In the sermon 'Food Which Endures to Everlasting Life' by Scott Brown, the text of John 6:22-33 is explored to emphasize the importance of seeking spiritual nourishment over worldly satisfaction. Jesus challenges the crowd to labor not for perishable food, but for the spiritual sustenance that leads to eternal life, which only He can provide. The sermon highlights the characteristics of true versus false disciples, noting that true disciples seek Jesus for who He is, rather than for the material benefits He might provide. The speaker urges listeners to reflect on what spiritual 'bread' they consume and to prioritize the 'bread of life'—Jesus Himself—over the 'moldy bread' of worldly desires. Belief in Jesus is portrayed as the true labor that leads to spiritual fulfillment and eternal life. The sermon concludes with a call to recognize Jesus as the sole source of true nourishment that satisfies the soul and to reject the shallow offerings of the world.

The sermon text for today is John chapter 6 verses 22 to 33. On the following day when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except that one which his disciples had entered and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. However, other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks. When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples. They also got into the boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Then they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent.

Therefore they said to him, What sign Will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, God, we thank you so much that we are wretched sinners, Lord, but Christ is alive and Christ is risen Lord please speak to our hearts today dear God help us to have the joy in your salvation Lord please speak to through Scott Brown Lord we just pray that you will speak to our hearts in a special way Lord help us forsake sin dear God help us to be more Christ-like each day. For in Christ's name we pray, amen. The words that are found here in John chapter six, 22 to 33, they actually are words of life and death. Everything hangs upon these words, not for the life and death of your body, but for the life and the death of the heart. And even the personality, everything that makes us human rests upon how we see these words and whether we understand them.

These words here speak of what it means to be truly alive as a human being. They speak of how to be nourished in the middle of everything in your life, from the rising of the sun to the time of its setting and all night long. And they really, they cut to the very deepest, most innermost parts of our humanity. And the heart of the message, I think, is found in different places here. But look at verse 27, because I think this dials in on what is so critical here where Jesus says, labor for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you." And then in verse 32, my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

Now, my earnest, my most earnest prayer for us this morning is that we can all sense where we are in relationship to these words that we understand what kind of bread we're living on because everybody eats some kind of bread you know I grew up in the 60s where white bread was the best kind of bread you could eat. About 20 years later, people figured out that probably wasn't right. But you can eat moldy bread, you can eat bread that will kill you if you keep eating it. But it's like that spiritually as well. What kind of bread are you living on?

Living bread or that which is not true bread? And that has application for the Christian and the non-Christian because often Christians eat moldy bread, silly bread, unprofitable bread. But it is also true of unbelievers who have never tasted. They've never tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They haven't been drawn to living bread.

And so they don't have the kind of nourishment that the Christian might have. So I'm praying that we can sense that. You know, what we learned here, I believe, is that all that the world offers up is soul food. Everything is soul food. And what kind of food is your soul eating is really the question of this passage.

And I'm praying, you know, that even the person who can't relate to anything that I just said about bread, that somehow they can see the difference deep in their hearts. The difference between eating the bread of this world for your own personal gain and success and the eating of the bread of Jesus Christ who is true, living bread from heaven far more than anything you've ever eaten in your life physically. And so I pray that God would reveal these things to us and that he is the one who's nourishing. That's the question, is he the one who's your joy? Is he the one that you want to consume?

And I pray that somehow this morning we can see him as the only true living bread, delivering us from all the unprofitable bread of this world, that he is the eternal Son of God, the living bread that God sent from heaven, That he's not just true bread, but he's true water, as we've already seen in the narrative of the woman at the well. That he is true light, as we saw in the very first chapter of John. That he's true life, as we saw in the early parts of John. And that he's the only one who can truly heal your soul. He's the only one who can satisfy.

He's the only one who can bring you the things that you were actually designed for. And we're looking for all these things in all the wrong places. This is our tendency as human beings. But He is true bread. He's the right door.

He's the good shepherd. He's the real resurrection that everybody's looking for. That's what's in this passage of scripture. Now, one of the things that you notice about this story is that most of the people in John chapter six are satisfied with food that perishes. They're okay with resting their soul on the food that perishes, most of the people.

