I Am the Bread of Life | What Jesus Actually Meant

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads, my name is Andy.

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And if you're brand new here, hey, we are really glad

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that you're spending some of your week with us.

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Hey, one thing that we say a lot around here

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is that we are a church for people

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who've given up on church, but not on God.

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So if you're carrying questions, skepticisms, doubts,

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or just curious about faith,

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you are in exactly the right place.

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Today, we're actually gonna be talking about

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who Jesus says that He is, but we're going

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to start off our time with worship.

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And worship isn't just listening to music.

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It's not even just singing along.

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Worship is where we invite God into our real lives,

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the good and the bad, the great and the not so great.

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So there's a song that we're about to sing,

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it's been on repeat in my house.

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It's got these words that, uh,

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if you start it, you'll complete it.

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That, God, I believe You for the things that You've done,

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the things You've begun.

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And we want to see You continue those things.

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I don't sing those words because they're my favorite

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or even because they're easy to sing.

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I sing them because I need to be reminded

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about who God is. Let's do that right now.

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- Hey, we're going to sing another song in just a moment.

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But I wanted to interrupt real quick

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just to point something out.

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We're in a series called The Jesus Exhibit.

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We're looking at these seven statements

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that Jesus made about Himself.

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These seven self-portraits.

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These seven times where Jesus basically says,

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you want to know who I am? Well, start right here.

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And every one of them begins with the same two words

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where Jesus says, "I am."

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Now those two words sound normal to us.

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We say them all the time, right?

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Like, I am tired. I am hungry.

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But when Jesus says I am, He's doing way more

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than just describing Himself.

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He's reaching all the way back to the book of Exodus,

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where Moses encounters God with this burning bush

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and God sending him to lead Israel out of slavery.

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And Moses basically says, okay.

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But when they ask me who sent me,

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what am I supposed to say?

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Here's how Exodus three puts it:

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Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites

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and say to them,

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'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.'

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And they ask me, 'Well, what's his name?'

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Then what shall I tell them?"

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God said to Moses, "I am who I am.

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This is what you say to the Israelites:

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'I am has sent them to you.'

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This is my name forever, the name you shall call me

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from generation to generation."

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I am isn't just a name. It's a claim. Right?

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Where God saying, you want to know who I am?

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I am, before everything, above everything,

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dependent on nothing.

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So when Jesus shows up over a thousand years later

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and He says, "I am the bread of life,

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or I am the Way, or I am the Truth and the Life."

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He's not just saying description.

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He's not just giving a proper name, He's saying,

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if you want to know what God is like,

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I'm not just kind of like Him.

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If you want to see God and know Him,

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Jesus says, I am Him.

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If you want to know what God is like, man,

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you need to know the I am,

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that's God incarnate with flesh and blood on.

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And when I hear the words and I read it that clearly,

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like it's almost intimidating.

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Like, what does it look like for somebody to say I am

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and like, drop the mic?

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It makes me take a step back.

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It makes me like almost approach with caution.

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But the thing here is that Jesus says,

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I am in a way that He's saying, I am for you.

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I'm the thing that you need.

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I am the only thing that will answer your hunger.

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I am the life when you're confronted with death.

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I am the light when you're confronted with darkness.

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The I am of Jesus is for me and for you.

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Kyle's going to talk about today that

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if you hunger, you can come to Jesus, the I am,

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and find a satisfaction that you won't get anywhere else.

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So I don't know which version of the I am

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that you need today, whether it's the light,

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the life, or the bread that can sustain and fill you.

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We're going to sing to the I am right now.

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We're going to sing to that name

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that's above every other name, the name of Jesus.

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Let's sing together right now.

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- King Jesus, there's no other name like Yours.

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And I freely admit I've just grown up here

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in the Midwest where I'm at.

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I've just grown up pretty accustomed to Your name.

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It's pretty normal. It's like any other name.

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And I've, I know I've tossed Your name around

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in ways that I'd be ashamed of to ever do

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in a microphone in this space.

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But bring me back to know the power of Your name,

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the beauty and the grace that's in Your name,

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the mercy that You've shown me that's in Your name,

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the love and forgiveness,

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the power and might, the majesty,

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and the personal rescue that I hear in Your name.

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Thank you, Jesus, for being King of all and friend to me.

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I praise You and bless You. Amen.

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I love being together like this.

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Glad you're joining with us online too.

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And those of us in the room from top to bottom,

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hey, why don't you turn to somebody next to you

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and say summer's here, the weather feels amazing.

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Glad we're here together.

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- Well, hey, thanks for singing with us.

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Again, hey, my name is Andy.

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We are really glad you're here,

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that you've given us part of your summer,

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part of your week to invest in your spiritual growth.

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Now, I don't know what your summer plans are like.

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Maybe it's travel, maybe it's vacation.

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Maybe it's pool days, cookouts, camps,

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or just trying to keep your kids entertained

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without spending about $1 billion. Anyone?

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Uh, this is my family yesterday at

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our inaugural trip to the community pool,

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which involves lots of, like, sunscreen and snacks

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and trying to relax while also counting heads,

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make sure everybody's alive every eight seconds.

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Summer is full for us.

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My daughter Ella, the tall one in the middle,

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and I are actually leaving on a Go Trip

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to Puerto Rico in a week.

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And she's also head to student ministry camp

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for the very first time.

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It's going to be incredible.

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And I love that our church has lots of different ways

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to connect and engage and grow and experience

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more of God all summer long.

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But whatever your summer looks like,

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one of the things that Crossroads Anywhere

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just offers in a huge way

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is the ability to take your church with you.

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So if you're traveling, if you're at the lake,

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at the beach, if you're visiting family,

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or just like watching from a different couch

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than you normally would, the Crossroads Anywhere app

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is one of the easiest ways to stay connected.

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You can stream the weekly teachings, you can worship,

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you can read Scripture every day alongside our pastors

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and thousands of other people in our community.

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You can find articles, videos, podcasts,

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and practical resources and even events

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that you can connect with other people

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and go from just content to experiencing real community.

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So if you don't have the Crossroads Anywhere app,

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download it.

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Most of us carry our phones with us everywhere anyways,

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you might as well use them for something

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better than checking the weather app

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for the pool time 17 times a day, or doom scrolling.

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So it's a chance for you to keep growing

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and have great spiritual rhythms all summer long.

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Now, brand new folks, if you're brand new,

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like this, your first or second time watching,

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you just need to hear me.

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I'm not talking to you for this next part,

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I want to talk to like one level down from that.

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To those of you who've been around,

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you're like newer, new-ish, but not brand new,

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but you're like, I'm coming back.

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And maybe that means Crossroads is starting

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to feel like home for you.

