more sacred substance, an altered substance,
• 39:40
  kind of like the theological Catholic view would be that that
• 39:46
  that that conversation around how Christ is present at the
• 39:50
  Eucharist and the receiving of the love feast that really
• 39:54
  didn't arrive until the medieval times.
• 39:57
  In fact, Glenn Pacquiao in his book Blessed, Broken, and Given
• 40:02
  summarizes it like this. He says it did not matter how
• 40:06
  the bread was also Christ's body.
• 40:08
  All that mattered was that somehow Christ was present to
• 40:12
  His Church when they gathered at His table in his name.
• 40:16
  It was only later, during medieval times, that a group of
• 40:19
  theologians wanted to try to explain how he was present.
• 40:23
  They began to propose that a change in the very substance of
• 40:27
  the bread and wine must be taking place.
• 40:29
  In other words, bread being bread and wine being wine wasn't
• 40:33
  wholly enough. It needed to become something
• 40:35
  more. It needed to change, and it's
• 40:36
  very substance. But the Sacramento view, a much
• 40:40
  earlier Christian view, says that signs don't need to change
• 40:44
  in substance in order to signify something holy.
• 40:49
  Physical things like water and oil and bread and wine can serve
• 40:52
  as signs of something more without ceasing to be physical
• 40:57
  things. That's why Saint Augustine said
• 40:59
  that sacraments were an outward, visible sign of an inward,
• 41:03
  invisible grace. Signs don't need to change in
• 41:07
  substance in order to signify something.
• 41:10
  Holy bread doesn't need to change in substance to become
• 41:13
  more sacred. Why?
• 41:16
  Why am I saying all of this? He goes on.
• 41:18
  Because I suspect we're not far off from the medieval thinking.
• 41:21
  We subconsciously believe that we must become something other
• 41:25
  than what we are in our very essence in order to be sacred.
• 41:29
  We become convinced deep down in our bones that our substance is
• 41:32
  not good enough, not holy enough, not special enough to
• 41:36
  matter. And that's simply not true.
• 41:38
  I would add that all through the story of scripture you find God
• 41:43
  taking ordinary things and making them holy, not because
• 41:49
  they no longer look ordinary, but because He puts His spirit
• 41:53
  and blessing and life in them and the essence of them becomes
• 41:58
  to be transformed. There is something spiritually
• 42:00
  sacred that occurs. So every moment in your day can
• 42:05
  be a holy moment when consecrated, dedicated, set
• 42:10
  apart and and offered to God as such.
• 42:15
  I think the same is true with the bread and the juice.
• 42:19
  It doesn't have to be a brand of bread.
• 42:20
  It doesn't have to be a certain brand of wine or juice.
• 42:23
  It doesn't have to be in a certain cup or done a certain
• 42:26
  way. It's the element that Jesus has
• 42:29
  blessed his people and Jesus blesses his people, brings us
• 42:33
  together as one and we come to his table and we take and we eat
• 42:37
  and we ingest into our bodies. A symbolic significant sign that
• 42:44
  says I am. I am part of the life of God.
• 42:47
  I have received believing the life of God.
• 42:49
  In this act of faith I am indeed taking a holy sacred moment that
• 42:55
  is blessed and right and and he has come and wants to draw near
• 43:02
  to me. And this is a physical way in
• 43:04
  which I can interact with the truth that transcends anyone
• 43:08
  moment. And God takes ordinary things
• 43:10
  and makes them holy. He can take water and move and
• 43:14
  transform it to make it become wine.
• 43:17
  And He does that in our souls all the time.
• 43:19
  He can take the sinfulness of who we are, clean us out and
• 43:22
  pour His Spirit in its place, and we become filled with the
• 43:26
  very presence of God. But Jesus took the bread,
• 43:29
  blessed it, and broke it at the Last Supper.
• 43:31
  He says, take and eat, Do this in remembrance of me.
• 43:36
  He did not say do this in replication of me.
• 43:40
  He did not just say do this as a transformed substance in me.
• 43:44
  He just said do it in in remembrance.
• 43:47
  I think the Spirit is present among us when we are there and
• 43:51
  more than two of us are gathered in His name.
• 43:53
  When we encounter the presence of Jesus at the table, we are
• 43:57
  remembering that we are carriers of His Spirit and have received
• 44:02
  His life and we are partakers of His divine nature in this
• 44:07
  moment. Through the Spirit that we
• 44:09
  embody the life of Jesus as the body of Christ on the earth and
• 44:12
  we feast on the eternal bread of life and are filled.
• 44:16
  This is a sacred and it is blessed in its way.
• 44:21
  We don't have to change forms in order to receive of these
• 44:25
  things. We are still the physical
• 44:27
  substance we are, yet we are declared blessed and sacred,
• 44:30
  holy unto Him. We do experience something
• 44:34
  transcendent too. It's so.
• 44:36
  It's not so much that it is transubstantiation, but there is
• 44:40
  something trans transcendent in the moment that occurs and the
• 44:45
  Spirit is at work. Just like the Spirit was
• 44:48
  hovering over the waters before all of creation was formed.
