John 6:22-59 “Seeking the Bread of Life”

1:02In preparation for the sermon this week, I ran across a story from World War II. As the war was drawing to a close, the Allied armies encountered scores and scores of hungry orphans. The orphans were gathered together and they were placed in camps where they were well cared for and they were very well fed. But despite the excellent care and the plenty of Food, the orphans, by and large, slept quite poorly. At nighttime, they seemed to be very anxious, very afraid. Finally, a psychologist came up with a solution. Each child was given a piece of bread to hold after he was put to bed.

1:50This particular piece of bread was just to be held, not to be eaten at that moment. The piece of bread ended up producing wonderful results. The children went to bed knowing instinctively that they would have food the next day. That guarantee that they were going to have bread gave them hope, and it resulted in a restful and contented sleep. As we come to this text today, John chapter 6, verses 22 through 59, this is known as the bread of life discourse. And I hope, by God's grace, to put before your eyes Jesus as the bread of life, who, if sought for, sought after for the right reasons and if taken hold of by faith, will give you hope, will give you rest, will give you contentment, and above all, will give you eternal life. Now, what was read for you earlier, verses 35 through 40, as was mentioned, is only a small portion of the passage that I'm covering today. But that little section encapsulates the three main truths that are woven throughout verses 22. Through 59.

3:02This teaching was delivered by Jesus at a synagogue in Capernaum, and it's tremendously deep. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and it's immensely important. In many ways, I feel like I've come to an ocean of truth, and I somehow, by means of this sermon, have to squeeze it into an eight-ounce glass for you guys this morning. I can only hope the Lord will give me grace to preach this text in a way that honors him and blesses you. Now, let me remind you what's happened up to this point in chapter 6.

3:35The chapter begins with a large crowd following Jesus because they've seen signs of him healing the sick. And so the crowd follows him, and Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them about acquiring food to feed the mass of people. And they, if you'll remember, bring him a young boy's lunch, five loaves and two fish. Jesus, of course, takes the bread and the fish, and he prays to his father and then miraculously feeds 5,000 people. And the people are so excited by this sign that they're ready on the spot by force, if necessary, to make Jesus their king.

4:15But Jesus withdraws from them to be by himself. And when the evening came, the disciples got into a boat and they crossed or began to cross the sea only to get caught in a frightening storm. But even more frightening, a few moments later, they see a A man coming toward them walking on the water. But of course, it was Jesus. And as soon as he got in the boat with them, the Bible says they were immediately on the other side of the sea. So that's where we begin in verse 22. So follow along with me in verse 22. It says, On the next day, the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. They were seeking Jesus. Now that's a good thing, right? When people seek Jesus, I mean, haven't the church growth gurus told us for 40 years that we need to make our churches more seeker-sensitive? So seeking Jesus is a good thing, right?

5:29Not necessarily. Let's continue. Look at verse 25. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? But Jesus isn't going to answer their question. It's not an illogical question. It's just that it's not really what they care about. So Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter, which is a matter of their hearts. In verse 26, he answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your. Fill of the loaves. Jesus wastes no time. He quickly exposes the heart motives that made the type of seeking that they were doing wrong.

6:13It made it bad instead of good. And so, my first observation from today's text, I'll have three points that I want to give you this morning. And the first one is simply this. Our sinful flesh seeks Jesus in order to use Jesus. Our sinful flesh seeks Jesus in order to use Jesus. These people were coming to Jesus to get something other than Jesus. Jesus was merely a means to an end. Jesus says that you are seeking me not because you saw the signs.

6:49And we may stop and say, wait a second, Jesus. No, no, no, they are seeking you because they saw the signs. It was the bread, the miracle bread. It was those healings. That's why they're seeking you, Jesus. But in reality, they saw the signs without really seeing the signs. They didn't see what the signs pointed to, at least. Matthew 13, 13, Jesus says, seeing they do not see, and hearing, they do not hear. They did see the sign, but they truly didn't see it because they didn't see what it was pointing to.

