The sermon titled 'More Bread Please!' explores the passage of John 6:41-51, emphasizing Jesus's claim to be the 'bread of life.' The speaker reflects on the recent national celebration of freedom and connects it to the spiritual freedom found in Christ. The sermon highlights the importance of recognizing Jesus as the divine source of life and warns against following a superficial or misconceived version of Jesus. The speaker discusses the recurring theme of 'bread' in the Gospel of John and its significance as a fundamental doctrine for Christians. The concept of the 'divine draw' is introduced, emphasizing that salvation is initiated by God drawing individuals to Christ. The sermon also addresses the barriers of human familiarity and resistance that prevent people from accepting Jesus fully. The speaker encourages believers to live a life of humility, gratitude, and surrender to God, recognizing the true satisfaction comes only from a relationship with Jesus. The sermon concludes with a call to live for righteousness, reflecting on Jesus's sacrificial death as the means for our salvation and the need for believers to live in response to that sacrifice.

Music Morning family. Morning. So yesterday was a big day. We celebrated the freedom of our nation and that's 250 years. That's no small deal.

And so I think of the fun that was had, the celebrations that were had. We lit off a pile of fireworks and had a blast as a family. And I'm sure many of you went to see the celebration of it and the fireworks and had a lot of watermelon. Man, I like watermelon. But the reality is as we go through this book of John especially, I'm seeing more and more that our freedom is in Christ, in Christ alone.

And I found as I read this this morning, it's the insert in your bulletin. I'll encourage you to read the whole thing, but Dr. Von, Marty Von wrote this, and I'm just gonna read the third point on it. And it reads, we must never forget the providential generosity of God in our founding. The Bible states every good and perfect gift is from the Father above, James 1.17.

Well, we can never forget the most perfect gift that God provided for us when he sent Jesus to die for our sins and be raised again so we could have eternal life. We can also never forget the generous blessings that God has showered on us as a nation. As Ben said, that the cycle of moral decay of any nation comes because hard times make strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. Why? Because the principles and blessings that God provides for governing are forgotten.

When we sing God Bless America, we should sing it with great humility, realizing that this 250th birthday is a gift and blessing from God. Express those blessings in your life by lifting your heart and your hands upward to worship our Heavenly Father and tell Him, I want my hope to be in You." And I pray that that's our hearts, our minds, our set as we go forward. Not just through this book, but in this walk that we have as brothers and sisters in the Lord. So, I would like to read the text. Today we're in John chapter 6 verses 41 through 51.

John chapter 6 verses 41 through 51. And this is coming right off the backside of the text from last week. And it reads, The Jews then complained about Him because He said, I am the bread of life which comes down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I have come down from heaven?

Jesus therefore answered and said to them, do not murmur amongst yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at that last day. It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God.

He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manor in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Father, this morning We thank you for your word. We thank for your love for us in giving it to us, Father.

We thank you for this bread of life. Father, we understand this discourse is a hard one, Lord, for us to wrap our minds around and to receive. And yet, Lord God, you are more than capable, Lord. I pray for our hearts to be open and our minds, Lord, that we might receive what you have for us today and that it would not just be received, but it would change the way we walk and the way we live in Jesus' name, Amen. So what we have today is, last week today, is the first of seven I Am's that Jesus claims in the Gospel of John.

This first one, he says, I am the bread of life. And so that's why I have listed this more bread, please, because last week we had bread, this week we're gonna have bread, and next week more and more bread, please. So it's something that Christians, we need to walk and live in this. And so this is somewhat redundant of last week, but it's written multiple times that it might sink into our thick skulls. Well, my thick skull anyhow.

And so this is my hope and prayer that we hammer this reality into our lives, this fundamental, extremely important doctrine that we're going through here. And so it is not, I'm praying that it's my desire, that it's your desire to have more bread. And this discourse today is pivotal in the whole bread, bread of life discourse. Because Jesus declares Himself that again today. And so as we look back at where we've been, we see in the beginning of 6 that Jesus fed the multitudes.

He fed 5, 000 men, and so it could have been 20, 000 plus. But it doesn't matter because He's God and He worked a miracle. With a boy's little lunch, he fed a lot of people. He made something out of nothing. And so this was the beginning of this whole thing.