• 44:53
  In the very essence of who we are and the Spirit and the deep
• 44:57
  well of the water of the Spirit in US, there is something that
• 45:02
  hovers within us and produces life.
• 45:06
  There's something transcendent that occurs that brings us
• 45:09
  together. And the Holy Spirit still hovers
• 45:11
  over us and brings us together and he is binding us together in
• 45:17
  unity and love and the Spirit is pulling us together.
• 45:20
  And so whether you're using a saltine or some gluten free
• 45:23
  version, the substance doesn't matter near as much as the
• 45:28
  spiritual significance of what the moment represents in
• 45:33
  remembering of, of taking the members and remembering us
• 45:37
  together as one in the family of God and, and we experience
• 45:41
  something truly transcendent. But the substance itself, it's
• 45:47
  still a substance and it doesn't have to change for God to make
• 45:51
  it holy. God still can declare things
• 45:54
  holy that we would deem unholy. And that's a significant sign of
• 46:01
  who Jesus is as the bread of life and the water for life.
• 46:07
  Let's jump into some question and response now as we start to
• 46:10
  wrap up today's episode. Here's the first question.
• 46:14
  How can an unbeliever that thinks he has the world by the
• 46:17
  tail be convinced that he really just has a skunk by the tail?
• 46:23
  Funny turn of phrase for sure. I, I think it's important to, to
• 46:28
  know, note, note a few things like obviously in essence, this
• 46:31
  question is asking, you know, is there a way that we can help
• 46:34
  convince someone that, and the things that they think are
• 46:38
  satisfying and they're really not, they're not satisfying.
• 46:43
  I think there are. But let me give you this grid or
• 46:46
  framework #1 Jesus says no one comes to the Father unless the
• 46:50
  Spirit draws him. So we pray for the Spirit to
• 46:53
  open people's eyes, soften their hearts, and give them ears to
• 46:58
  hear what God is saying and doing around them.
• 47:02
  It's a dangerous prayer because sometimes circumstances give
• 47:04
  people open eyes, hardships soften hearts and
• 47:09
  disappointments kind of open our our our eyes to see things that
• 47:14
  we didn't see see before possibilities.
• 47:17
  And so I can feel that way. In fact, in Ephesians one Paul
• 47:23
  writes and he says, pray that the eyes of their understanding
• 47:25
  would be enlightened to the hope and the calling that Christ has
• 47:29
  or that is available through Christ Jesus that the the
• 47:31
  blinders that the enemy of our world has put on people's eyes
• 47:35
  that those would be removed. So, so we have to pray for
• 47:38
  people. I think we need to pray more
• 47:41
  than we preach at people. We need to pray for people more
• 47:43
  than we preach at people. I think another thing that we
• 47:47
  can do very practically is that we live fully alive and
• 47:51
  satisfied in Jesus. Like we cultivate this union
• 47:54
  with God that is alive, where we're removing every obstacle
• 47:59
  that is hindering the the flow of the river of the life of God
• 48:03
  from flowing in us through us and overflowing from us.
• 48:07
  We make sure that we're not being satisfied by too many
• 48:10
  temporal things, that materialism and experience of,
• 48:15
  of entertainment purposes and other distractions that we're,
• 48:18
  we're actually becoming fully alive, that we're growing more
• 48:22
  in our union and communion with father, son in spirit and being
• 48:26
  satisfied in that way. Not, not satisfied in a way of
• 48:29
  showing off or trying to be impressive or even looking down
• 48:34
  at other people, but in truly being alive and satisfied.
• 48:37
  Like, and then we talk about it. We're not ashamed of.
• 48:40
  It's like, Oh man, I just loved getting to sit with the Lord
• 48:43
  this week. I just want to walk.
• 48:44
  And I just sensed the Lord walking with me.
• 48:46
  And there was a, a great time of just prayer and honesty with
• 48:49
  God. And, and when you don't do it
• 48:51
  well and you fail and you're, you get satisfied by the wrong
• 48:54
  things and you just binge out all day and it doesn't really
• 48:57
  produce lasting life. It doesn't really recharge and
• 49:01
  energize your spirit the way that other things would.
• 49:05
  What I think you'd be honest about that.
• 49:07
  And I think finally we like John the Baptist, get to point out
• 49:11
  when Jesus starts to show up in those lives, we get to lovingly
• 49:17
  listen and carefully point them to water and bread.
• 49:22
  That satisfies especially when they get fed up on on eating the
• 49:27
  substitutes that aren't really satisfying when we are loving
• 49:31
  and we are patient with friends, Co workers, family members,
• 49:36
  they'll eventually come to the point where the things that they
• 49:39
  find so tasteful about the world and the world system, they
• 49:43
  become less tasteful. We, we pray for them and we wait
• 49:49
  and we love and we point them to Jesus.
• 49:51
  And often times, man, I'm just sitting listening and talking
• 49:55
  with people and it's a slow process.