7:22Several years ago, my family went to Disney World, and as you enter Disney World, if you've ever been there, there's this gigantic sign. Welcome you to Disney World. And my family pulled over on the side of the road, and we all got out and stood in front of that big sign and took a picture. Now, how foolish would it have been had we gotten back in the car and turned around and went home? That would have been absolutely foolish. Well, these people here are enamored with the sign, the miracle bread, but they're missing the main attraction: Jesus himself.

7:57They didn't have eyes to see because their eyes were fixed on the things of the earth, their minds were set on the things of the flesh. So Jesus begins to teach them what it is they should be seeking in verse 27. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. Now, real quickly, this reference to setting his seal probably refers to Jesus' baptism.

8:26So they in turn ask another question in verse 28. Okay, fine. If we're supposed to work for that kind of food, they ask the question, what must we do? Okay, what box do we need to check? What do we need to do to be doing the works of God? Give us the formula, Jesus. What steps can we take? What do we need to do? We want more of this bread. Just tell us. And Jesus then says these amazing words in verse 29. This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he has sent. That's it.

9:01That's it. The work is simply to believe, to have faith, to rest in, to trust in the one whom God the Father has sent. This verse right here about trusting, about faith, is really the key to unlocking everything else Jesus is going to say about coming to him, about eating of him, because it's all about belief. It's all about faith. But they don't have the eyes of faith. They have eyes of flesh. So they say, okay, fine. Well, believing in you, that's what we're supposed to do. Well, then, verse 30.

9:36What sign do you do that we may see and believe? What work do you perform? Now, the audacity of this question. I mean, they've just seen him do amazing things. How blind they are. They've seen him feed the 5,000. They've seen him heal people. But their request reveals what their true motive is. Look at verse 31. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness as it is written. Okay. So now they're going to quote scripture, okay? So don't you just love it how they're going to quote scripture for their own selfish desires? So as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. They're referring to the story of God giving the manna to the Israelites as they're going through the wilderness. Jesus, we believe in you if you'll give us more bread. Jesus, we'll trust in you if you'll give us more bread. You'll just provide a little bit more of that miracle bread. I mean, that's what Moses did. That's what happened back to our forefathers. Jesus to them is merely a means to an end. They want a bread-making king who will keep their bellies filled in perpetuity.

10:49Our sinful flesh seeks Jesus in order to use Jesus. And the reason I use the word our in that first point is because that's the default position that every single human being begins with. We begin in the default position of dead hearts, of flesh, of seeking God to get something from God. But even after we're saved, the sinful flesh still manifests itself, doesn't it? For in the church today, people too often seek Jesus as merely a means to some other end.

11:23To improve a broken marriage, to provide a new set of friends, to make us feel better, to get us through college, to give us our best life now, or get us out of hell and get us a ticket to heaven. Too often, Jesus is a means to bring about a seriously selfish and dare I say, idolatrous end. James, the brother of our Lord, warns us of our adulterous motives, of our idolatrous motives. James chapter 4, verses 2 through 4. You do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and do not receive. Because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, you adulterous people.

12:06Oh, friends, as we'll see in today's text, Jesus is not a vehicle to anything other than the enjoyment of his own perfection. Another preacher put it this way: we don't come to Jesus as a connecting flight to our own exaltation, but rather as the final destination of Christ's exaltation. But the people in today's text wanted to use Jesus, they wanted him to be a vehicle for them to merely get more bread. And they're alluding to this Old Testament story of the manna actually reveals they didn't even understand the scriptures, they didn't even understand the purpose of the manna. Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 3.

12:47Moses speaking, says this about that experience. He says, He, referring to God, humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know. Why? Why did he do that? That you may know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The purpose of the manna wasn't to fill their bellies. The purpose of the manna was to teach them that they needed something more than bread. They needed promises. They needed promises that came from God, and they needed to put their faith in those promises. They needed to trust in the God who gives a word to them. That's what they needed. That was what the manna was pointing to. And so these people didn't even realize that. They didn't even understand that all along it was pointing to faith. So Jesus exposes their selfish ignorance in verse 32. Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you true bread from heaven. In other words, the manna wasn't the true bread, nor was the little boy's loaves that were miraculously multiplied. That wasn't true bread. Verse 33: For the bread of God is He.