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If that's you and you're at the beginning

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of your Crossroads journey and you're saying,

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"I think this might be my church."

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I want to encourage you in a pretty bold way.

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What would it look like if you considered starting to give?

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Why would I say that?

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Well, there's a couple reasons.

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One, the surface level is any of the good things

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that you get excited around here,

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like whether it's worship

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or students meeting Jesus at camp

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or service trips or Go Trips or projects,

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God impacting people in new ways in our cities,

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all of that is an incredible reason we say like

00:22:03

I want to give back when somebody does good things.

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That's great, but I'd love to take it a level deeper

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where me and my family and my wife and I

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have experienced something deeper.

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Saying, "God, I want to trust You.

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I want to take an experiment of saying,

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God, I trust You, that You can do more

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with 10% of my money than I can do with 100."

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It turbocharges something in our journey

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and our relationship with God.

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Say, God, I'm going to trust You.

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I'm going to give You back, give You money

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because I don't want it to have the same hold on my life.

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And something special happens,

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and I want you to experience that.

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So maybe you're considering that,

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maybe you're looking to go to the next level

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and the next place with God.

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You can do that at Crossroads.net/give

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or in the Crossroads Anywhere App,

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as I mentioned before, or even via Apple Pay.

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How 2026 is that, right?

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So it doesn't matter how much right now.

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It's just about trusting God with your money

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and seeing what happens.

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Hey, today we're going to continue with our I am series

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looking at these seven examples,

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these seven I am statements about Jesus,

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about how He is the bread of life,

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how He has the thing that can uniquely fill us

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and sustain us.

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Kyle, our lead pastor, is going to be unpacking this

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for us about how we can experience that right now.

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- Where are we in the Bible?

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In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to John.

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This is a first hand biography of Jesus

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by one of his closest friends.

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In it, John records seven iconic I am statements

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that Jesus made, seven metaphors,

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seven self-portraits of the living God.

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This week Jesus says I am the Bread of Life.

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Here's how it goes in the book of John, chapter six.

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Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you,

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it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven,

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but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

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For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven

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and gives life to the world."

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And they said to him, 'Sir, give us this bread always."

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And Jesus said to them, "I am the Bread of Life;

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whoever comes to me shall not hunger,

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and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

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But I said to you that you've seen me,

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and yet do not believe.

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All that the Father gives me will come to me,

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and whoever comes to me I will never cast out."

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- Well, hey, how are you?

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My name is Kyle if we never met before.

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And if we have met before,

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my name is actually still Kyle.

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It's kind of always Kyle.

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Glad that you're with us today for Jesus Exhibit;

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seven self portraits of the Son of God.

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You know, Jesus is probably the most talked about

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person in human history.

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And there's a lot of hot takes out there about Him,

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who He is, what He's really like.

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In the Bible alone, there are 198 different names

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and titles for Jesus, and all of them are accurate.

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All of them are helpful.

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And yet seven stand above the rest,

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these seven I am statements from the Book of John.

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Why? Because they're what Jesus said about Himself,

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self-portraits.

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Now you can learn a lot about an artist

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when you study their work.

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I do this in high school, and in high school

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I actually wanted to become an oil painter.

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That was the course of my life for a number of years,

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until the point where my very kind father

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very gently asked me a couple of important questions.

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Like "Kyle, one day do you want to be able

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to afford to eat?"

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And I was like, "I would like that."

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"Would you like to one day live inside of a house?"

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"I would, I would like to live inside of a house.

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That sounds -- That sounds great."

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So I became a designer instead.

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But we lived in Philadelphia in high school,

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and so I'd go to the Philadelphia Art Museum

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and there was a Vincent Van Gogh Gallery.

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I love Van Gogh, love his work,

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and I would study his paintings for a long, long time.

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Which, by the way, pro tip, for any guys

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in high school or in college,

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take her to the art museum for a winning date.

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It's awesome. It's free and you'll look like a genius.

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You just go to a painting.

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She pauses in front of the painting,

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and you just rub your chin and say, "Wow, what depth?"

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And she'll think you're so smart. It's great.

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Now, when you study the paintings of an artist,

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you can learn a lot about them.

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But nothing compares to a self portrait.

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That's where you really climb inside of

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how they see the world, how they see themselves.

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One of the most famous self-portraits in world history

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is actually this one right here of Vincent Van Gogh.

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Van Gogh had gone through a hard time in his life,

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literally had a mental breakdown.

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And so to the point where he cut off his own ear,

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literally sliced off his ear. True story.

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And he painted this painting one month later.

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Now, what's amazing about it

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and why I think it's resonated through history

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is because it's real and it's honest.

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It shows his scars and everything.

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It's actually why people respond to Crossroads so much.

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It's what first attracted me to Crossroads

00:27:03

20 some years ago.

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It was a place where you could be real.

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You could show your scars.

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We've been expanding and doing different stuff

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you might have heard about.

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We did a pop up in Detroit, in Indianapolis.

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We had a Run Journey in Bolivia.

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16 people down there got baptized.

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Crazy stuff is happening. Amazing.

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We asked people when we go to these places, like,

00:27:22

why are you part of this church?

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Like, it's really hard to be part of Crossroads

00:27:26

from far away, why do you want to be part of this church?

00:27:29

And no matter whether it's Bolivia or Detroit,

00:27:31

we hear the same thing. It's two things.

00:27:33

It's one, you're a church that, like, does stuff,

00:27:36

you get outside your walls.

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You serve the cities you're in,

00:27:38

you try to change the world.

00:27:39

And then two, it's a place to be real,

00:27:42

a place you can show your scars and everything.

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And this is Jesus.

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This is Jesus specifically with His portrait

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we're looking at today, by the way.

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Jesus wants us to see explicitly His scars

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with the Bread of Life.

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This is what we're starting, John 6:35.

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Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life.

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He who comes to me shall never hunger,

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and he who believes in me shall never thirst."

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It's a pretty incredible promise, you know, never hunger.

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Now, that doesn't mean physical food.

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Obviously, Jesus isn't like my arm is made of breadsticks.

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Go ahead and take a bite. It's going to be --

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This is not what He's saying.

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He's saying never hunger for the things

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that your hunger for: approval, satisfaction,

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meaning, affirmation, security,

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those deeper spiritual hunger needs.

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If you come to me, you'll never hunger for them again.

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What that means is that this message, the Bread of Life,

00:28:40

is for anybody who feels tired, weary, worn out.

00:28:43

Anybody who feels like they're out of gas in their life,

00:28:46

this message is for you.

00:28:47

And I know whether you're young or old,

00:28:50

it doesn't matter, I know if you're in the room,

00:28:53

if you're watching online, you were tired this week.

00:28:58

Something about this time of year,

00:28:59

I think we think it's like, you know, May is the --

00:29:02

It's spring and there's flowers and everything's awesome.