And so this chapter is a long chapter, it's 71 verses long, and we're taking several weeks to work our way through it, but what you see are various moments in the life of Jesus in relating with his onlookers, with those who are interested in him at some level. And It's easy to get tangled up kind of in the foliage and the remarkable moments that exist in this passage and miss the whole picture of what John chapter 6 is all about. John 5 is a unit, it begins with after these things. John 6 is a unit, it begins with after these things. John 7 is a unit, it begins with the words after these things.

So this is a communication bullet here in John chapter 6, and we need to see it like that. And we've already been through the first scene of this narrative here in verses 1 through 15, which is the feeding of the 5, 000, and it involved more people than any miracle that Jesus performed. It's the only miracle that all the gospel writers record. Now remember, there are only nine miracles in the gospel of John, depending on how you count them. But we need to keep our eye on the main message in this chapter.

We've already seen him feed 5, 000, we've already seen him walk on water, but the heart of the message of John 6 is this. What does it look like to be a true or a false disciple of Jesus Christ. The word disciple is used for both true and false followers of Jesus in this passage. And there are there are basically four qualities of false disciples in this chapter. They're drawn by the crowds, massive crowds.

They follow the crowds. They want to see what's exciting. And secondly, They want to see an exciting spectacle. And thirdly, they want to tell Jesus what to do. And fourthly, they're religious.

They actually are aware of the Bible. They know what's in the Bible. And they like parts of it. These are four common characteristics of false disciples. And the next scene is Jesus stills a storm.

That's in verses 16 to 21. And he walks on water. He goes up on a mountain. The disciples are on the way to Capernaum in their boats. A gigantic storm whips up.

Jesus is on the mountain, and he's praying. And he sees them. He knows that they're going through and they're crying out to God and their boat is ready to sink and he walks by, he starts walking by them and then he gets in their boat, and then he transports them to their destination. And the miracle of walking on the water, I believe, even though it's not even connected, it's not hardwired, connected by words in this chapter to the feeding of the 5, 000. I believe what John is doing, he's trying to give another example of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in your time of trouble.

That he is praying for you, that he's interceding for you, he's controlling the winds and the waves, and he's going to get in the boat with you and he's going to get you where you need to go. That's the message of walking on the water. It's amazing that he walked on the water, but that's not the most amazing thing to the disciples. It says that those disciples, those twelve disciples, they were the only ones who experienced this. They believed and they worshiped him.

And so they're rowing and he's praying, they're striving and he's interceding and he says three things to them. Remember, be of good cheer, I am here, be not afraid. Those three things. That's the Lord Jesus Christ's message to every disciple that he ever owned, that he ever took. Don't you love that?

This is what he comes to you with. Be of good cheer. I am here. Be not afraid. And so he prays for us and cares for us in the midst of the storm.

And all of this has to do with what does it mean to believe, because the disciples there actually believed. They understood. The third scene is the scene that we are experiencing here today, beginning in verse 22. And this is a long discourse. Jesus is now on the other side of the Sea of Galilee and he's in a synagogue, in the synagogue of Capernaum.

And in verse 27, or I'm sorry, you see it's clear that he is in Capernaum when we get later on in the chapter. But I do think that the heart of these verses is explained in this theme of the bread of life and also belief, those two words, bread and belief. Those are the two critical matters here if you want to sort of characterize this chapter, bread and belief. And you know, for example, in verse 35, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.

Verse 41, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Verse 48, I am the bread of life. Verse 51, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. Verse 55, my flesh is true food.

In all of this, he is saying he is the soul's nourishing food, satisfying food, and strengthening food. Now, also, verses 60 to 71, I think, form the other part of this, the matter of belief. Look at verse 60 with me. When they heard him saying these things, they said, this is a hard saying who can understand it. And then in verse 61, they complained about what he said, about himself being the bread of life and that you must eat the bread to live.

And then in verse 66, from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. Then Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go away? And of course his true disciples said, no. Where would we go? You are the only one that satisfies.

That's what we've concluded. That's what the disciples said, of course, except Judas. Judas is an example of a false disciple. We'll get to that in a few weeks. But they defected.

They hung around him. They loved the signs. They loved the food. They loved the healthcare. But they defected.

Not because of what he did, but they defected because of what he said. I am the bread of life. But they still wanted to eat the moldy bread, the bread from the 1960s. They wanted to eat the unprofitable bread. They wanted to continue to eat the silly bread of this world.