And then when that day was wrapping up, he knew the people were pressing on him. He sent the disciples away over the sea and he went up to the mountain to pray. And then in the middle of the night, the disciples were out in the middle of the ocean straining on the oars to get to the other side against the wind. And they were afraid they were going to die. It was horrible.

And these were, seven of the twelve were fishermen. They shouldn't have been afraid. And Jesus, in His love for them and teaching them his principles. He walked out to them and he was going to walk past them and they saw him and he walked over and Peter walked on the water. He almost drowned because of his lack of faith.

This is getting us to where we are today. He rescued them on the sea. They were transposed immediately to the other shore. They were all safe. Then those who he fed, they wanted to follow him.

They wanted to follow him, they wanted more, but they wanted to follow him for the wrong reason. And that reason, as Jesus said, because they were fed, because they got the food, they wanted more bread. And that was the wrong reason. And we need to guard our hearts as to why are we following Jesus. We can have wrong reasons and wrong motives as well.

And so that whole thing sets a table for the discourse that Jesus is the true bread of life. And that's where we're at today. So we've talked a lot about the importance of getting Jesus right. And that is the purpose of the book of John. And he wrote in 2031, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

That believing you can have life in His name. Aside from Him, we really don't have life. And so for us to understand what John is trying to do, He's pleading with us to get Jesus right. And why is that so important? What's really important then, and it's really important today, we can't afford to get Jesus wrong.

A lot of people today want Jesus. And if you ask 100 people, 80 some percent or more would say, yes, I want Jesus, or I have Jesus, or we worked out a deal. I heard that one from a neighbor. But what Jesus? What Jesus is it?

They don't want a crucified Jesus. They don't want the Jesus that told them, pick up your cross and follow me. That's not the Jesus that people today really want. They don't want the crucified Jesus. They don't want the Jesus that separated himself from the Pharisees.

They don't want to have to face their sin. They don't want the Jesus that says, repent and follow Me. That says sell all you have and come follow Me. With the rich young ruler. They don't want that Jesus.

They want a different Jesus. And you know what? It's a figment in their imagination because there is no Jesus like that. It's just like with Islam, they believe in Allah. I got news.

There is no Allah. It's a figment of Muhammad's imagination. And so there is a Jesus though. But if we don't get Jesus right, we're not worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. We don't have Jesus.

We have some twisted figment of our own imagination that we entertain ourselves with, that feeds our flesh. And that's where it comes down to. They want a social Jesus. A Jesus who is all-inclusive, this extremely ecumenical Jesus, And gives them their jobs, their food, gives them their finances, their happiness, makes them prosperous, who gives them good health. One who does what they want for them.

One that, a Jesus that feeds the flesh. And that's not the Jesus that John is talking about in the Bible here. See, John paid a great price for the gospel that he gave us and for the life that he lived in Christ. And so he was, if you remember, he was at the foot of the cross with Mary. And all the rest of the apostles, they were gone.

And he stood boldly at the foot of the cross. And he could have been killed for that. He took care of Mary. Mother, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.

Joseph was likely not in the picture anymore. And so here is John taking care of Mary as well. He went on to preach the Gospel boldly. None of this fair booth stuff where it is where we step out of our element, but I'm talking like unto death. They took the guy and they dropped him in a vat of boiling oil for preaching the Gospel.

And he survived. They deemed him unkillable and they put him on the island of Patmos where he not finished his days, but spent most of the rest. And they tried to kill him again, feeding him poison. And he wouldn't die. This is the guy that wrote this word that's telling us to get Jesus right.

See, there's a price paid for this. So, last week, we went over the reality that we're made for another world. And that feeds into what we're talking about as well. When we have these desires and these needs that we cannot get met here, it's because we're not made for here. Christians were not made for here.

We're not made to have our satisfaction and our fulfillment here. We're made for another world. That's what we're made for. We will never... You can try to get that filled here and it's not going to work.

We're made for a different place. We're never satisfied as true believers with anything less than a real life in Christ. We're simply visitors here. We're pilgrims. And we'll never find fulfillment in this world aside from Christ.