00:29:05

No, not my May.

00:29:07

My may is full of like getting the kids

00:29:09

through their final test at school,

00:29:10

soccer practices, baseball.

00:29:13

We just cram extra stuff in it.

00:29:14

We got sixth grade graduations to go to now. Why?

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Why do we do that?

00:29:20

There's no diploma. It's not a graduation.

00:29:23

Kindergarten graduation, we don't need this, people.

00:29:25

What are we doing to ourselves? [applause]

00:29:33

Amen. Let's go home. God, thank you --

00:29:37

Like if you're in high school, you have exams,

00:29:39

College exams. Doesn't matter.

00:29:40

We're just tired. We're worn out.

00:29:42

Which is why we need the Bread of Life,

00:29:46

the promise of provision every single day.

00:29:49

Now, this message can either be intellectual for you.

00:29:52

It can be kind of a brain tickler

00:29:53

and interesting thoughts about God

00:29:55

or, or it can be personal.

00:29:58

And my prayer for you is that it's personal.

00:30:00

And for it to be personal,

00:30:01

you have to walk up to the portrait

00:30:03

honest about where you are,

00:30:05

honest about why you're tired,

00:30:07

honest about the scars that you carry too.

00:30:10

Before we go further, let's pray together.

00:30:12

God, thank you so much for being a God

00:30:13

who wants to show us the real you

00:30:16

and wants to offer us the ability

00:30:18

to never be hungry again.

00:30:20

Help us see you, scars and all today. Amen. Amen.

00:30:25

Like you heard earlier from your community, pastor,

00:30:27

when Jesus makes these statements of I am,

00:30:29

He's not just relating metaphors,

00:30:32

He's saying I am God Himself.

00:30:36

In fact, in John 8:58, Jesus says,

00:30:37

"Before Abraham was, I am."

00:30:41

Uses the name of God and says,

00:30:42

before this guy who lived a couple thousand years ago

00:30:45

was alive, I was alive.

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In other words, I'm eternal, I am God.

00:30:49

When you say I am, you better be able to back it up.

00:30:53

This past week I was in Indianapolis with my son

00:30:56

for a baseball tournament. He's 14.

00:30:57

His team was playing over there.

00:30:59

Which, pro tip to any parents out there younger than me,

00:31:02

do not let your kid play baseball.

00:31:04

Do not do that. It's a bad idea.

00:31:06

Any other sport is better soccer games,

00:31:08

hour long. It's awesome.

00:31:10

Volleyball like 32 minutes in and out. Incredible.

00:31:13

Baseball games last like four days. It just -- just goes.

00:31:18

So we're Indianapolis for this baseball tournament.

00:31:20

The team hotel was the best Western in Fishers, Indiana.

00:31:24

And I don't mean to throw shade,

00:31:25

but guys, best is generous. Okay?

00:31:29

It's more like A Western is what it was.

00:31:34

And our games got rained out Saturday morning.

00:31:35

They pushed to later in the day, so we had nothing to do.

00:31:38

So like 9:30 in the morning Saturday,

00:31:39

everybody's in the lobby of the team hotel playing Mafia.

00:31:43

Okay. Playing a game that's kind of loud.

00:31:45

Twice the manager comes over,

00:31:46

asks us to be quiet, doesn't work.

00:31:48

And so eventually he stands up and he goes,

00:31:50

"The lobby is closed."

00:31:53

We're like, the lobby is closed?

00:31:55

It's like 930 in the morning.

00:31:56

And so one of the parents goes,

00:32:00

"Where are the lobby hours posted?"

00:32:03

And the guy goes.

00:32:07

And said, "Okay, well, what are the hours?"

00:32:10

And he says, "I am the hours. I am the hours."

00:32:15

I was like, whoa.

00:32:17

You know, I think he was trying to express

00:32:18

his authority in that moment.

00:32:21

And that's what Jesus is doing when He says I am,

00:32:23

He's trying to say, hey, I am.

00:32:25

I have authority in this. This is who I am. I am.

00:32:29

Now the point, though, isn't just to say I'm God.

00:32:33

That's great, but it's not like I'm God. Good for you.

00:32:36

It's that we would understand who He is

00:32:38

and so we can relate to Him differently.

00:32:41

In fact, John tells us the point of these statements

00:32:44

in chapter 20, verse 31.

00:32:45

He says, but these are written, these I am statements,

00:32:48

that, one, you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah,

00:32:54

the Son of God, and that two,

00:32:56

by believing you might have life in His name.

00:33:01

See, these portraits aren't interesting ideas.

00:33:03

Oh, look. Theology. Well, He's the Bread of Life. Cool.

00:33:06

No, it's that you would believe

00:33:08

that Jesus is your Messiah, your Redeemer,

00:33:11

the one who can satisfy your hunger.

00:33:13

And, not just that, but that you would have

00:33:16

practical daily life in His name,

00:33:19

today in the Bread of Life's name.

00:33:24

It means there's two portraits in every single one of these.

00:33:26

There's a portrait of the gospel,

00:33:28

a picture of the gospel.

00:33:30

And there's a portrait that gives us

00:33:31

instructions for daily living or truly living. 2 in 1.

00:33:36

We're going to start with the first portrait,

00:33:38

the portrait of the gospel.

00:33:39

I would title this portrait Broken Bread,

00:33:42

The Broken Bread of Life.

00:33:45

Now Messiah means Redeemer or Savior or just fixer,

00:33:48

the one who would fix what's broken

00:33:51

between God and humanity.

00:33:52

And if you go all the way back to the moment

00:33:54

where that relationship broke between God and humanity,

00:33:57

you'll find bread.

00:33:59

Go back to Genesis chapter three.

00:34:01

It's the story of Adam and Eve,

00:34:02

and that might trip you up a little bit.

00:34:04

I'll just help you out a little bit.

00:34:05

Adam means humankind. Eve means life.

00:34:09

And so their story is literally the story

00:34:11

of the beginning of human life is what it is.

00:34:15

And at the beginning of human life,

00:34:17

God makes a garden and there's trees and there's fruit.

00:34:19

And all you got to do to get your hunger satisfied

00:34:21

is walk up to a tree, pick a piece of fruit,

00:34:23

take a bite of it. It's awesome.

00:34:25

But God says, there's one tree I don't want you to touch.

00:34:28

And Adam and Eve respond just like your toddler.

00:34:30

Like, all we want to do is touch it.

00:34:31

And they go over and they do.

00:34:33

And everything, everything breaks. Everything breaks.

00:34:37

I want you to listen to God's response in that moment

00:34:41

to the brokenness that now exists in the world.