And that's why Jesus says, labor for the food which endures forever to everlasting life, which the Son of Man may give you. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven." And this all speaks to what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian isn't primarily to pick up a moral life or to go to church or to get excited. That's not the essence of the Christian life the essence of the Christian life is feeding on Jesus Christ because you love the food and you want the food and you don't want the silly food anymore because you realize that when you eat silly food you have a silly soul. A soul actually bound for hell.

So I wanted us to see this picture that's being painted. Let's now dive into the text. Beginner verse 22. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see I've broken it down in several several subdivisions because this is a dialogue. This is back and forth.

My outline actually reflects the back and forth dialogue that you see here in the text. The crowd speaks, Jesus speaks. The crowd speaks, Jesus speaks. The disciples speak, Jesus speak. You'll find that all the way to the very end in verse 71.

So this outline tries to follow that contour. Well the first thing we see is that the crowd is seeking Jesus and they find him and the people are diligent, they're looking, they've gone to the other side. In verse 59 we learn where this dialogue takes place. We've left the hillside, we've left the seaside, and now we're in the synagogue. And in verse 59, we say, these things he said in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.

The Bible makes it clear that Jesus had Capernaum as sort of the central operating zone of his ministry. This is where he spent most of his time. John doesn't speak that much of his time in Capernaum. John is communicating the glory of Jesus Christ. So he doesn't focus like the other gospel writers do of this massive amount of time that was spent in Galilee.

But John does record. Now he's in a synagogue in Capernaum, probably where he grew up, actually. He's born in Nazareth, grew up in Capernaum. And the people are looking for food. The disciples finally figure out where he is.

The disciples, right? The crowd, not the true followers. And then Jesus unmasks their motives. He reveals the motivations of the crowd right there in the middle of the synagogue. It's amazing.

Jesus answered them and said most assuredly, by the way when you read most assuredly you're reading one of the famous terminological effects of Jesus' language. He uses amen, amen, or truly, truly, most assuredly. It's the double amen, the double truly. Like this is super true. It's another way of saying it.

Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. So Jesus is exposing their true motivations. He reveals their secret sins. This is what Jesus knows, your secret sins. He sees right through us.

He knows exactly who we are. We might be able to fool most of the people most of the time, but you can never fool Jesus any of the time. And Jesus knew their hearts, And he understood they were a little bit like what the Apostle Paul speaks of in Philippians chapter 3, verse 19. Their God was their bellies. It was really themselves that they were the most concerned about.

They were looking for a pragmatic, utilitarian religion. They didn't see the intrinsic beauty and power and love and superiority and bread of Jesus Christ. They couldn't see it. They saw him feed 5, 000, but they couldn't see what was behind it. They were like Achan who wanted gold more than obedience.

They were like Ananias and Sapphira who wanted recognition rather than service and true generosity. And then we find in verse 27, in this third subdivision in this dialogue, Jesus instructs the crowd. And he speaks of two kinds of food here. And I think for our purposes today, verse 27 is really critical. And verse 27 says, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on him." Now, there are three critical things I want us to draw from verse 27, And I'd like to take them one by one.

First of all, don't labor for the food that perishes. What does that mean? I'd like to talk about what that means. Secondly, labor for the food which endures to everlasting life. What does that mean?

And then thirdly, the statement that God has set his seal on his son. What does that mean? So those are the three things I'd like to deal with. Well, the first is don't labor for the food that perishes. And he's making a truthful statement that there is food that perishes.

And of course, Jesus is speaking about spiritual matters. There is spiritual food, there are things that you take into your soul that perish. I'm going to say It's the white bread of the 60s that gets moldy really fast. It's the things of this world. They come out of Hollywood and Nashville, but worse than that, way worse than that, they come out of your own art.

So there are two kinds of food. There's food that perishes and there's food that endures. You know this is why Isaiah says in Isaiah 55, why do you spend your money for that which is not food? And he wasn't talking about physical bread and meat. Why do you spend your money, in other words your life, the stuff of your life, the resources that you have in your heart, the desires, the affections, Why do you spend your affections, your thoughts?