14:06The bread is a man, He who comes down from heaven. The true bread is more than a man, it's a God-man. And you're going to see this come down from heaven phrase repeated over and over in this text. Why? This is the true bread. Why? To give life to the world. But with eyes still focused on earthly, fleshly things, they respond. In verse 34, Sir, give us this bread always. That sounds delicious, Jesus. Give us a little bit more of that. We'll take an order of that. Matter of fact, I'll take two. I'll take one home with me. Just give me some of that bread, Jesus. But they didn't understand. They were responding exactly the same way the woman at the well was. You remember the woman at the well in John chapter 4 when Jesus tells her that he'll provide her with water that leads to eternal life, that springs up a well that was. Up within her, and she says, Sir, give me this water so I won't be thirsty or have to come here and draw water.

15:07Jesus was still merely a means to an end for them, a means to get something other than him. And in this case, bread, because they had eyes of flesh. But Jesus wants to give them eyes of faith. And that leads me to our second point. So, first, our sinful flesh seeks Jesus in order to use Jesus, but secondly, our awakened faith seeks Jesus in order to have Jesus. If you come to Jesus to simply get Jesus, it's because faith has been awakened in you. And now you have eyes to see. So now Jesus is going to make it crystal clear and call on them to have faith. Verse 35: Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. This is the first of his seven I am statements in the book of John, right? I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. This verse is the heartbeat of this entire passage. He doesn't just give bread, he is the bread, spiritual bread that gives spiritual life. Now, I want you to notice the parallelism here in this verse. So, whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever Believes in me shall never thirst. So coming and believing are the same thing. The way you come to Jesus is to simply believe. That's how we come to Jesus. We place our faith in him. This reinforces what he already said in verse 29: that the only work required is to simply believe. Believe. And belief in Jesus is the only way to satisfy your spiritual hunger. You see, friends, we are all born. Every single human being that's ever lived is born with a spiritual hunger. And we in our flesh try to satiate that hunger with a myriad of idols that never satisfy. The great Augustine said this, Thou hast formed us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.

17:25We all have a hunger for Christ. On an atheist subreddit, a young lady recently wrote this, I'm confused. I always believed science would be the cure-all for my problems, but I don't know if I can keep living without eternal life. I guess I'll just have to find a way to make it through this meaningless existence. I just wish I knew of someone who could show me the path to eternal life. If science can't provide the answers, though, then who or what can you do? Sigh. Doesn't it seem like there's a higher power that gives our life purpose? Well, science says there isn't, so I guess there isn't. This young lady was following the science, wasn't she? Following the science straight into the grave because science wasn't going to satisfy her hunger. What you're reading in her words is the rumbling of spiritual hunger pains that every single human being possesses. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. God put the hunger in every single human being's heart. Now, let me make it more real than some unknown atheist on Reddit. Perhaps you remember an interview that Tom Brady did back in 2005 with 60 Minutes. I don't know if any of y'all saw that interview years and years ago, but this is back in 2005, you know, when Brady had only won three Super Bowls, okay?

19:06So Tom Brady says, why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, hey, man, this is what it is. I reached my goal, my dream, my life. But me, I think it's got to be more than this. I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. And then the Interviewer asked him the question, Well, what's the answer? And Tom Brady responded, I wish I knew. I wish I knew.

19:39Friends, Tom Brady has tasted more of this world's bread, fame, and fortune than almost anyone else in history, but he was still hungry. He's still thirsty. You can have every treasure this world can give, but you will have no true satisfaction until you treasure Christ above all things. It's only when we take hold of Christ, the bread of life, that we, according to Jesus in verse 35, shall not hunger and shall never thirst. Now, this doesn't mean that we'll cease to desire Jesus, we'll cease to desire the bread of life, but that we'll never be without it. Christ, in Christ, we never again will lack the spiritual food that we need, for it will multiply into eternity, providing us with life and with peace. Now, the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking, they should have known, they should have known from the scriptures that they needed something greater than just physical bread. Isaiah 55, verses 1 through 3, the prophet says this, or God says this through the prophet: Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy, and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you? You spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me, here that your soul may live.