00:34:46

Genesis 3:17, God says:

00:34:48

Cursed is the ground for your sake;

00:34:52

in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

00:34:56

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

00:35:02

till you return to the ground,

00:35:04

for out of it you were taken; for dust you are,

00:35:07

and to dust you shall return.

00:35:11

In this moment of breaking God invents bread.

00:35:19

It's crazy.

00:35:20

And I want you to notice He didn't make a bread tree.

00:35:24

That'd been awesome.

00:35:25

By the way, we can say that bread trees would be,

00:35:28

I'd have a whole orchard if they were bread trees.

00:35:31

I'd have a pretzel stick tree.

00:35:33

I'd have a garlic nan tree.

00:35:36

I'd have a King's Hawaiian roll tree.

00:35:39

Turn to your neighbor real quick and tell them

00:35:40

if there's bread tree, what kind of bread tree

00:35:42

would you most want? What would you want?

00:35:44

Hawaiian roll tree, croissant,

00:35:47

Ezekiel bread tree I'm hearing.

00:35:50

- No, sorry.

00:35:51

- No, I would not do that.

00:35:52

I eat Ezekiel bread. Don't do that.

00:35:55

That's a bad way to play.

00:35:56

You gluten free people are like,

00:35:58

"This is making me very sad right now."

00:36:00

I understand, I understand.

00:36:04

God doesn't make bread tree.

00:36:06

Instead God changes how we get our hunger satisfied.

00:36:11

Again, before this moment you got your hunger satisfied

00:36:14

directly from what God provided.

00:36:15

Pick a piece of fruit. Ate it.

00:36:17

God made the fruit. You pick the fruit.

00:36:18

You ate the fruit.

00:36:19

Now, now you got to work.

00:36:24

God says, now from this place of brokenness,

00:36:27

you have to work to try to satisfy your hunger,

00:36:30

out of toil, the sweat of your brow.

00:36:34

And oh, by the way, it's not going to work;

00:36:37

you're going to die. That's the point of bread.

00:36:40

See, bread in the beginning is not the Bread of Life,

00:36:43

it's the bread of death.

00:36:47

It was a daily reminder to people every single day

00:36:49

that no matter how hard they worked,

00:36:51

they could not satisfy their hunger

00:36:55

and it would end in death.

00:36:58

I'd be like, man, that's kind of brutal of God

00:37:00

making bread as a symbol of death. That's -- sheesh.

00:37:04

Yeah, but it's also clear

00:37:08

and it's honest and it's accurate.

00:37:11

Not just back then, but today, by the way.

00:37:14

You know, modern mental health experts

00:37:17

are all over this trend right now,

00:37:20

this idea that no matter how hard you work,

00:37:23

you can never, ever satisfy your truest hunger.

00:37:26

All over the place, and there's people out there

00:37:28

that want you to believe that the Bible

00:37:30

is like these old fairy tales, outdated,

00:37:31

nothing to do with modern life. No, not true.

00:37:33

Even in the most ancient of stories, like Adam and Eve,

00:37:36

there is deep truth that resonates across the millennia

00:37:40

and is still applicable today. Today.

00:37:44

Leading experts right now, mental health

00:37:46

and satisfaction, they say the same thing.

00:37:48

Our work can never satisfy our true hunger.

00:37:53

And not just that, our work oftentimes originates

00:37:57

from a place of brokenness.

00:37:59

This is particularly true amongst high achievers,

00:38:02

which I think we're a church of high achievers.

00:38:04

If you're not into like doing stuff,

00:38:06

you're not going to like Crossroads

00:38:08

because we're going to push you to do stuff.

00:38:09

Join a group, serve, give, Go.

00:38:13

We're the church gets out of our seats

00:38:15

and runs after people. Church of high achievers.

00:38:18

But see often times in our lives that thing,

00:38:20

that drive to achieve comes from a place of brokenness.

00:38:24

You wonder, am I really enough?

00:38:26

And so you set out to work really hard to prove it.

00:38:28

Do I really belong?

00:38:29

So you set out really hard to prove that you do belong.

00:38:32

Am I really valued?

00:38:33

So you set out really hard to show that you are valuable.

00:38:37

I experienced this in my life.

00:38:38

I've experienced it for sure.

00:38:40

I moved a lot as a kid.

00:38:42

I was the new kid in school in second grade,

00:38:46

eighth grade, ninth grade, again in ninth grade,

00:38:50

college I moved to a place hundreds of miles away,

00:38:52

state I never lived in, culture I'd never been in,

00:38:54

first job, Greenville, South Carolina,

00:38:56

I didn't know anybody there.

00:38:58

Cincinnati, moved here, didn't know anybody here.

00:39:00

My first job at Crossroads,

00:39:01

I was the only person on my team.

00:39:04

And so I can wonder sometimes, do I really belong?

00:39:08

And you work out of that place, that can be very tempting.

00:39:11

I will fill that need.

00:39:12

I'll fill that hunger in myself to know that I do belong.

00:39:14

I'll show them that I am needed,

00:39:16

that I am valuable, that I do belong.

00:39:18

I'll prove it. I'll work and work and work

00:39:20

and try to satisfy it.

00:39:22

But no matter how hard you do,

00:39:24

you can never satisfy your own hunger.

00:39:28

You can't do it. You can't.

00:39:31

Now, this is a thing that experts

00:39:35

are calling the strivers curse.

00:39:37

In fact, there's a guy out there,

00:39:40

he's literally recognized as the world's leading expert

00:39:44

on happiness from Harvard.

00:39:47

His name is Arthur C. Brooks,

00:39:49

and he calls it the Strivers Curse.

00:39:52

The curse is that no matter how hard you work,

00:39:55

the results have greatly diminishing returns

00:39:59

in terms of satisfaction in your life.

00:40:01

It works like this: the promotion that

00:40:04

you work so hard for, that you got last month,

00:40:07

this month just feels like another job.

00:40:12

That house that you were so pumped to move into

00:40:14

in the neighborhood and you worked hard

00:40:15

and it's a bigger mortgage and you took it on

00:40:17

and you felt like, man, I'm a million bucks,

00:40:19

I'm worth something because I got

00:40:20

that house you bought last year.

00:40:22

This year just feels like an average home, right?

00:40:28

The accomplishment that you went so hard after

00:40:31

month after month now just feels like a normal Thursday.

00:40:35

We have these dramatically diminishing returns

00:40:37

and we try to satisfy our own hunger,

00:40:39

and yet we still go after it. We still go after it.

00:40:43

In his book From Strength to Strength,

00:40:46

Arthur Brooks wrote this. He said:

00:40:47

What I found was a hidden source of anguish

00:40:51

that wasn't just widespread but nearly universal

00:40:55

among people who've done well in their careers.