• 49:57
  But when people start to feel a dissatisfaction because
• 50:03
  everything they've been doing to add satisfaction into their life
• 50:07
  is only creating more anxiety, more busyness, more emptiness,
• 50:12
  less deep connections and more transactional relationships in
• 50:15
  their lives, people begin to take notice on their own when
• 50:19
  they actually give pause. And often times I will in
• 50:23
  conversations with people who don't really follow Jesus, just
• 50:25
  kind of point out, you know, that it doesn't have to be that
• 50:28
  way. But I just found a different way
• 50:30
  of living that has brought me more fully alive.
• 50:34
  What what was it that they said in at the beginning when I was
• 50:38
  talking about that article says like, I found that Christianity
• 50:42
  is the one which generates the greatest human flourishing.
• 50:46
  I think people want to experience human flourishing and
• 50:49
  it's not that human Christianity is just about becoming a better
• 50:53
  version of you that that's actually not.
• 50:55
  The point is to give glory to God and bring God glory and
• 50:58
  honor in those areas. And, and when we point out that
• 51:01
  people keep glorying in themselves and better self help
• 51:05
  and self improvement, and it still leaves them feeling
• 51:07
  shallow and on the short end of it, well, that's when we get to
• 51:11
  show them about the bread of life and the water of life and
• 51:14
  we get to help them. You may not have to convince
• 51:17
  them. Life itself will convince them.
• 51:20
  And you can just simply point out where Jesus can work and how
• 51:23
  Jesus can work in, in their lives.
• 51:28
  Question #2 Can you share more about the outward signs that
• 51:33
  explain something holy or, or more significant?
• 51:35
  Yeah, Well, some of the things that I talked about is how the
• 51:39
  crowds, they followed they, they were pursuing Jesus And and I
• 51:43
  love that. I love it that people who had a
• 51:47
  genuine need met people who had a genuine encounter with Jesus,
• 51:52
  like they, they want to follow Jesus.
• 51:54
  They really to go the other side of the leg.
• 51:56
  They moved their schedules, they made themselves inconvenienced.
• 52:00
  Nothing else became as important to them as pursuing Jesus.
• 52:03
  And for many people, that starts innocently but often misguided
• 52:09
  in. In other words, like the crowd,
• 52:11
  you could hear the message but still miss the full meaning of
• 52:14
  it. You can see the sign, but miss
• 52:17
  the significance of the sign. And they saw the sign like, hey,
• 52:20
  Moses is here. Moses was a deliverer.
• 52:23
  Moses brought us bread. So Moses gave us everything that
• 52:26
  we needed, and he delivered us. That's what we need.
• 52:29
  We need more money and a new government.
• 52:32
  Let's go. And they just went hook, line
• 52:36
  and sinker in that direction. Now, that's a little bit of
• 52:41
  maybe a tongue in cheek or it's not a one for one, but that's
• 52:46
  essentially what's happening. Moses delivered the people from
• 52:49
  an oppressor. This guy's doing some of the
• 52:52
  same signs Moses did. He must be here to deliver us
• 52:54
  from our oppression. And and they thought the
• 52:57
  oppressor they were being delivered from was Rome, like it
• 53:00
  was some political entity. And Jesus is like, you all
• 53:05
  missed it. You missed the point, Moses.
• 53:09
  They saw what Moses did and they assumed that everything was
• 53:13
  going to be merely physical, meeting their needs, missing the
• 53:18
  holy reality of who Jesus was and what he was sent to be, and
• 53:24
  the significance of their need underneath what they had as a
• 53:30
  need. And this is what Jesus often
• 53:33
  does. He will give us bread to help us
• 53:37
  recognize, oh, I have a need. But that bread is meant to be
• 53:41
  significantly more than just mere bread.
• 53:45
  It's actually meant to show us that there's a longing
• 53:48
  underneath our need. You've heard me talk a lot about
• 53:54
  primal questions and I was just having a conversation with
• 53:56
  somebody today about how interesting that the more I read
• 54:01
  and study and learn about the, the, the primal question, the
• 54:04
  more it really does help me in my pastoral work.
• 54:06
  Because so many times people come in and this problem and
• 54:10
  this problem and this thing and this thing and this thing and
• 54:12
  this thing they have going on. I mean, all of those things are
• 54:16
  very legitimate real. It's almost like this is a fire.
• 54:19
  This is a fire. We got to do this, this is on
• 54:20
  fire. We got to fix this.
• 54:21
  And, and there are some very real, real things like that, But
• 54:25
  most of the time there's something deeper underneath the
• 54:29
  surface that is motivating and bringing those other needs
• 54:32
  actually to the surface. And so we think what we need is
• 54:36
  this to meet our needs, but what we actually need is something
• 54:40
  more substantial under underneath it.
• 54:42
  And that's how it shows up in our life.
• 54:44
  Now Jesus, from a theological perspective of understanding
• 54:49
  Scripture and studying the Scripture, Jesus was 100%
• 54:52
  intentionally doing these signs to point to something more
• 54:57
  significant. Just like in the rituals of
• 55:01
  Passover, the blood on the doorpost, it was meaningful.