The reality is that had God not drawn us as well we talked about, you would still be stumbling around in the dark. I would. I'm sure everybody would be. We'd still be stumbling around in the dark. Then He gives us to Christ.

God draws us and works on our hearts and He gives us to Christ and He will lose nothing. Christ will lose zero. He has never lost one and He never will lose one when we're there. That's concerning our eternal security. And Ephesians 1, 13, 14 says, in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also having believed, You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory.

Isn't that amazing that we surrender our lives to Jesus? And when we surrender our lives to Jesus, at that time, the Holy Spirit comes into us and we are sealed. We are sealed unto eternity. There is nothing. The song, I love the song.

No power of man can take me from his hand. It is just a deep Fundamental doctrine that we can't slip and forget about. We need to remember those things. The promise of this deep doctrine is that we know that our salvation is not based on our own performance, but on what Christ has done. It's what Christ has done in our lives.

While the crowd was expecting bread, Jesus said that that he is the bread. They were looking for bread. He said, I am the bread of life. So it's not something that we get from Jesus. It is Jesus.

And we talked about that last week, it is him. And in the text today, the people just don't understand how Jesus is the bread come down. How is Jesus the bread come down from heaven? They're conjuring up images of the manna coming down from heaven that happened that they assumed Moses did. And so this is a confusion in their minds.

They can't get it right. And it talks about that in verses 35, 48, and 51. So the first point I want to cover today is the murmuring crowd, this murmuring crowd that it talks about in verses 41 and 42. And the first thing we see is the barrier of this human familiarity. We see this, They're familiar with Jesus, and immediately there's a barrier that goes up there.

And so here we can see that no one believes the account of the miraculous birth, the immaculate conception of Mary, nor that it was even known. We don't know that these Jews knew it or not. But they call Him the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know. It's like, wait a second. This guy that's telling us all this stuff and making all these high claims, this is we know him.

He don't fool us at all. This is Joseph. This is that scrawny kid from Joseph and Mary. There's no way. There's just no way.

This is not going to work. We know this guy. So how can he say? He came down from heaven when we know where his house is. We've seen him working as a child and through his adulthood.

So they couldn't understand how one who was a tradesman and who came from a poor home could possibly be a special messenger come down from God. How can this be? It just didn't make sense. He has already, and all the while that's going, that doubt is going on. He's already performed all these miracles.

He's already shown them. And they even had admitted that this is somebody come down from God. And yet as soon as they saw that he was familiar, it was like no, no, no, not come down from heaven. This can't be the case. No matter if he did the miracles or not, this guy has not come down from heaven.

And the question I have sometimes, do we say the same thing? Do we discount somebody? Do we discount their word? Or somebody that we know that says, I met a guy when I was on a hunt on a TV program in Maine. And he said, I talk a lot, but just keep listening.

Sooner or later, I'll say something worth listening to. And you know what? My dad used to say, there ain't nobody so dumb that you can't learn something from them. If that were to apply here, we have to have our minds and our hearts open to what God is speaking through other people. And not just people, but circumstances as well.

And we have no place to hold a higher ground, to sit in a front place of honor, so to speak, when we were once nothing and what we are in Christ. So we need to be careful where we stand in that whole reality of things and listening to and giving credence to other people and what they have to say. But in Mark six, three and four, said, is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us. So they were offended at him.

But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house. This is true. So we have to take this deep reality forward as we follow different preachers, teachers. Realize that as people we fall, But God still uses messengers because God has had many, many messengers through the millennia. But His greatest message came from not King David and not Solomon or Saul.

His greatest message came from a Galilean carpenter. His greatest message came from a nobody north of the tracks in an undesirable area. That was His greatest message. That was God incarnate that came for you and for me. And for that exact reason, the Jews refused it.

The Jews couldn't tolerate this. They were eager to know what other people thought about Jesus. They would listen to what other people had to say about him, but not in the least were they curious to know what God had thought about it. They read the prophecies. Prophetically, the guy was a dead ringer.

He was spot on. They knew this, but they just they were blinded. Their flesh fooled them. They justified their opinions and actions by their knowing Him. That's how they justified it.

They knew his origins. They knew where he was from. They knew all along the prophecies of him, but they blinded themselves to it. So do you think that could sometimes be us? We listen to what others have to say about a messenger or about a message, even preaching a message.