21:18Now, in verses 36 through 40, Jesus is going to say some pretty startling things that we're going to come back to in a bit, okay? So I'm not skipping the hard verses to avoid the hard verses. I'm coming back to those, okay? But right now, I want us to jump down to verse 21, and we'll see their unbelief on display again. Verse 41. I said 21, I meant to say 41. Look at verse 41. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. So what gets them really upset? What gets them really upset is his claim that he came from heaven. So in verse 42, they said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Again, they only had earthly, fleshly eyes. The signs that they so much loved and desired were the proof that Jesus was the God-man who had come from heaven, but they could not see it. As a matter of fact, they began to despise Jesus at this point in the passage. A monk named Thomas Merton wrote this. He said, If we love God for something less than himself, we cherish a desire that can fail us. And we Run the risk of hating him, hating God, if we do not get what we hope for. When we want something other than Jesus, when we want something other than God, well, guess how we act when we don't get it? We get frustrated with Jesus, we get frustrated with God. And before we just point the finger at these people here in this text, how many of us grumble when Jesus doesn't work out the events of our lives according to our game plan, according to the way we want it to work out?

23:01Now, I want to skip forward again. Again, I'm not just skipping over verses for no reason here. I'm going to come back to these, but I want you to go to verse 47 now. Jesus again says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. So he continues to state things so clearly. Verse 48, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. So manna couldn't, it could sustain life, but it couldn't conquer death. Now I'm going to give you bread that not only sustains life, but it will conquer death. Verse 50, this is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. So now I want to just ask the question: what does it mean? What does Jesus mean when he says, eat of it? What does he mean when he tells us to partake of him? Well, in verse 47, we see that belief leads to eternal life. And then in verse 50, we see that eating leads to not dying. And so Jesus continues to talk. Drive home the point. Verse 51, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, okay, what's the outcome? He will live forever. So, friends, eating Jesus, eating the bread of life is simply believing. How do you eat Jesus? How do you partake of him? You place your faith in him. You eat by believing. That's what the text clearly teaches. But how exactly does Jesus secure this eternal life for us? Look very closely at the end of verse 51. Listen to what he says. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This, friends, this is a clear allusion to the sacrificial death of Jesus that is coming. Notice the shift from I am bread, he says, the bread that I will give. And this verb, give, notice it's in the future tense. It refers to a sacrificial act. And the sacrifice is, according to Jesus, his own flesh.

25:10The only way to eat bread is to break it. And Jesus is pointing to the cross, showing that he will offer up himself as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin, thereby conquering death and securing eternal life. But it's only for those who have eyes of faith. Faith. It's only for those who believe. Most of those listening to Jesus that day did not believe. Look at verse 52, and the Jews then disputed among themselves. So they've gone from grumbling now to disputing, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And at this point, they are totally offended. Eating flesh was one thing, but drinking blood, strictly prohibited in the law, this highly offends them. But they're offended because they miss the true meaning. Again, the parallel, eating the flesh and drinking the blood, parallels the belief of verse 47, which results in eternal life. And here it's stated in the negative: if you don't eat, you don't drink, you don't have life. You have no life in you. Listen, I look at verse 54. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. They should have seen what I hope you see today: that eating and drinking Jesus' flesh and blood simply means placing your faith in him, believing in him, putting your hope in him. But to this day, this passage is a stumbling block for some who think that Jesus is referring to literal flesh and literal blood.