• 55:05
  It had moment, it met a need in the original Passover.
• 55:09
  And every time they reenacted and remembered the blood on the
• 55:12
  doorpost, it wasn't just so. They always remembered the blood
• 55:16
  on the doorpost and how God got them out of Egypt.
• 55:18
  It was that it was a foretelling of Jesus delivering us from the
• 55:23
  very Pharaohs of our own slavery to sin and self.
• 55:28
  This is what he was pointing to. So all of these signs were
• 55:32
  explaining something holy and significant beyond what meant
• 55:38
  the eye. It was more than surface level,
• 55:41
  meaning I use the example of how physical things point to
• 55:48
  something more significant and that's again, John the Baptist.
• 55:52
  He did something significant, but he was here as a signpost to
• 55:56
  something more significant, IE Jesus.
• 56:00
  He said, hey, y'all are baptized with water, but someone's coming
• 56:03
  after me. And I just want to point out
• 56:05
  he's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
• 56:08
  And that's why Jesus is sitting here in John 7 talking about the
• 56:11
  river of living water pouring from your spirit and from your
• 56:14
  soul. And if you want to know what the
• 56:16
  the river of living water is, John is very clear in John 7 and
• 56:20
  verse 303738 when he says, and this he is talking about the
• 56:25
  Holy Spirit who would be poured out for us.
• 56:28
  So John is really helping us see what Jesus is talking about
• 56:32
  here. Jesus is saying this, but he's
• 56:35
  really trying to signify this. Here is the sign that Jesus did.
• 56:41
  But here's the significance. Underneath the sign, there's
• 56:44
  something more than what meets the initial eye.
• 56:48
  It's not just meeting a need, it's meeting a need that helps
• 56:53
  you become satisfied in the core need of who you are.
• 56:58
  And we all have those things in our lives, just like you come to
• 57:02
  Colorado and you see the sign, welcome to Colorado.
• 57:05
  You get out, you take your picture, you do your thing.
• 57:08
  You don't just stop at the sign. You don't just hang out and
• 57:11
  spend all of your vacation at the sign.
• 57:13
  You don't just sit back and like, oh, I just want another
• 57:15
  sign of Colorado. And you never step into the
• 57:20
  invitation that that sign was meant to do.
• 57:23
  The sign is meant to initiate an invitation into a beautiful
• 57:28
  exploration of land known as Colorado.
• 57:32
  Now, if you don't like Colorado, I'm sorry.
• 57:33
  That's just the best analogy I've got for you today.
• 57:37
  You can pick another place, another California, Texas,
• 57:41
  whatever. I don't know.
• 57:42
  Welcome to North Carolina. My kids love that in the Smoky
• 57:45
  Mountains. Right.
• 57:45
  Like, OK, the point isn't the sign.
• 57:50
  The, the real reality is that the sign is pointing to
• 57:53
  something more beautiful, more significant, more of a
• 57:56
  invitation into something that is transcendent and true.
• 58:02
  And so they the, the, the crowds, they needed a new grid
• 58:08
  of understanding. We all need a new grid of
• 58:11
  understanding. And Jesus will often use
• 58:14
  physical things as a sign, actions, miracles, teachings,
• 58:22
  illustrations, parables, to help us create a new grid, to deepen
• 58:30
  and to integrate our understanding into a life of
• 58:33
  faith. And Jesus does this beautifully.
• 58:36
  This was an invitation into a life giving allegiance and
• 58:41
  belief in Jesus, the Son of God, the lamb who would take away the
• 58:45
  sins of of the world. And, and it's a beautiful,
• 58:50
  beautiful invitation. And so the significance behind
• 58:55
  the signs that Jesus was performing wasn't just about the
• 58:58
  outward signs. It was pointing to something
• 59:01
  more significant. So much of the embodied
• 59:05
  experience in the life of faith, symbols, rituals, things that we
• 59:10
  do aren't about those things being significant themselves.
• 59:16
  There's a deeper, richer, wholeer, more sacred and right
• 59:20
  meaning behind the signs, the substances, the the things that
• 59:26
  signal our life of faith. But participating and doing them
• 59:32
  in a physical manner helps seed a deeper integration and grid
• 59:39
  for understanding something true.
• 59:40
  It's kind of like by using signs, by using physical things
• 59:45
  like this, Jesus is helping them take something from an abstract
• 59:50
  idea into concrete realities, helping to paint a better
• 59:55
  picture that's tangible, taste able, ingestible, and proper for
• 1:00:01
  them to understand and encounter him.
• 1:00:04
  And so signs were important and true and meaningful, but they
• 1:00:10
  also signified something much, much more, in fact.
• 1:00:16
  I quoted from a book earlier entitled God is on Your Side by
• 1:00:21
  Joshua Ryan Butler. I just picked this book up about
• 1:00:23
  a week ago. I'm about halfway through it.