00:40:58

I came to call this the "strivers curse":

00:41:01

people who strive to be excellent in what they do

00:41:03

often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying,

00:41:05

their successes increasingly unsatisfying,

00:41:10

and their relationships lacking.

00:41:14

Don't miss it, he calls it a curse.

00:41:15

Best word this guy could use to describe this:

00:41:17

It's a curse.

00:41:19

That's what Genesis three says,

00:41:20

cursed is the ground for your sake,

00:41:23

in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life,

00:41:27

in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

00:41:30

and it will not satisfy you. It won't.

00:41:35

Listen, friend, no matter how hard you work,

00:41:38

no matter what result you get,

00:41:39

no matter what fancy title gets put on the name plate

00:41:41

in the front of your desk or in your office door,

00:41:43

it doesn't matter.

00:41:44

You cannot validate yourself.

00:41:47

You cannot give yourself approval.

00:41:49

You cannot give yourself affirmation.

00:41:51

You cannot give yourself safety.

00:41:52

You cannot give yourself security no matter what.

00:41:54

You can't do it. You can't.

00:41:58

3000 years before Arthur C. Brooks came along,

00:42:01

there was this guy named King Solomon.

00:42:02

He was recognized as the wisest guy in the world.

00:42:05

And he wrote these words that became Scripture,

00:42:07

Ecclesiastes 2:11:

00:42:10

Then I considered all that my hands had done

00:42:12

and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold,

00:42:17

all was vanity and a striving after the wind.

00:42:23

All was vanity.

00:42:25

That's the curse we gotta understand.

00:42:26

Out of our brokenness we work to satisfy our hunger

00:42:31

and it will not happen.

00:42:35

That's the bad news and that's the brokenness.

00:42:37

But remember, Jesus didn't say that He is

00:42:39

the Bread of Life to reinforce this old thing.

00:42:41

He didn't say He's the bread of death.

00:42:43

He said He's the Bread of Life.

00:42:44

He changes the narrative because He's the Messiah.

00:42:48

The Messiah comes and fixes what was broken.

00:42:52

And so the Messiah comes around, He says,

00:42:54

"I'm gonna take this daily reminder of death, bread,

00:42:57

and I'm going to turn it into a daily reminder of life.

00:43:01

Life in me."

00:43:02

And bread is the picture of how He does it.

00:43:05

Now, our problem with bread is that

00:43:07

when we think of bread, we start here.

00:43:11

You know, we do have bread tree, it's called Kroger.

00:43:14

And we go and we pick off the bread we want

00:43:16

from the from the shelf, or we do our clicklist

00:43:19

and the guy puts it in our trunk.

00:43:20

And we just hope when he puts it in our trunk,

00:43:22

he doesn't put the eggs on top. Right?

00:43:24

That's what most of the bread I get from Kroger

00:43:26

looks like, it's kind of like this. You know?

00:43:28

It's like, okay, well, what are we working with?

00:43:31

We got something in there.

00:43:32

This is our start with bread.

00:43:36

But for the people Jesus was talking to,

00:43:38

when He says I'm the Bread of Life,

00:43:40

their portrait, their picture didn't start

00:43:43

with pre-sliced bread in a plastic bag.

00:43:46

Their picture started with the work of bread,

00:43:49

the process of bread.

00:43:52

Because every day, guess what they did?

00:43:54

They made bread.

00:43:57

Literally every first century family,

00:43:58

every day labored and worked to make bread.

00:44:03

What was that process of bread making?

00:44:05

Well, for bread to exist, you have to have

00:44:08

a kernel of wheat that has to fall

00:44:11

from its position on high into the ground where it must die.

00:44:18

And when it dies, it would produce life.

00:44:20

A field of wheat would grow up.

00:44:22

And when that field was ripe

00:44:23

and when it was ready to be harvested,

00:44:25

they would walk out with scythes, with these knives,

00:44:28

and they would cut down the stalks of wheat.

00:44:31

And when those stocks were all down on the ground,

00:44:34

they would bind them together in sheaves.

00:44:38

They would gather those sheaves up

00:44:40

and take them to a threshing floor.

00:44:43

What's a threshing floor?

00:44:44

It's this wide, circular, flat stone area,

00:44:48

usually on top of a hill

00:44:49

so there's a strong breeze that blows across it.

00:44:53

They would spread it out on the threshing floor.

00:44:56

They would get oxen

00:44:57

and they would attach these carts to the oxen.

00:45:00

And on the bottom of the carts were sharp stones,

00:45:03

like flinty stones, and the ox would go round in circles,

00:45:06

and as the cart drug across those stalks of wheat,

00:45:09

they'd be cut and broken into pieces.

00:45:14

And they'd take a winnowing fork and they jam it in,

00:45:16

and they throw it in the air,

00:45:18

and the breeze would blow the chaff off.

00:45:20

And then the kernels of wheat would fall to the ground.

00:45:23

And they'd scoop those kernels up

00:45:25

and they'd take them to a place to be ground

00:45:27

and pounded into flour.

00:45:29

Sometimes that looked like a millstone

00:45:32

or attached to a donkey going in circles.

00:45:34

A lot of times it looked like just

00:45:36

a mortar and pestle just like this.

00:45:38

And families would grind it up themselves,

00:45:41

slowly, pounding it finer and finer.

00:45:45

Then they would take that flour and mix it with water,

00:45:49

with natural yeast, they would fold it

00:45:52

again with pressure into dough over and over again.

00:45:57

And then they'd take a knife

00:46:00

and they would score that dough so that as it rose,

00:46:03

the air had a place to escape.

00:46:06

And then the last step, they'd take the dough

00:46:09

and they'd put it in the fire, into the oven.

00:46:14

That's their picture of bread.

00:46:16

And so when Jesus comes along, He says,

00:46:18

I'm the Bread of Life, He's saying, I'm this.

00:46:21

This is what I've gone through for you.

00:46:25

Notice Jesus didn't say He's the baker of the Bread of Life.

00:46:30

He said He's the bread itself.

00:46:33

You know, Jesus was once on high.

00:46:36

He was on high and He had to come down to the earth.

00:46:39

He Himself, in John 12 said:

00:46:40

Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat

00:46:43

falls to the ground and dies,

00:46:46

it remains only a single seed.

00:46:49

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

00:46:53

Many seeds. This is Jesus.

00:46:54

He comes down from heaven. He takes on human flesh.

00:46:57

Why? So that He could die to produce life in many.

00:47:01

Eventually He goes through His ministry.

00:47:03

Eventually He's taken to the Garden of Gethsemane,

00:47:06

where He's bound up and He's taken from there

00:47:10

to a threshing floor, to a place of judgment

00:47:14

and atonement, which, by the way,

00:47:16

did you know that the holiest ground on earth

00:47:19

at this point in human history was a threshing floor?