Why do you spend your activity, your gifts, your knowledge? Why do you spend it? Why do you give it to what's not food? You know, God has created us with multiple senses. All of them have been designed for spiritual food, for food not that is unprofitable or silly, but food that lasts.

And so there are two kinds of food and Isaiah exposes that and but Isaiah says, No, if you thirst, come to the waters. You don't have money. Come, come, buy and eat. In other words, Take what you have and spend it on me. So, but all food, all affections, all engagements of the mind and the heart and the eyes, all of these are soul food.

Everything you see, everything you hear, everything you think, everywhere you go is soul food. What is he not saying? He's not saying, quit your job, stop changing the diapers, don't clean the bathroom, don't mow the lawn. He's not saying stop working like that. Solomon said the person who does that is the sluggard.

So he's not saying quit your job and sit around and meditate. Ephesians 4.28 says that we were commanded to labor working with our hands that we might have something to share with others. So we should actually, it's good to labor. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 3.10, if a man doesn't work, don't let him eat. He said to the Colossian church, whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men in Proverbs 10 for he says a slack hand causes poverty but the hand of the diligent makes rich." In 1st Corinthians 1031 he said, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.

And I believe he's talking about doing what you do by being fueled by the glory of God, by having eaten, having drank of living water and eating living bread, that you have energy and food to speak and to do and to think and to relate and have a marriage and have children and work and suffer tragedy. You have food, you nourish for the moment. So don't quit your job. But what he's saying is that God will transform every part of your job, every part of your motherhood, every part of your singleness, every part of everything you do and think, and everything that you are. But make sure that you don't fill yourself with silly food, unprofitable food, moldy bread, unnourishing bread.

Because there is bread out there that will impoverish you, figuratively speaking. And it comes from all over the place. And he's, everything everything is nourished by something. That's the way God built us. So don't labor for the food that perishes.

In other words, don't work, don't labor, don't spend your life on the things that will undernourish you. And I want to take this opportunity just to ask you, what are you listening to? What are you watching? Where are you going on the internet? What are you doing with your soul?

What are you feeding your soul? Feed your soul with the finest of wheat. Don't feed your soul with white bread that goes moldy really fast. Here's my advice, deprive yourself of Hollywood. Deprive yourself of Nashville.

That's my advice. Please, please heed my advice. It's good advice. If you're watching movie after movie, stop doing that. You're feeding your soul with the worst of wheat.

So don't do that. But do this. This is the second thing. Labor for the food that is eternal, that doesn't pass away, it doesn't rot, it doesn't decay, it fills you, it satisfies you, it moves you, it helps you, it wisens you, it happifies you. And It's mobilizing and it's transforming and it's eternal.

It's of the kingdom of God. It's the matter of being changed by the bread that you eat and I think that there are two levels of this. One is that that bread that you initially eat at salvation and then there's the bread that you continue to eat as you're being made holy as a Christian, being sanctified. And so when you're working or talking or suffering, that there's this kingdom operating, there's this eternal kingdom that's operating in your soul. Now what is this labor?

This is critical. What is this labor? The laboring is believing. The laboring is believing. I'll get to more of that in just a minute.

Matthew Henry said that many follow Christ for loaves, not love. And I think that's what's being spoken of here. He said that in his commentary on this text. But he's talking about a crowd who's aiming for secular advantages. They're aiming to get things fixed and repaired and that type of thing, but that's about as deep as it goes.

And then the third thing in this verse is how God has authenticated His Son, because God the Father has set his seal on him, set his seal. In other words, has ratified, has certified, has authenticated Jesus. There are different things that scholars say about this. Here's what I believe it is. I believe that he is ratified to be the Son of God, and God set his seal on him in two particularly prominent things that we see in the Gospels.

First of all, his miracles. He does things that no one does. No one is able to do. No faith healer has ever done what Jesus did. Nobody.

He's so, he's different. He is the unique Son of God. And then secondly, the things that the Lord God said of Jesus to Jesus, particularly at his baptism when he said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased and the mount of transfiguration, this is my son, hear him. So God has authenticated Jesus by his miracles and his life. No one has really debunked the miracles that Jesus has performed.

There's really no historical record of people saying, no, those were not real. There were too many people. It was too prominent, it was too visible, and the world has not forgotten it. And that's probably why the Bible continues to be the best-selling piece of literature in history every single year, because there's nothing like it. Gandhi's not like that, Muhammad's like that, none of the other leaders are like that.