• 1:00:26
  I can't hardly stop reading it. It's a beautiful, well written
• 1:00:31
  book and you know what he's talking about primarily in this,
• 1:00:34
  how God is showing up in the signs of Jesus, how Jesus doing
• 1:00:38
  these signs through the Gospel of John points to significant
• 1:00:42
  truths throughout the Scripture, revealing God and revealing who
• 1:00:47
  God is. It is a great book, a great
• 1:00:50
  read. And I guarantee you I'm going to
• 1:00:52
  be borrowing more from his work as we keep studying the book of
• 1:00:55
  John because it's absolutely helpful, brilliant, and written
• 1:00:58
  in a really, really unaccessible, accessible away.
• 1:01:02
  So if you're a reader, pick it up.
• 1:01:03
  If you're an Audible person, go get the audiobook.
• 1:01:06
  If you're neither one of those people, I got nothing for you.
• 1:01:09
  You really should try it instead.
• 1:01:11
  And, you know, learn and grow and keep expanding your horizons
• 1:01:15
  in good biblical things. Be a student of the Word.
• 1:01:18
  That's what I would say. All right, three more questions
• 1:01:21
  here. It is question #3 I know God
• 1:01:24
  will supply everything that we need, but what would you say to
• 1:01:29
  someone who is struggling with issues surrounding say, sex?
• 1:01:32
  Can God? God can provide food to those
• 1:01:34
  who are hungry and money to someone struggling financially,
• 1:01:38
  but how can he provide satisfaction to someone
• 1:01:40
  struggling sexually? Great question.
• 1:01:45
  I love this question and I, I I'm going to do my best to
• 1:01:49
  answer it as completely as I can and as sensitively as I as I
• 1:01:54
  can. At first, I would say it really
• 1:01:57
  depends on the, the issue surrounding sexuality and the
• 1:02:02
  struggle that they're experiencing as to how I would
• 1:02:05
  respond or say some things to them.
• 1:02:07
  But let me give you a few thoughts first.
• 1:02:13
  Sexual intimacy is a gift. I, I, I really do believe that
• 1:02:16
  it is a gift. Now, it is a gift that has a
• 1:02:20
  very clear dominant purpose, the purpose for sexual intimacy
• 1:02:26
  between one man and one woman that God gave as a means of
• 1:02:31
  helping fulfill the Commission that God has given to humanity
• 1:02:36
  to be fruitful and multiply. That is the primary, how do I
• 1:02:44
  say this? That is the primary purpose of
• 1:02:47
  sexual intimacy in, in a marriage, procreation.
• 1:02:50
  That's the primary point. There are secondary things like
• 1:02:54
  it also kind of helps us experience intimacy in a very,
• 1:02:59
  very embodied, physical way. I love that about God that he
• 1:03:04
  does that for us. He invented this whole idea.
• 1:03:07
  God is not approved. God is not against it.
• 1:03:09
  It's actually pure and holy. And the the marriage bed is to
• 1:03:12
  remain sacred and holy in those very same ways.
• 1:03:16
  I think the Bible has plenty to say on the subject of sexuality.
• 1:03:20
  And the church stays quiet too often on it.
• 1:03:24
  And I'm continuing to educate myself.
• 1:03:26
  In fact, I've got a couple books I'm reading right now trying to
• 1:03:29
  educate myself better on the subjects and matters that that
• 1:03:33
  are that we deal with in culture from a better biblical lens to
• 1:03:37
  be able to help meet meet people where they're at and help it
• 1:03:41
  help them explore God more thoroughly and fully in in these
• 1:03:45
  subject matters. And I think it's really
• 1:03:48
  important that we have a clear biblically true sexual ethic in
• 1:03:55
  every arena that it would that would hit.
• 1:03:58
  Now that's the that's the gift. But can I just say sex being a
• 1:04:03
  gift doesn't mean that sex is God.
• 1:04:06
  And I think for many people, we elevate our sexual desire to God
• 1:04:10
  like status to where it dictates and controls us.
• 1:04:16
  I think that's a problem. So to the married person who
• 1:04:20
  feels like this is such a deep seated need in my life that if I
• 1:04:25
  don't have this need met, I'm going to die, I would just
• 1:04:28
  simply say you're wrong. There's never been a person who
• 1:04:31
  died because of too little sexual, too little sexual
• 1:04:36
  intimacy. Like never read that news story,
• 1:04:39
  right? Like, Yep, that guy 1-2 didn't,
• 1:04:42
  didn't have near enough. Like, it's just not.
• 1:04:44
  It's not there not having bread and water.
• 1:04:46
  Yeah, people have died for not having food without a doubt,
• 1:04:49
  Right. But like, all right, I'm having
• 1:04:52
  a little bit of fun here. Tongue in cheeking that a little
• 1:04:55
  bit. But it is a gift.