00:47:22

You can read the story for yourself in 2 Samuel 24.

00:47:25

King David buys Araunah's threshing floor.

00:47:28

That threshing floor becomes the temple of God,

00:47:32

the place where atonement and sacrifice is made.

00:47:35

And so Jesus is hauled off to a threshing floor,

00:47:38

to the courtyard, circular stone courtyard of Pilate,

00:47:42

where He is whipped, where He is cut.

00:47:45

He's taken to a cross where nails are pounded

00:47:48

into His hands and through His feet.

00:47:52

And then He's hung on a cross.

00:47:54

And just before He dies, a soldier takes a spear

00:47:57

and cuts Him, slices Him open.

00:48:00

And He's placed into the fire for three days.

00:48:03

What's amazing is when bread comes out of the fire,

00:48:08

when it comes out of the oven,

00:48:10

it bears the scars of its journey.

00:48:14

And this is Jesus.

00:48:15

Chuck talked about the story of Thomas last week

00:48:18

and where Thomas, who we call Doubting Thomas,

00:48:20

sees the resurrected Jesus with His scars.

00:48:23

And it's only then that Thomas is able to believe.

00:48:25

He says, "I've got to put my fingers into Your scars.

00:48:30

Got to see. I've got to believe."

00:48:33

See, this is all of us.

00:48:34

Jesus says I'm the Bread of Life.

00:48:36

He gives us this picture so that all of us would see

00:48:40

what He went through for us so that

00:48:42

we would be convinced, convinced every day

00:48:45

I don't have to work to earn approval.

00:48:48

I don't have to work to earn satisfaction.

00:48:50

I don't have to wonder if I belong.

00:48:52

He showed it to me.

00:48:54

And what bread is meant to be is an everyday,

00:48:56

daily reminder, literally of the gospel story. Why?

00:49:00

Because every day, whether you've been in church

00:49:02

for four days or 400 days, doesn't matter,

00:49:05

you need a reminder of what He did for you every day.

00:49:11

Every roll you pick up,

00:49:13

every hamburger bun you eat,

00:49:15

every slice of bread like this you hope isn't squished,

00:49:18

is meant to be a reminder of the gospel story

00:49:21

of a God who loves you and says

00:49:23

I'll satisfy your hunger.

00:49:25

See, all of us have this choice.

00:49:27

We can either work out of our woundedness,

00:49:32

or we can accept the wounds of Christ on our behalf.

00:49:36

We can accept the work He did that validates us,

00:49:40

the work He did that says we're secure,

00:49:42

the work He did that we could never accomplish on our own.

00:49:46

Thomas, we call him Doubting Thomas.

00:49:48

Chuck said we should call him Honest Thomas.

00:49:50

He should be the patron saint of Crossroads.

00:49:51

I was like, that's awesome. I like that a lot.

00:49:54

Honest Thomas.

00:49:55

You could also call him convinced Thomas actually,

00:49:59

the opposite of doubt. Why?

00:50:01

Well, because church history says that Thomas

00:50:03

went further than any other of the original disciples.

00:50:07

He went all the way to India,

00:50:10

where he planted seven churches.

00:50:13

I just know when he got there, guess what he did?

00:50:15

He was like, hey, that bread you're eating,

00:50:18

garlic naan probably, I don't know.

00:50:21

That's the story of the gospel.

00:50:22

Let me tell you about a God who loves you,

00:50:24

who what He went through for you.

00:50:26

It's a language that people can actually understand.

00:50:29

That is the gospel.

00:50:30

I'm telling you, I'm telling you when you embrace this,

00:50:34

when you see this picture,

00:50:36

when you receive it on a daily basis,

00:50:38

it changes how you live,

00:50:40

changes everything about your life.

00:50:43

Give you an example in my life,

00:50:44

it changed the way that I dated.

00:50:46

Maybe you're single, maybe you're dating.

00:50:48

This can radically change that part of your life.

00:50:51

See, but before I really believed this

00:50:54

I would date trying to get approval from somebody else,

00:50:58

fill the need.

00:51:00

I worked for affirmation.

00:51:03

And after, instead of working

00:51:05

for somebody else's affirmation,

00:51:07

I worked from the place of affirmation

00:51:10

in the relationship. Changed everything. Everything.

00:51:13

I remember my my second date with Sarah.

00:51:16

We went to Graeter's in Hyde Park in Cincinnati.

00:51:19

And we had this conversation and I said to her

00:51:21

in the conversation, I said, "Look, here's the deal.

00:51:24

I'm short. I got bad teeth and I got big ears."

00:51:27

You know, I'm really selling myself.

00:51:29

Act now before somebody else does like.

00:51:34

I said, "I know that about me.

00:51:36

For a long time that bothered me.

00:51:38

It really bothered me and I'd try to

00:51:41

like work through it.

00:51:42

I'd try to gain acceptance anyway."

00:51:43

And I said, "You know, I'm going to place in my life now

00:51:46

where I just know that doesn't define me. God does.

00:51:49

I know what He went through for me.

00:51:51

I know that He calls me loved.

00:51:53

I know He calls me approved.

00:51:54

I know that I'm enough in His eyes,

00:51:57

and that's enough for me.

00:51:59

So I just want you to know that's where I'm coming from.

00:52:03

I'm not, " I said, " I'm not trying to earn your approval.

00:52:06

I mean that in a good way.

00:52:08

And our relationship, whether it lasts

00:52:09

for another week or for decades,

00:52:12

my goal is not to earn your approval.

00:52:16

My goal is to help you understand that

00:52:17

you are already approved, not by me, but by God."

00:52:21

It changes everything in your relationships.

00:52:22

When you date that way, it changes everything,

00:52:24

changes the way you work, changes the way you parent,

00:52:27

changes everything. That's the gospel.

00:52:30

Now there's a second portrait in here

00:52:32

we got to talk about before we run out, just really quick.

00:52:34

And that's not just the broken bread,

00:52:36

but it's the daily bread.

00:52:38

It's how to have life in His name,

00:52:41

not tomorrow, not someday, not heaven, but today.

00:52:45

Daily bread. Daily bread was on the people's mind

00:52:48

when Jesus was talking about this.

00:52:50

It was from John 6.

00:52:51

And right before Jesus starts talking about

00:52:53

how He's the Bread of Life, He does this miracle.

00:52:56

He's preaching all day long.

00:52:57

There's no food. The people get hangry.

00:52:59

And so He takes 12 loaves, breaks them,

00:53:01

and makes miracle bread for everybody.

00:53:03

It's called the feeding of the 5000,

00:53:06

even though it was more like 20 or 25,000 people who were there,

00:53:08

makes bread for everybody.