Jesus is different. God has authenticated, has set his seal on his son through his miraculous deeds that he did in order to certify and ratify and authenticate that he is the Son of God. So the summary of this verse is don't labor for the food that perishes. Secondly, labor for the food that endures, which means you're getting your satisfaction from Him. You're not getting your satisfaction from your house, your car, your reputation, your shopping, your buying things.

Some people get great satisfaction when they buy something and they get satisfaction there. And it's a distraction from food often. There's so many things that distract us from true food. It can be your job. Jobs aren't wrong.

It can be hobbies. Hobbies aren't wrong It can be the internet. It can be it can be pornography. It can it can be all kinds of things Too much trust in your vacation to fix you. You know husbands like that.

You know, their wives are feeling really deprived, and so they think, you know, I'm going to fix you by taking you on a vacation. That doesn't usually work too well, because that's not the problem, typically. Sometimes it's really helpful. And then God has set his seal on his son. All of this to say, do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to everlasting life.

Because all food is soul food. What food? What food are you eating? And then the fourth subdivision here is the crowd's response in verse 28. They said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God?

Now, There are different ways that you can take this. You take which option you think is best. I believe what they're saying is that we want to make bread too. Common annoyance to make bread. We're going to make bread.

He could be saying, or they could be saying, just give us more of the physical bread. Come on, we want more bread. Like remember, this is like a couple days later. Their bellies are now not full. Their bellies were full when they were on the mountainside.

But now their hunger is back. And they want more food. And they want more health care. If you read Matthew and Mark in this passage, what you learn is that when Jesus and his disciples showed up on the shoreline and started heading to the synagogue in Capernaum, people started going around the cities and started gathering the lame and the sick to come to Jesus. So, you know, this I think that it was one of those two things either Lord you you you make us breadmakers or you just give us more bread.

We want more bread. We want more health care. Isn't that how all politicians make their way in the world? Food and health care. Economy and medicine.

That's what they do. Well, those are the two greatest longings of people. And you can see it like that. Just like, just like, this is just like Ecclesiastes. There's nothing new under the sun.

But they wanted, they wanted bread. They wanted something amazing. Maybe they, I don't know if they wanted to be amazing or just have something amazing. There's this desire in us to either be amazing or to have something amazing. And usually it deprives us of true food, food that doesn't perish.

So they didn't hear, they didn't know the gift of God, and they didn't see him as treasure, they just wanted the bread. But then we learn something about what it means to believe. You remember the whole purpose of the Gospel of John is so that you might believe and that in believing you might have life in His name. That's in chapter 20, verse 31. And so what is believing?

Well, we learn about that in verse 29. What is the work of God and what is believing? Because they're connected, intimately connected. The work of God and believing are connected. Verse 29.

Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in whom he has sent. So what does it mean to work for food that lasts forever? What does it mean to labor? It actually means to believe. And we've already learned from John that To believe is not as simple as intellectual ascent, to just believe that Jesus is remarkable, that he came from God and that he was resurrected.

It's more than intellectual ascent of the facts of the gospel, but that it has to do with receiving, trusting in, embracing. It's more than just an intellectual category of, yes, I believe the sky is blue. It's deeper than that. So what does it mean to labor? It means to believe, which is to treasure, which is to trust, which is to listen to, which is to hope in, which is a desire to feed upon.

To believe is to desire to obey, to love Him, And to find your sustenance in Him, that's what it means to believe. So laboring and believing are connected in this verse. And so, you know, the question is, you know, do you think that he is the greatest treasure for your soul? Or are there other treasures you'd like to add into your soul? Do you think that he's better than pornography?

My perspective is unless you believe he's better than pornography you'll never be able to get rid of it. Of it. And then the sixth division is the crowd's demand. Again we get another insight into what it means not to believe. Therefore, they said to him, What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you?

What work will you do? Our fathers ate manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now we know that these are church-going people, these people, well they're in the synagogue after all, And they knew the story of Exodus. They marveled at what happened with Moses and the children of Israel, probably two million of them, eating manna in the wilderness and having manna every day for 40 years.