27:01The Catholic Church teaches to this day that at communion, you are actually consuming the real flesh of Jesus. That miraculously, the bread turns into real flesh, and the wine turns into real blood, and you are actually consuming the literal flesh and the literal blood of Jesus. But they've missed the meaning of the text, and also they've added a work because the Catholic Church believes that if you don't actually eat that literal flesh and that literal blood, then guess what? You're not going to have life. Jesus says there's only one work, and it's to believe. And the eating and the drinking simply points to the fact that the only thing we can do is to put our faith in Jesus. I'm not hoping that a little bit later that these little vials you have turn into blood and flesh. How ridiculous. What I know is what they point to: that Jesus gave his blood and let his body be torn so that I can have eternal life. And I'm putting all of my hope in that and in that alone.

28:01In Jesus Christ alone. Friends, what we need isn't physical food. We need spiritual food. And only Jesus himself is that spiritual food. Verse 55, my flesh is true blood. My blood is true drink. True food, true drink that doesn't merely sustain life but conquers death. Verse 56, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I In him, meaning that he is the source of our life as we are united to him by faith. Verse 57, as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. We have life only because the Son's body was broken on our behalf, and his blood was spilled out as a payment for our sin. So Jesus brings it back to where it all began in verse 58 with these Jews wanting the replication of the manna miracle. Verse 58, this is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread your fathers ate and died. And once again, in case no one's getting it, he says, whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

29:19But there were many, many then and many today, who do not get it. They do not get it because their eyes are blind. And quite frankly, apart from the sovereign intervention of God, they will never get it. And that leads me to the third and the most difficult point of this sermon. So number one, our sinful flesh seeks Jesus in order to use Jesus, but our awakened faith seeks Jesus in order to have Jesus. But we have to understand that our heavenly Father seeks us in order for us to seek Jesus. So let's back up to those passages I skipped over and let's see how Jesus Responds to their unbelief. So, verse 36, he says, But I say to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe. So, how does he explain this unbelief? Verse 37: all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Interesting. How does he explain the fact that they don't believe? He doesn't say, Well, you got some deficiency in your own being, he points to what God the Father has done. And two quick observations from that verse 37: Number one, God has given a people to Jesus, and number two, those people will come to Jesus.

30:46So, the obvious conclusion being then that because these people were not coming to Jesus, at least not by faith, they were not in the group that had been given to Jesus by the Father. This is a very clear, very straightforward statement about the raw sovereignty of God to save and to sustain and to secure a people for the Son. And I love the fact that it comes in such proximity to verse 35, where Jesus says, Whoever, whoever, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, whoever believes in me shall not thirst. Friends, the sovereignty of God does not negate the invitation to come. The invitation is open today. Come. Those who choose to come do. Come, no one forces them to come. And those who don't come choose not to come. No one forces them not to come. But at the very same time, friends, the only ones who will make that free choice to come are those who were sovereignly chosen by the Father and given to the Son. Let's continue in verse 38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And now, in Jesus' words about his father's will, we'll again see both sides of the coin: divine sovereignty and human freedom. Look at verse 39 and 40, how they parallel each other. First, Jesus speaks of his father's sovereignty in giving him a people. Look at verse 39. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he's given me, but raise it up on the last day. But then Jesus doubles down on the call on human responsibility. Look at verse 40. For this is the will of my father in heaven, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Do you see both sides of the coin? Friends, divine sovereignty and human responsibility don't need to be explained away. Jesus makes no attempt here to explain away this difficult teaching. He doesn't go into some obscure philosophical metaphysical explanation. He simply says both are true.