But we write it off because you know what or who that person used to be. Or you just don't agree with it doctrinally so you don't take it to God. You don't study the Word. People want what they want, but they don't want the Jesus of the Bible. They don't want the truths of the Word.

It's too easy to live how we want to live, and to take our own opinions and push them forward under an umbrella of, well, God is love, and Jesus forgives, and Jesus loves, and Jesus forgives, and we need to just go forward and just be happy as a kumbaya Christianity. And there's no record of that in the Word of God. And so the thing is then we not take it to God. We got to take everything to God. We need to take it to His word and see what He has to say about it.

What he wants us to do, the actions that we need to take. But we refuse sometimes to think it's possible. And I'm speaking for myself too, in my growth as a Christian, I would think it's possible that our words and thoughts really don't matter. Is that possible? That what I'm thinking and my words really don't matter, and that God's word and His message and His messenger are all that matters.

Is that our train of thought? Is that our prayer and our hope? That all that matters is what God has to say about this case. Or do We sit in our stubborn stool and say, you know what? What I think about this is this.

And I base it off of this verse in the Bible. Well, what does the rest of the Bible say about it? This is not a gloom and doom. I'm trying not to be that way. You know why?

Because I watch myself preach online. And so I know I've got to sunshine this up a little bit. But the reality is this. The reality is this. There are those, the disciples, the twelve, they believed Jesus.

They weren't perfect, but they believed Jesus. They followed Him. They listened, they believed, they partook of the true bread from heaven. They walked in this. Everyone here that's repented and living for Jesus, It's the same thing.

We have that joy in Christ, Christ's gift of salvation. And 1 Thessalonians 1.13 tells us, "'For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, "'because when you received the word of God, "'which you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as the Word of Man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. That's the praise and the glory right there. That everyone here that knows Jesus, we're not stuck in that groove of doubt and despair. We can stumble and there's things that go on in life that are trials, But praise God.

Praise God for His love and His grace and His mercy, His forbearance, His patience. Did I say love? We can't get enough of this. We have to thank God for His His mercies that are new every day and The second point that I have is the divine draw versus 43 through 45 this this draw that it talks about we talked about some last week Therefore Jesus answered and said to them, "'Do not murmur amongst yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at that last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God, therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me." This is that divine draw that God has. This is a doctrine as well that we cannot get wrong. Our salvation is not because we made a decision. It's not because we woke up one day and had a great idea. Our Salvation is because God of the universe draws, He draws us to Himself.

And sometimes we need to be told to stop murmuring. And that's what Jesus did here. He answered and said to them, Do not murmur amongst yourselves. The first step is shut up. If you want to grow in Christ, if you want to be drawn, the first step is to shut your pie hole.

It is to start listening and start searching and seeking and stop murmuring. It is to live for Jesus and He will continue to draw. It's called sanctification till the day you die. He will pull you to himself. And so the first thing we need to do is not complain.

We read that the Jews complain, but here Jesus explains how it is a work of his father. And this is not only a New Testament idea. This is something that God had been doing. And there's multiple cases. When I pop up a verse, it's one verse.

There's hundreds of verses. But this one here, Jeremiah 31.3, says, "'The Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you, drawn you to myself, he is saying. And so The interesting thing of the word draw, when you take it in its Greek context, it has a greater meaning. It talks it and every time it speaks of draw, It has a connotation of resistance. And so it's a thing of something happening against something else.

So there's a resistance, there's a drawing, and there's a resistance. And it's used the same in Paul and Silas being dragged before the magistrates in Philippi. And in Acts 16, 19, it says, but when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. It's a thing of drawing. Same type of word.

And with the sword being drawn, drawing the full net to shore when they had the net full of fish. So there's this picture that I want you to see that there's a resistance there. When God draws us, He doesn't do it because we are like right on a verge and we're ready to go. And then He just pushes us that last little bit and we fall into His arms. That's not the picture of what's going on.

The picture is that there is a divine work that happens because we resist. And so in today's text, we see that while God can and does draw men to Christ, man's free will can resist that. And that happens. Many are called but few are chosen. You see, faith is not just a human intellectual achievement.