• 1:04:56
  It's not God and we have a tendency to elevate gifts from
• 1:05:01
  God to becoming God themselves, which is why so many people have
• 1:05:04
  a hard time with Jesus is teaching on not having marriage
• 1:05:08
  in heaven because it's not so much just the relational side of
• 1:05:11
  things. We're like, man, we just want to
• 1:05:12
  have sex in a perfect body. And so like, I'm not sure how I
• 1:05:16
  feel about that Lord. Like we miss, misaligned, and
• 1:05:20
  misappropriate those things. On another broader scope, I
• 1:05:25
  would say if God can give a desire, God can also change a
• 1:05:28
  desire. He can strengthen our discipline
• 1:05:32
  within a desire as well. I would also say that having
• 1:05:40
  attraction isn't the sin. It's feeding the attraction to
• 1:05:45
  where it becomes an appetite and a craving that we feast on in
• 1:05:49
  unholy ways. That's where we begin to
• 1:05:52
  transgress the ways of God. And I think Scripture, even
• 1:05:58
  Jesus is really clear that it's not the attraction that is the
• 1:06:02
  sin, it's the action that is the sin.
• 1:06:06
  And, and then the meditative elements of that lead to the
• 1:06:09
  actions that can cultivate a waywardness in our, in our heart
• 1:06:16
  that that, and, and even in so doing, like you could be perfect
• 1:06:19
  in this area and still miss out on heaven, like, because
• 1:06:23
  sinfulness is still rooted in US.
• 1:06:25
  And so when Jesus like, hey, you could, if your right eye caused
• 1:06:28
  you to sin, pluck it out. It's better to get to heaven.
• 1:06:30
  It's like it doesn't matter if you mutilate your entire self,
• 1:06:34
  you still can't get into heaven, heaven on your own.
• 1:06:36
  You still can't enter the Kingdom of God in your own
• 1:06:38
  strength and effort. And so we we need to to
• 1:06:40
  recognize that only God can help us overcome a life of sinfulness
• 1:06:48
  and brokenness and, and only he can truly sustain real life in
• 1:06:53
  US. No other thing becomes a
• 1:06:55
  substitute. And so for many people, we take
• 1:06:58
  a gift that God has given us that helps us have a euphoric
• 1:07:01
  experience, transcendence. We get to touch and taste a
• 1:07:04
  little bit of that, that expressiveness of love in and of
• 1:07:08
  itself, that we take that as a, as a means of, of helping us
• 1:07:13
  understand how powerful and beautiful and and, and, and
• 1:07:15
  wonderful life can be. And we, we, we treat it as a God
• 1:07:19
  in and of itself. And we begin to demand from God.
• 1:07:22
  So if if God were to forgive all of your sins, but never give you
• 1:07:26
  the opportunity to have sexual intimacy in marriage, it would
• 1:07:30
  have been enough. He doesn't owe that to you.
• 1:07:32
  He doesn't owe any of us those things.
• 1:07:35
  Now, any gift God gives us must be stewarded in accordance with
• 1:07:41
  the ways of God. So that's why I think sexual
• 1:07:44
  intimacy is a gift. Understanding our desires, it is
• 1:07:47
  a gift. And, and so for us and, and to
• 1:07:52
  wrap this kind of part up, and there's a lot of things that
• 1:07:55
  could go and there's a lot of probably comments that might
• 1:07:57
  come in when we snip some of this.
• 1:07:59
  Well, what about this? And here's that.
• 1:08:00
  My point is not to give a full, full scope.
• 1:08:02
  I'm just trying to answer this one.
• 1:08:04
  One element of the question in terms of satisfaction and God
• 1:08:08
  meeting our, our needs and the struggles that that we have.
• 1:08:12
  I think it's important to remember that one of the things
• 1:08:17
  sexual intimacy does is it strengthens a connection with
• 1:08:21
  another person. It deepens a relationship.
• 1:08:26
  It is not the only way relationships are deepened and
• 1:08:30
  connection is fostered. In other words, if you are a
• 1:08:34
  person who never maybe doesn't get married and you see chased
• 1:08:39
  in that area or you were married and then you you that that
• 1:08:43
  marriage ended and now you are single again and living to honor
• 1:08:49
  God celibately with your body and your desires.
• 1:08:52
  Hear me, you are no less complete in God than someone who
• 1:08:58
  is having intimacy with their spouse.
• 1:09:01
  Like it's not a part of that, that equation.
• 1:09:04
  Like you are loved and and and found and your connection and
• 1:09:08
  relationships can be enriched without those things.
• 1:09:13
  So, so sexual connection has has a bonding chemical to it that
• 1:09:17
  helps a man and a woman really just bond together.
• 1:09:20
  That's great. There are other ways in which
• 1:09:23
  God helps bring rich, meaningful relational connection with other
• 1:09:28
  human beings that meets the needs.
• 1:09:31
  So we are not lonely and we don't feel isolated.
• 1:09:34
  God still meets those needs on the other side.
• 1:09:37
  So some of the things that that we actually benefit from in
• 1:09:40
  intimacy, God meets in other other ways, in a non sexual way
• 1:09:45
  is what I'm trying to say. And so I think it really does
• 1:09:50
  come down to all of these things that this is a gift from God
• 1:09:53
  that we steward. And, and while there is a a high
• 1:09:58
  dependency on a need being met in certain individuals and some
• 1:10:03
  people have a higher drive than others.