33:01And the question is: Are you okay living with the tension? The illustration I like to use about divine sovereignty and human responsibility is: imagine you have a wall over here. And I may have shared this here before, if I have, to just humor me. You've got a wall over here, and you've got a bungee cord attached to it. And this wall over here is human responsibility, human freedom, our free agency. And you're holding on to this bungee cord. And over here, you have a wall, a bungee cord attached to it, and it's God's absolute divine sovereignty. So you're holding on to that one. And what we want to be able to do in our minds is to connect those two bungee cords in some sort of logical way that makes us not have to worry about it anymore. Some sort of logical way to where we can explain it. But here's the fact of the matter: we don't have the mind of God. We want that explanation because we're selfish, we're idolatrous. We want to be like God. And so, what we have to do is to live with the tension. We have to hold this bungee cord, and we have to hold this bungee cord. If we let go of this one, we fall into fatalism. If we let go of this one, we become man-centered. So, we've got to hold on to both of them. But guess what? As you're holding those two bungee cords, unable to fully connect them in your own mind, your muscles begin to ache, and they begin to quake. That's your spiritual muscles at work. You're going to be tempted to let go of one or the other. Friends, live with the tension, live with it. It's okay. Let those spiritual muscles ache and simply believe. Believe in what God has said. Man doesn't live by the logic of man. But by every word that comes from the mouth of God, rest with the tension. The Bible demands that we hold this tension. You've already seen it in John chapter 1, verses 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Right? That's human freedom, responsibility. But then, verse 13: who were born not of the blood, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

35:04God's still sovereign over it all. Our heavenly Father seeks us in order for us to seek him. Now, in those words of Jesus, if those words of Jesus make you uncomfortable, then fasten your seatbelt because he takes it to another level in verse 43. Look at verse 43. Do not grumble among yourselves. Okay, so now he's going to explain the grumbling with verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

35:37He doesn't get much clearer than that. You cannot seek Jesus, at least for the right reasons, unless you're first sought by the Father. It's just that clear. And you'll see at the end of this chapter, which I'm not preaching, John chapter 6, verses 64 through 65, that Jesus just doubles down on this. He doesn't try to explain it away, he just doubles down. Friends, without the gracious intervention of God, we do not seek Jesus because flesh cannot seek what is spiritual. The flesh cannot seek Jesus. Friends, that's why you need a new heart. That's why you need to be born again. Your sinful heart, your heart of flesh, it cannot believe. And so you need to ask God. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you're to ask God, God, change me, do a work in me, give me a heart that desires you. And God will always answer that question in the affirmative. And so, ask God to do a miracle in you. Ask Him to change your appetites so that you'll desire the bread of life. And then, come, come.

36:47If you don't have a new heart, well, you might seek Jesus, but you only seek Jesus in order as a means to an end. But if God does that miracle in you, and by the way, the miracle of a new heart is a much greater miracle than multiplying bread. If God does that miracle in you, then for the first time, you'll have eyes to see. And with awakened faith, you, kind of like those World War II orphans, will take hold of that bread for the very first time. And for the very first time, you'll have hope and you'll have peace and you'll have life.

37:23So, friends, how are we to respond to this passage of scripture? How are we to respond to this ocean that I tried to squeeze? Into an eight-ounce glass. Well, friends, if you're a believer in here, we always need to go back and examine ourselves and ask: Am I truly treasuring Christ above everything? Have I begun to get my eyes on earthly things again? Am I truly treasuring Christ, or am I using Him as a means to some other end?

37:52The question is: Do you find your ultimate satisfaction in Him alone? If everything else was stripped away, if you, and let's pray it doesn't happen, if you were to go through a Job experience, would you still love Jesus? Is He enough? And if you're an unbeliever in here this morning, I simply invite you to stop working for the bread that does not satisfy. Stop working for the food that cannot give you eternal life. Jesus is the true bread, Jesus is the true drink. The question is: will you believe? Will you come? Let's pray.

38:42Heavenly Father, I confess that there are way too many times in my life where I've taken my eyes off of the true treasure of your Son Jesus. The things of the earth to begin to draw my attention. Father, I pray that you would fix my eyes back on Jesus this morning, and I pray that you'd do that for all of us, that we might find our only satisfaction in Him. Father, I pray for anyone in here who've heard these words today. Maybe they've been practicing religion, maybe they have a quote-unquote faith they've inherited from their grandparents and their parents, and maybe they're in here because they've sought everything else in this life and nothing's made sense so far. But I pray that you would become to them, Jesus, become to them right now the most satisfying treasure in the universe. And may they come. May they put their faith in you. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

39:56Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.