And I think we understand that. Faith is a divine work of God the Father in 1st Thessalonians 1, 3, and 4. It says, Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. See, it's important to know that God chose us. It's important to know that because it keeps us humble.

It is an earmark of Christians, is that humility. In verse 45, Jesus refers to a passage in the Old Testament. 45 reads, it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. And in Jeremiah 31, 33, 34, it says, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds.

I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Nor more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more." See, this is His work. This is His work. This isn't my work.

This is His work. And in verse 44, to come to Christ, I like this because it says in verse 40 as well. And it says, and this is in verse 40, the will of Him who sent me that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up by the last day." And verse 44 it says, no one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up by the last day. It's God's work. But you notice one thing that those two verses have in common, it skips everything in between.

It doesn't say everyone that God draws to me will be saved and then they're gonna live this life for me and it's gonna be full of turmoil and adversity and then I will raise them up at the last day. No, no. You know why? Because this little slice in between is not even worth mentioning. There's two points of our Christian walk.

The first one is our salvation. The second one is our glory. The life we're living in right now is assumed to be lived so much, sold out for Jesus Christ and to walk for Him, that in here, it goes from the beginning to the end. It shows the first and the last. This life we're living, if we can't get this right, then we're not in Him.

We can only do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so this is about our surrender. This is about the glory of God. This is about Him and not about us. And so, now when we put 44 and 45 together, we should see clearly that Jesus is saying and how we are drawn to Him unto salvation.

So what we have to do next is come to this conclusion. We take all this information, all of this work and this word of God, And we need to come to a conclusion that what Jesus has said commands a response. We can't just know this. This intellectualism is not going to change our walk and it's not going to move us closer to Christ. It's not going to save souls for the kingdom.

But it commands a response from those who have been drawn out of this, once you see it, we've been drawn out of this world of filth and darkness and it holds no appeal for us anymore and now our affections are on heaven above and Jesus Christ and His glory, we're separated unto Christ. And so we've been drawn out of this and we're separated unto Christ. We're to be very different than this world. Desiring more of Jesus, more bread please, right? This is, and living a life of humility and gratitude.

As we function in His church, His bride, He's looking for a pure bride. And as we function in this, this is what He has for us as a life. But we are to show gratitude unto the One who has had this mercy and this compassion on us. If we walk around cocky and boasting, that's sending a message that says, I saved myself. I have as much to do with my salvation as what God did.

That's what it does. We can't afford that. That's not the testimony that Christ requires of us. 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14 read, But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved, by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Holy Spirit and belief in the truth, to which he called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. This salvation, this work that he's doing is not about our glory.

It's about the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's about our surrender. It's about our giving up ourselves. Verse 45 makes it clear that that faith hinges on hearing God's word and learning from the Father in order to be brought to Christ. Romans 10, 17, It's the familiar verse everyone probably knows.

So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Our faith comes by the Word of God. We are not saved by thinking the right thing or by somebody telling us a story. We're saved by the power of the Holy Spirit through God's word. The third point I have today is everlasting bread of life, point three.

Verses 46 through 50 talks about earthly manna versus a heavenly reality. Verse 27 told us not to labor for the food which perishes. And it says, but for the food that endures to everlasting life. And we're challenged that day to take up a microscope and look at our work, our lives. Are we laboring towards things that perish?

Or are we laboring towards food that endures to everlasting life? See, there's a contrast here because This is us Christians laboring and doing our part to endure in the race that God has called us to, versus the work that God does in drawing us to Himself, and then providing Christ the everlasting bread of life. And so in verse 48, Jesus elevates this comparison. He takes this comparison of everlasting life with I am the bread of life. Meaning that He is the true spiritual nourishment that prevents spiritual death.

So here Jesus tells us what it is to be had by believing Him. By believing in Him. What will He give us if we come to Him out of the great things that we dread? And this is Matthew Henry. I study him in case anybody doesn't know.

He said, Want and death are the chief things we dread. May we but be assured of the comforts of our being and the continuance in the midst of these comforts. We have enough. Now these two here both secured to true believers. True believers we have.

We have the two things that squelch. We don't worry about want and we don't worry about that because we're in Christ. We have no needs, and we know that we will spend eternity with Jesus. So Christ engulfs these two fears. They're gone.