• 1:10:04
  And there's been a lot written about drive and sexual drive
• 1:10:08
  and, and the genders and, and how do you understand that?
• 1:10:11
  And, and somebody in, in a marriage maybe struggling where
• 1:10:15
  they want to have more sex and their spouse wants to have, and
• 1:10:18
  what they really have is, is a communication and an expectation
• 1:10:21
  problem. Not really.
• 1:10:23
  It's just showing up as on the surface as a sex problem.
• 1:10:27
  But there's actually deeper, probably more more important
• 1:10:31
  connection, communication and expectation conversations that
• 1:10:35
  need to happen more than more than just the intimacy side of
• 1:10:38
  things. And, and, and, and by no means
• 1:10:41
  am I saying like, if you're in a sexless marriage, you should
• 1:10:44
  just kill your desire for it. I don't necessarily think that
• 1:10:47
  that's necessarily what God is. But there is an element of, of
• 1:10:51
  laying yourself down to serve your spouse.
• 1:10:54
  And I think there are biblical frameworks to understanding how
• 1:10:59
  to navigate a marriage where it doesn't feel like intimacy is
• 1:11:03
  possible or even or, or frequent enough that there are biblical
• 1:11:11
  ways in which we have to have biblical frameworks around those
• 1:11:15
  things. Somebody who is finding
• 1:11:17
  themselves not satisfied because their appetite is in the wrong
• 1:11:21
  thing. What do we do with that?
• 1:11:22
  Well, again, I kind of hit that loosely that God strengthens us
• 1:11:26
  and disciplines us in our desires.
• 1:11:29
  Desires are a gift, but desires aren't God.
• 1:11:32
  Sex is a gift, but sex is not God.
• 1:11:34
  And ultimately in our culture, we tend to elevate those kinds
• 1:11:40
  of things to God like levels where we idolize them, crave
• 1:11:44
  them and long for them. And I think we have to be honest
• 1:11:47
  enough to say, do I, do I crave that more than I crave I crave
• 1:11:50
  God or do I crave that more than I?
• 1:11:53
  It's strong, it's certainly there and has purpose and power
• 1:11:56
  to it, but I think we have to reorient our understanding of
• 1:12:02
  all of these things in this way. Same thing with money, right?
• 1:12:05
  Like having money isn't the end all be all, but there are
• 1:12:09
  certain reality. God provides, God brings along.
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  God meets us at our surface need, but he also meets us at
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  the more significant need under the surface.
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  And I think that's really what God can and and does does do
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  question #4 how can we feast on the bread of, of life?
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  It is true Jesus kind of correlates and says, I am the
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  bread of life. I am the word of God that came
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  down from heaven, just like the manna in the wilderness came
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  down from heaven. I, the living word of God have
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  come to you. So how do we feast on the bread
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  of life? I think we read the word of God
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  daily. We just read the scriptures.
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  It's living, active, it's alive. Just read, read the scriptures,
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  just sit down and and read them daily.
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  I think we can feast on the bread of life by communing with
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  the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
• 1:13:03
  Like recognizing that the abiding presence of God is in US
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  and with us each moment and each and each day.
• 1:13:11
  And so now we really want to honor the Lord in that way.
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  I think that's important. And so reading the word
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  everyday, talking about the word with others, time with God
• 1:13:26
  yourself, just sitting still, you know, at the end of of
• 1:13:30
  service, we took some time for some abiding prayer.
• 1:13:33
  What what I call abiding or commuting prayer, where we just
• 1:13:36
  sit and ask the Lord, Lord, is there anything hindering?
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  Is there anything I'm feasting on that I shouldn't be feasting
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  on? Is there anything hindering the
• 1:13:46
  the river of your spirit from flowing freely and fully in and
• 1:13:53
  through my life? Is there anywhere where I'm
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  settling for a substitute versus your real bread and source of
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  life? I think having those moments of
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  prayer, reading the scriptures, being slow with it, just high
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  intake on the the bread of God and digesting or talking about
• 1:14:17
  the bread of God, the word of God with others in community
• 1:14:21
  helps you feast on the bread of life.
• 1:14:25
  Final question during the message and in John 6, it's
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  highlighting that that seeking Jesus rather than seeking even
• 1:14:33
  miracles. There are there are times where
• 1:14:35
  the Bible says just to come to him though.
• 1:14:38
  What's the proper way to ask God for miracles or even needs in
• 1:14:41
  our life? Is this inappropriate to ask for
• 1:14:44
  totally or how do you differentiate between the two?
• 1:14:48
  Is it wrong to ask God for miracles?
• 1:14:50
  How can we distinguish between even seeking his blessings and
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  seeking him himself? I, I love the the the kind of
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  teasing out of of this question because you know, on one hand,
• 1:15:03
  you we are told, Hey, come to the Lord.
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  First thing I want to point out is that we get to bring our
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  petitions to the Lord. Paul says petition, bring your
• 1:15:14
  petitions and requests to the Lord.
• 1:15:17
  When you bring a petition and a request, that's not a demand,
• 1:15:20
  nor is it a guarantee that he's going to grant the request or
• 1:15:23
  petition. But none the less, we're still
• 1:15:26
  told to petition. We're still told to request.