00:53:10

And then He goes to the next town

00:53:11

and the people chase after Him,

00:53:13

not because they want more awesome preaching,

00:53:15

not because they want the Word of God,

00:53:18

but because they want actual bread.

00:53:19

Literally, they're like, we found a bread tree,

00:53:21

Jesus, this is awesome.

00:53:24

And they try to convince Him to give them manna.

00:53:27

They have this back and forth conversation.

00:53:29

Manna is what God made to feed their ancestors

00:53:32

when they were leaving slavery in Egypt

00:53:34

and they were in the desert,

00:53:35

He would make bread every morning.

00:53:36

They'd walk outside and they'd pick up

00:53:38

these little flakes of bread stuff.

00:53:39

And that was their daily sustenance.

00:53:41

And they were like, Jesus, that was so awesome back then.

00:53:44

That satisfied their hunger, that gave them life.

00:53:47

And so why don't you do the same thing for us?

00:53:49

Why don't you give us manna?

00:53:51

And here's Jesus's response, John 6:48, he says:

00:53:55

I'm the Bread of Life.

00:53:57

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness,

00:54:00

and are dead. Dead.

00:54:03

Literally all the people who eat the manna die

00:54:07

except for two guys, Joshua and Caleb.

00:54:09

Everybody else dies.

00:54:11

He says, "This is the bread which comes down from heaven,

00:54:14

that one may eat of it and not die.

00:54:16

I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

00:54:19

If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

00:54:22

And the bread that I shall give is my flesh,

00:54:25

which I give for the life of the world.

00:54:27

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

00:54:29

Your fathers ate the manna and they're dead.

00:54:32

He who eats this bread lives forever.

00:54:35

He says, look, you're still chasing the wrong thing.

00:54:39

You're still thinking there's something besides me

00:54:42

that's going to satisfy you.

00:54:43

It's not, even on a day in, day out basis.

00:54:47

By the way, God had already made this point

00:54:50

to His people all the way back in Deuteronomy 8.

00:54:52

So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger,

00:54:55

and fed you with manna which you didn't know

00:54:58

nor did your fathers know,

00:54:59

that He might make you know

00:55:01

that man shall not live by bread alone;

00:55:06

but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

00:55:11

Every word of God.

00:55:14

Jesus said what you need on a day in, day out basis,

00:55:16

yeah, bread to eat, but that's not your most important need.

00:55:19

Your most important need is to have

00:55:21

the Word of God every single day.

00:55:26

You know, the thing about bread is it's not optional.

00:55:30

There's a reason Jesus didn't say

00:55:31

I am the caviar of life.

00:55:36

I am like the whipped cream and cherry

00:55:38

on top of the sundae of life.

00:55:40

Didn't say that. That's optional.

00:55:42

That's luxury. Bread isn't luxury.

00:55:44

Bread is a necessity.

00:55:46

Every single day you've got to eat.

00:55:50

Many of us in our lives, I think we're tired,

00:55:52

we're exhausted and we're weak.

00:55:55

And the reason's pretty darn simple:

00:55:56

it's because we're not eating.

00:56:00

It's because we think that if we eat once a week,

00:56:02

maybe, that's like, probably pretty good.

00:56:04

No, it's not enough. It's not enough.

00:56:06

Listen, if you're here, if you're watching online,

00:56:09

I love that. Meeting together on a weekly basis

00:56:13

is a 2000 year old super important sacred tradition

00:56:17

that is vital to your faith,

00:56:19

vital to be part of a faith community.

00:56:20

Please come back to church next week.

00:56:22

You will not regret it, I promise.

00:56:24

And, and this isn't enough.

00:56:29

You got to eat every day.

00:56:30

If you're not, I'm just telling you,

00:56:32

you're weaker than you need to be.

00:56:34

But what does it what does it mean to eat every day?

00:56:36

Well, Jesus said when He taught us how to pray

00:56:38

in Matthew 6, the Lord's Prayer,

00:56:39

He said to pray every day Father,

00:56:42

give us today our daily bread.

00:56:45

Well, clearly, from everything we've read in Scripture,

00:56:47

He's probably not talking about actual bread.

00:56:50

I mean, sure, pray for that.

00:56:51

But He was saying is you need God's Word,

00:56:54

the daily Word from God.

00:56:57

See, there's a thing available to us

00:56:58

to have life in His name of daily bread

00:57:01

is to wake up every day and say,

00:57:02

Jesus, I need You to feed me today, Your Word.

00:57:08

This is something I do every, every morning.

00:57:12

I ask God to give me my daily bread.

00:57:14

And I'll tell you, it's not like a magic trick, you know?

00:57:17

It's not like I pray that like,

00:57:18

God, give me today my daily bread. Woo!

00:57:21

Like I drank nine Red Bulls.

00:57:22

I got so much energy and insight.

00:57:24

No, it's not. That's not how it works.

00:57:27

It's training yourself to look for these little moments,

00:57:31

to go to Him for what you need throughout the entire day.

00:57:36

These little moments are you might be tempted

00:57:38

to lean on your experience or your emotional state

00:57:40

or whatever, and instead you turn to God.

00:57:42

It's deciding to pray before a meeting.

00:57:44

Maybe it's one on your calendar

00:57:46

that's been there for a long time.

00:57:47

It's stressing you out.

00:57:48

Maybe it just pops up and you decide,

00:57:50

before I go in this room and I lean on my own intellect,

00:57:53

I lean on my own experience, I lean on my own, whatever.

00:57:56

Instead, I'm just going to pause

00:57:59

and I'm going to ask God to give me what I need.

00:58:02

Give me His Word, His bread for this moment.

00:58:06

That might sound like so small to you.

00:58:07

I promise if you develop this habit in your life,

00:58:10

your life will change.

00:58:11

It's not like you're going to pray

00:58:13

before your first meeting and walk in and be like,

00:58:15

"Surprise, you're senior vice president now. Amazing.

00:58:18

It was just like 30 seconds ago, we decided that.

00:58:20

I don't know what you were doing."

00:58:21

But that's not going to happen.

00:58:23

But what will happen is when you go into that meeting,

00:58:25

you'll bring a calm and a wisdom

00:58:28

and a perspective that you did not have on your own.

00:58:31

And it will be uncommon in that room.

00:58:33

And over time you will see change in your life.

00:58:37

This is how it works to have daily bread.

00:58:40

I was talking to a good friend and mentor of mine,

00:58:42

Kirk Perry, this past week.

00:58:44

He's a fortune 500 CEO.

00:58:46

Very successful guy, very faithful guy.

00:58:49

And he was telling me about this moment

00:58:51

where he was offered a job he wasn't expecting

00:58:54

with five minutes warning in front of an entire board.

00:58:58

He was like, wow, you know?