God fed them in that wilderness wasteland where there was no food to be seen. And they were actually exalting Moses and denigrating Jesus' previous action to feed the 5, 000. They were thinking that Moses was great. Of course, we know that Jesus was saying, there's something greater than Moses here. And they were basically saying, show us more.

Do a bigger miracle. Go bigger than Moses. Go large, larger than Moses. He gave us food every day. You just fed 5, 000 people one time.

What have you done for me lately?" That's the heart of the unbeliever. Give me more, give me more. Give me more toys. Give me more pleasure. That's the heart of the unbeliever.

The heart of the believer is, give me Jesus, give me bread from heaven, give me truth, give me angels food from the Word of God. So they loved the shadow more than the reality and they made an idol out of the bread in the wilderness. That's what we do. We make idols out of the symbols. You know, everything in this world is a shadow of something greater.

Don't fall in love with the shadows. Like your house is a shadow of something greater. But it was really meant to point to your home in heaven. You know, your food is a shadow. Don't fall too much in love with your food because it's there to point you to something.

In verse 32, then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven. Don't get wrapped up in Moses, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven." See, they missed the point of the bread and the man in the wilderness. It was from God. Moses didn't give them that bread. God gave it to them.

In fact, if they had read carefully enough in Exodus 16 verse 4, it should have been clear that it was God taking care of them. It was him. It wasn't a hot leader who was pulling tricks and was eloquent and remarkable and the most humble man who ever lived, who Moses was. We read this in Exodus 16, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day. It was God.

I am the one who rained bread from heaven. You know, one of the marks of false disciples is that they demand God things to do for them. They tell God what to do. They concoct it. They have an affection, might be a good affection, and they tell God what to do about it.

We've seen various examples of this. Again, you know, Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. You know, people, evangelicals have been affected by what has been called the positive confession movement, where you demand that God does things and you can have what you say because your words, the very words of...if you say it, it's power. And often, you know, it's the impulse of the pride of man that fuels, really, the people who listen to the prosperity gospel preachers. And the positive confession movement says that words have power and if you say those words aloud, then you should have the...you can have the expectation that they'll come to pass.

It's naming it and claiming it and part of this is to say, you know, if you haven't been healed, it's because you don't have enough faith that you can kind of write your own ticket with God. And usually that has to do with airplanes and cars and houses and cash flow. Usually that's kind of what people are naming and claiming, which really betrays the reality is that it comes out of pride. We are commanded to make our requests known to God. That's different.

It's different When a humble heart requests of God and a proud heart demands of God, these were nothing more, nothing less than the prosperity gospel seekers of our own generation. Give us more bread. Give us more bread. And then Jesus in verse 33 declares that He is the living bread. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to this world." So Jesus is saying that he is what no physical social thing can do for you.

You know in John 5 26 we read that the Father has life in himself and that he has granted life in the Son so that all might have life. In Matthew 4, verse 4, we already read, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And in just a few minutes, we're going to read the words, this is my body, which was broken for you. Take, eat, rejoice, eat, eat of this food. Rejoice, eat of this food.

You know, it's no accident that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means the house of bread, Because He's the only bread that satisfies. He's the only bread that can make you strong. He's the only bread that can make your mind work right. He's the only bread that can make your mind work right. He's the only bread that can give you the energy or the words or anything that you need in your life.

So I'd like to give you some applications, some further ways to fill all these things out. And the first is in the form of a question. Why are you here today? And did you find what you were looking for? You know, when Jesus met with these people in the synagogue in Capernaum, they were there for a reason.

Everybody does what they do for a reason. And everybody goes wherever they go for a reason. And you came here for a reason. And it's really important for you to know why you came. You know, it's easy because the church has such beautiful commands upon itself for the kind of community that we have, the love and the tenderness and the forgiveness and the kind, you know.

Because the church has these things, it's really like no other culture in the world. So sometimes people want to go to a church because of their relationships. Or they might want to go for the affirmation, or they might want to go to stroke their pet opinion or to fix your family or to get your life together. But You know, did you come to feed on Jesus Christ and upon his glorious gospel and to seek him, to seek him as the living bread? Did You come to turn away from the silly bread and self-consciously walk in here looking for bread of life.

We sang songs, there were prayers, we read words of life today. What were you seeking when you came here? And what was driving you? And have you found it? Or maybe the service isn't over yet.