• 1:15:29
  So where's the distinguishing line?
• 1:15:33
  We start to love the things of God more than we love God.
• 1:15:37
  So if you are more prone to just giving God a list of demands and
• 1:15:42
  requests, but you're never just sitting still in His presence,
• 1:15:45
  enjoying time with Him, I would say you're pursuing gifts more
• 1:15:49
  than you're pursuing Him. We want to seek His face, not
• 1:15:53
  the things that come from His hands alone.
• 1:15:57
  If you only talk to God when you need something and you're not
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  just developing a, a conversational way of, of
• 1:16:07
  interacting with God, I would say that you're kind of reducing
• 1:16:11
  your relationship God down to transactional methods of things.
• 1:16:15
  So we're told to bring our request to God 100%.
• 1:16:18
  I think it's OK to ask for bold things, big things, miraculous
• 1:16:22
  things, bring the request to God.
• 1:16:25
  But ultimately we trust him with the outcomes.
• 1:16:28
  And regardless of the outcomes, we still know that He is enough.
• 1:16:36
  We're we're, we're, we're still spending time with Him.
• 1:16:40
  I do have a tendency in my life to to kind of alternate.
• 1:16:45
  Sometimes I'm praying it's petitions and requests.
• 1:16:47
  And most of the time I'm praying it's just communing and abiding
• 1:16:51
  with him, enjoying his presence, being with him, talking with
• 1:16:54
  him, exploring life with him. I am I'm trying to enjoy his
• 1:16:57
  presence as much as I'm going and seeking his presence.
• 1:17:03
  Like, Hey God, I need you to give this to me.
• 1:17:05
  Well, more than just his gifts, man, I want to be in his
• 1:17:09
  presence. I want to be near him.
• 1:17:10
  I want to be close to him. I want to I want to commune with
• 1:17:13
  with him. And.
• 1:17:15
  And so when it comes to asking for things, is it wrong to ask?
• 1:17:19
  No, not at all, not at all. It's right to ask.
• 1:17:22
  Where in our heart do we cross the line of only wanting God to
• 1:17:27
  do for us, but not actually wanting a relationship with God
• 1:17:30
  himself? That's where the line is.
• 1:17:32
  And that's something that we have to to go to go out.
• 1:17:35
  And for me, I've just come to the place where in giving and
• 1:17:40
  bringing a petition and request to God, I have to be OK and love
• 1:17:45
  God the same. Whether He grants the request
• 1:17:48
  and the petition or he says not yet or not now or no, flat out
• 1:17:53
  my love for Him will not change. My devotion to Him is not
• 1:17:57
  transactional, dependent on what He does for me.
• 1:18:00
  So the difference between the two isn't that we don't ask or
• 1:18:04
  we do ask. It's that we do ask as a means
• 1:18:08
  by which of growing in our love for Him.
• 1:18:11
  In other words, there is something deepening that happens
• 1:18:15
  when I have to humble myself and be really honest about what I
• 1:18:18
  need from God. I find it easier to ask God for
• 1:18:23
  protection than I do for Him to fill and to be honest about my
• 1:18:28
  level of loneliness. A lot easier to ask God for
• 1:18:32
  meeting someone else's need than to be honest about even my own
• 1:18:35
  need. But when I get honest about my
• 1:18:39
  own need, when I get honest about my own loneliness, when I
• 1:18:41
  get honest about the thing that I feel like I'm not just
• 1:18:44
  satisfied in, I just don't feel sustained or strengthened in.
• 1:18:47
  Well, that allows God to see me and know me and, and, and me
• 1:18:50
  being vulnerable in a new way to the Lord.
• 1:18:53
  I think that strengthens the relationship.
• 1:18:55
  So is it wrong to bring our petitions to the Lord?
• 1:18:58
  Not at all. Is it we?
• 1:19:02
  But what we don't do is depend our love for God on what God has
• 1:19:07
  done for us. That's what we don't do.
• 1:19:11
  And so I, I would say, ask the question, make the request, ask
• 1:19:17
  him for the miracle, stay consistent and persistent in
• 1:19:19
  those prayers. All of that is right and
• 1:19:22
  biblical. And even more so, seek His face,
• 1:19:27
  desire His presence, live with Him, love on Him, and be OK with
• 1:19:33
  Him regardless of outcomes in what we say and do.
• 1:19:37
  Otherwise, we're reducing God back to transactional things
• 1:19:41
  rather than experience the transformational nature of His
• 1:19:45
  abiding presence. If he never answers another one
• 1:19:50
  of my prayers, but he's forgiven me of my sins, it really would
• 1:19:54
  have been enough. And He doesn't owe me anything,
• 1:19:58
  and I owe him man. Everything and listen, that's
• 1:20:03
  going to wrap up today's question and response and all of
• 1:20:07
  episode 35. I hope today has just filled you
• 1:20:11
  with just the love for Jesus and helped you have faith for today.
• 1:20:15
  Hey, until next week friends, just