00:58:59

This guy in the hallway goes, "This is what I'm about to do.

00:59:01

About to talk about this thing.

00:59:03

And so you got five minutes to think about it."

00:59:05

He was like, whoa.

00:59:06

So when he responded to the guy with was,

00:59:08

"Hey, this might sound weird,

00:59:11

but I need a minute to pray."

00:59:13

The guy was like, uh, okay.

00:59:16

So Kirk takes a minute and prays.

00:59:18

He said, in that minute, he just felt

00:59:21

this word from God of peace.

00:59:24

Just felt this sense of peace.

00:59:26

And so he walked back in the room.

00:59:28

The anxiety that could have been there wasn't there.

00:59:32

When he walked back in the room, the want

00:59:34

to prove himself that could have been there wasn't there.

00:59:37

Instead, he had peace. And guess what?

00:59:39

That peace and that calm just made them

00:59:41

want to offer him the job more.

00:59:43

Of course, of course. This is what it's like.

00:59:46

See, when you ask for daily bread,

00:59:48

it can change every part of your life.

00:59:51

It can change the way you date.

00:59:52

It can change the way you parent.

00:59:54

It gives you something you did not have on your own.

00:59:57

Are you asking for it?

00:59:59

Are you seeking daily bread?

01:00:03

Last week, Chuck ended the service by practicing

01:00:05

what he called Visio Divina.

01:00:08

This this ancient, sacred tradition

01:00:11

of looking at pictures. Of paintings

01:00:14

in a prayerful sense to try to have

01:00:16

a conversation with God.

01:00:17

He put up that picture of the painting

01:00:19

of Thomas putting his hand in Jesus's side.

01:00:22

We're actually going to end the same way today,

01:00:24

but not with a big painting on the screen.

01:00:27

Instead, I want you to picture in your imagination

01:00:29

right now bread.

01:00:32

You can go ahead and close your eyes

01:00:35

if it helps so you're not distracted.

01:00:37

And I want you to picture bread.

01:00:40

Maybe the bread you're picturing

01:00:41

is bread in the process of being created.

01:00:48

Maybe it's something about the broken bread,

01:00:51

the cutting down of the stalk.

01:00:54

Maybe it's the bread in the oven.

01:00:57

Maybe the picture in your mind is of daily bread

01:00:59

and that's your need.

01:01:01

Whatever it is, I want you to assume

01:01:03

the picture in your mind is from God

01:01:04

and have a conversation with Him about it right now.

01:01:09

If your picture is about broken bread

01:01:10

and believing the gospel, if you're sitting here

01:01:12

and you're going, man, I spent a lot of time

01:01:15

trying to satisfy my own hunger for approval,

01:01:19

my own hunger to be validated,

01:01:21

my own hunger to be enough.

01:01:24

Just tell Jesus, say,

01:01:26

Jesus, I want You to be my Bread of Life.

01:01:28

I receive You as my broken bread.

01:01:34

Just receive the gospel.

01:01:37

Maybe you're in a spot in your life where you're just tired.

01:01:41

Maybe there's even something on your calendar today

01:01:43

that you do not have the energy for.

01:01:47

Maybe there's a thing on your calendar you think you do.

01:01:49

Would you just reframe it

01:01:50

and just ask God for daily bread?

01:01:53

Ask Him to give you the Word you need

01:01:54

before you have that conversation.

01:01:57

Ask him to give you the attitude that you need

01:02:00

before you go home and spend the rest of your day.

01:02:03

By the way, don't worry about tomorrow's bread,

01:02:05

it'll take care of itself.

01:02:07

Just focus on today today.

01:02:12

Let me pray for you. Jesus,

01:02:13

thank you for clear pictures

01:02:16

that even people like me can understand

01:02:18

of how You love us, how You gave Yourself for us,

01:02:22

how You suffered for us once and for all

01:02:24

to prove, to prove Your love.

01:02:28

We just say thank you.

01:02:30

We believe it and we receive it.

01:02:32

I think You didn't stop there,

01:02:33

but You give us daily nourishment.

01:02:34

I'm asking for everybody here,

01:02:36

everybody watching online that

01:02:37

You would be our daily bread today.

01:02:39

Develop us in us the habit of turning to You,

01:02:42

not once a week, not sometimes, not when remember,

01:02:45

but a habit of daily going to You

01:02:48

to give us what we need for that moment and that day.

01:02:51

We want to have a life in Your Name.

01:02:54

Bless You for being so good. Amen.

01:02:58

- Amen.

01:02:59

Hey, I want you to experience more of that daily bread.

01:03:02

That's part of the reason our church exists,

01:03:04

for you to help take your next step towards

01:03:07

experiencing more of God and more of what He has for you,

01:03:10

to fill you and to fill your life.

01:03:12

If there's any way we can help in that,

01:03:14

that's literally what we exist for.

01:03:16

One of the best ways you can connect with us on that,

01:03:19

actually, I would love to connect with you personally.

01:03:21

If you send a message today and reach out,

01:03:23

I will reach out to you personally

01:03:25

to help you take your next step.

01:03:26

You can just text the word "Anywhere" to 301301

01:03:29

and it's the word "Anywhere" to 301301,

01:03:31

whether it's something you want to pray about,

01:03:33

something you want to process,

01:03:34

or something you want to help kind of navigate,

01:03:37

what's my next step and getting connected

01:03:39

to the church or in my faith.

01:03:40

We'd love to help you out in that in any way we can.

01:03:43

But before we go, want to give you

01:03:45

a special invite back next week for really different

01:03:48

and incredible prayer experience.

01:03:50

We're going to interrupt kind of our normal flow

01:03:52

of service to have a moment to connect with God,

01:03:54

to slow down and be refreshed.

01:03:56

It's going to be immersive, reflective, but not heavy.

01:03:58

This is like when Matthew 11 and Jesus says,

01:04:00

"Come to me, all who are burdened,

01:04:02

who are weary, and I will give you rest."

01:04:04

That's what this is going to be all about,

01:04:06

a chance for you to experience God

01:04:08

in your life where you are.

01:04:09

To get the most out of next week experience,

01:04:11

I want you to come prepared.

01:04:12

Just have a pen and paper, capture your thoughts,

01:04:14

prayers, and anything else you sense

01:04:16

might be God saying to you.

01:04:17

And if you're able, gather something for communion.

01:04:19

At our physical sites,

01:04:20

we're going to be using bread and grapes.

01:04:22

But anything that you have available:

01:04:24

bread, wine, juice, crackers,

01:04:26

whatever it is, will work just fine.

01:04:28

Can't wait to have you as we experience

01:04:30

more of what God has for us and how He wants to fill us

01:04:32

and be our daily bread today and next week.

01:04:34

Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next week.

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