And maybe you can actually find it from now to the end. Because maybe you forgot what this was all about. It was to feed on Jesus Christ and upon him alone. And when you leave, will the things that you sang and heard and read hear? Will it make your heart move?

Will it move your life and change your life? Will it give you a smaller appetite for silly bread? Some of us need to shrink our spiritual bellies and quit filling it with a bunch of chaff. Now Jesus knew why everybody came to the synagogue in Capernaum, and he knows why everybody came to the worship service at Hope Baptist today. He knows.

He knows. But he brought us here for a day of delight, to delight us with the finest of wheat that we would ride on the high hills of the earth, which means we're feeding on Jesus. We're feeding on the heritage of Jacob, as Isaiah 58 says. That's what the Sabbath is all about. It's a day of feeding all day long.

But some of us, all of us are going to be tempted to go out of here and feed on other stuff. Don't do that. Don't feed on the silly food when you leave here. Another question, What are we living for? Are we ordering the meditations of our hearts, the uses of our time, the ways that we live our lives for food that nourishes?

Because all food is soul food. What food is your soul eating as you go out through the day? Ordering your life so that you would be nourished means a prayerful life, a thoughtful life. It means filling your mind with the Word of God. You know, singing the right songs that feed your soul, rather than ones that deprive your soul of true spiritual food.

And then, do you believe? That's another question. Do you believe like Jesus is talking about here? Because believing and laboring are pretty much the same. It's not just intellect.

It's intellect and action together. And a true disciple who truly believes. You know, Jesus is concerned that there are people in the crowd that don't really believe, but they think they're following him. That's what he's really concerned about. And I don't want to place undue doubt in anybody's mind.

I really don't want to be overbearing about that, but I do, I do pray and praying that the Holy Spirit would convict anyone who doesn't really love the food yet, but to say, his is the only true food and the rest of the food will actually kill you. A true follower is a person who is genuinely feeding on bread from heaven. They believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. They believe that their sins have separated them from the love of God. They believe that Jesus Christ was the perfect Son of man who obeyed every commandment and He died and He rose again on the third day and He reigns in heaven and he's coming again and and they're feeding on him that's what a true believer is and their life because of the food they're eating is changing them you know if you eat different things your body tends to change you maybe you figure that out You eat too much of the wrong thing, your body changes in a wrong direction.

You eat the right amount of the right thing, and your body changes in the right direction. Well, that's what we're like spiritually too, depending on what we're eating. You know, believing isn't just a decision, it's a delight. Believing isn't just embracing a doctrine or a lifestyle, but it's embracing a new desire, a delight, a longing of the soul. That's what Christianity really is.

And he feeds you. To believe in him is to trust in him when you're grieving, when you're fighting discouragement. To believe in him is to turn to him when you've sinned, when you're angry, when you're tired, to turn to him when you're confused, to turn to him when you're exasperated and beaten down and wounded, To turn to Him when you've lost hope and you're afraid or you're offended or you're tempted or you're slandered or you're witnessing. To be a Christian is to turn to Him because you really believe He has the answers. You believe He's true food.

And you believe in Him and you're turning to Him for the raising of your children. And you're turning to Him to figure out how to live life as a single person, and you're trying to figure out how to live life as an adolescent in the home or a young child. To be a Christian when you're a child is to turn to Him. When you're offended by your parents or you don't want to obey, to believe in Him is to turn to Him when you're sitting in church or you're talking to a friend or you're sending an email you know that's why I said at the beginning these are all words of life and death life here on earth abundant life here on earth and everlasting life What you eat is a matter of life and death. Labor for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you.

My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, Because all food, all food is soul food. And I pray that we would be a people who are less satisfied by the undernourishing food of this world of Hollywood and Nashville in our own hearts and this culture and all the lures to lure us away from what's true food. And that there if there's anyone who hasn't tasted and seen that the Lord is good, today, today is the day of salvation. Turn to him. He is the only true nourishment that exists in this world.

Would you pray with me? Lord, Lord we thank you for your word. We thank you for these words which speak of everlasting life and true nourishment and joy and help in our hardest times and in our sweetest times. Oh Lord, I pray that you would fill us all with bread from heaven. Amen.