You don't have to worry about him ever again. As long as you're in Jesus, you will have no want and you will have no fear of death. He takes care of them. And so we're made complete in Jesus. We need nothing else.

We are complete in Jesus. And we can be sure that he's always at work. This is talking about your surrender. This is the life of a surrendered Christian unto Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15, 28.

Now when all things are made subject to him, then the son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. See, This is our surrender, that God may be all in all. The spiritual lesson in all of this is that earthly things, the success, the food, the achievement, they're still gonna leave us hungry again. There's nothing we can do that will not leave us hungry again. Any experience we have will leave us hungry.

But real and lasting satisfaction is only in a relationship with Jesus. There's nothing else. There's nothing else. You can look high and low. You can ask King Solomon.

You can have everything, and it won't last. You will not be satisfied. You will not. He is our daily bread. Matthew 6.11 says, give us this day our daily bread.

Might that be our prayer? And in John 6 51 Christ refers himself as living bread which came down from heaven. That's in the last verse today. And he tells those listening that he grants eternal life to those who are in him. And so in verse 51, he says this, and this is the hard one for them to get.

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." This is hard for them to absorb, to take, because this is talking about eating human flesh. And so this is offered to all who come to Jesus. Because only He gives His flesh for the life of the world to accept Christ on His turn. What they didn't understand was that He is speaking of His...

He is prophesying. He's pointing. He's pointing. Jesus, when He's telling them this, He's pointing forward to the cross. He's saying, this is the bread of life.

Unless you eat of this, and it will be given." It will be given. And he says right here, "'I shall give my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.'" He's pointing to the cross. And so this is a thing to accept Christ on His terms. Both draws a person to Himself and it channels eternal life into that person. And so, E.W.

Tozer put it this way, to accept Christ. Because I've said this, and I've talked about it for weeks here about receiving Jesus, about believing in Him. And it's hard to say what that, I can tell you what the Bible says, But it's hard to put a finger on it. It says believe. Well, I believe.

Everybody believes, right? And so there's a quote by A.W. Tozer. It says, To accept Christ is to form a supernatural attachment to the person of our Lord Jesus, altogether unique in human experience. The true believer only, the true believer owns Christ as his all in all without reservation.

He includes all of himself leaving no part of his being unaffected by the revolutionary transaction. The Lord becomes to him, not one of several interests, but the one exclusive attraction forever. He orbits around Christ as the earth orbits around the sun, held in thrall by the magnetism of His love." That is a Christian. Okay, that right there. And so in today's passage, Jesus is foretelling of His sacrificial, atoning death on the cross, and his flesh and blood.

The bread that I shall give is my flesh, he says. And in my commentary it says Jesus refers here prophetically to his impending sacrifice upon the cross. Jesus voluntarily laid down his life for evil, sinful mankind. So it's not just that he laid down his life, he did it for an evil, sinful, rebellious mankind. That was me, okay?

That's mankind, everyone. And so the final slide that I have here, it points to that end. And so it is in Christ alone, the bread from heaven. And this is the text that I wanna close with in this is our hope and this is the Gospel wrapping it up. This is the blessed glory that we have to bask in as Christians.

And that is 1 John 2, 2. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Just like it says in verse 51. For the whole world.

He took our sins. For the whole world. I'm part of the world. He took my sins. One of my favorite verses altogether, 2 Corinthians 5.21, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

1 Peter 2, 24, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. And that's where I'm going to leave it today, right there. Having died to sins, we that died to sins might live for righteousness. See, this wasn't all done just for entertainment or for our fire insurance. Jesus wasn't crushed on the cross so that we can live how we want to live, so that we can be happy.

God sent his son to this earth and he crushed him as a sacrifice, a propitiation for our sins that we might live for righteousness. That we might live for righteousness. That is the call. That is the prayer of John in writing this. And that is our prayer.

Live for Jesus. Father, we thank you today for the power of your words. I pray for our hearts to be moved, Lord God, in this, Lord, and I pray that, Father, as we go in this culture we live, you would give us boldness, Lord, to live a life separated unto you, that we might live for righteousness, surrendered unto you, Lord. Not just once, Lord, every day. Help us to see that.

I thank you