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Eastside Church Sermons
These are the sermons of Eastside Church in Madison, WI. We live in a broken world - everyone feels it. We believe we were made to have lasting peace with ourselves, each other, and God. Because of who Jesus is and what he has done, we don’t have to experience the hardships (or joys) of this life alone. We exist to be a church made up of people who love, live like, and speak of Jesus, locally and globally, as the Spirit leads.
Eastside Church Sermons
The Bread Of Life (John 6) by Houston Tucker
Embark on a spiritual journey with us as we uncover the profound lessons from Jesus's miracle of feeding the 5,000 in John 6. This isn't your typical Sunday school story recap; we're digging into the heart of our human nature, the tendency to satisfy immediate cravings while neglecting our deeper hungers. Through the lens of "A Young Doctor's Notebook," Kinsey and I explore the parallels between fictional characters and our own lives, revealing how we often overlook life-threatening conditions in favor of temporary fixes. Join us as we confront the cultural misconceptions that reduce us to mere physical beings and discover the richness of our spiritual, emotional, and existential dimensions.
As you tune in, prepare to be challenged by a fresh perspective on what it means to lead a good life, even when physical needs are unmet. Drawing from a study that surveys emotional and existential satisfaction, we discuss how true fulfillment often lies beyond immediate physical needs. Hear firsthand accounts from my time in homeless ministry, which illustrate the stark reality that food and shelter, while crucial, don't satisfy our deepest yearnings. Together with Kinsey, we delve into Jesus's claim as the 'bread of life,' inviting you to reflect on how this identity meets our spiritual hunger and leads us to a more meaningful existence.
Finally, with the Lenten season upon us, we share our personal fasting experiences and invite you to join in this time of reflection. Whether it's food or enticing forms of entertainment, consider what you might set aside to nurture your spiritual growth. We close with a heartfelt prayer, seeking the wisdom to quiet the commotion of daily life and maintain a hunger for the divine, guiding us toward peace in the chaos of our world. Don't miss this opportunity to recalibrate your priorities and potentially transform your spiritual journey.
Okay, all right Morning. My name is Houston. I'm one of the pastors here at East Side Church. Today we are talking about John 6.
Speaker 1:As you heard, this is one of the more famous passages in John. It's the miracle where Jesus feeds the 5,000. And then there is this long dialogue afterwards between Jesus and the people he fed, and many of us have heard this story before. It's one of Jesus' most iconic miracles. In fact, this is one of the only or the only miracle that Jesus did. That is in each of the four gospels. So it's very, very significant and we love this miracle. We love to talk about it, we love how Jesus provides and we love that.
Speaker 1:The story where one boy brought his lunch and Jesus multiplied that to feed so many people is a picture of how God can miraculously turn our small fare into something big, and we love that. But it's interesting, that's not where John goes in telling this miracle. In fact, in the other gospels these are definitely the themes that the gospel writers emphasize. They emphasize that Jesus can do so much with so little. But John has a different focus for us. He moves much more quickly onto what happened after Jesus fed the crowds than the feeding itself and Jesus feeding the crowds is really just a bridge. It bridges us into the teaching that Jesus is going to do afterwards and it's really interesting. It's interesting because Jesus is not really understood, he's not really well received by the people, and it's a lot like the show this Netflix show that came out about 10 years ago called a Young Doctors Notebook, and it's the show that follows, as it suggests, a young doctor played by Daniel Radcliffe, and the same doctor two or three decades later played by John Hamm, and it's kind of a dialogue between the two. They track just this doctor's journey and this young doctor he graduates top of his class a university in Moscow, moscow University, and he's very bright, he's the best of the best, and so they send him to the most difficult posting they could find. They send him to this hospital in the middle of nowhere in the northern Russian tundra and this is the only hospital for hundreds of miles, and so people will trek for days just to get to the hospital and be seen and it's very isolating, very wild, and one of the big themes in this show is that this young doctor knows so much, he's very good, he is the best that Moscow Medical School has produced in a long time. But he has these dual problems of not understanding people in the world very well and people don't respect him. And the problem is, as he comes into this hospital and he's the successor to the great doctor Gregory Grigoryovitch or something like that, and he was a very assuming man, very tall, very proud, big beard, and his pictures are still up everywhere in the hospital. So no one respects Daniel Rycliffe's character, no one respects the young doctor.
Speaker 1:And there's a scene in one of the early episodes, episode two, where the young doctor is seeing a patient and he is examining this man and he stands up and he says look, there's no easy way to say this, but you have syphilis and you are going to die. And the man pauses, gives him a dirty look and he says I don't know what you're on about. I have a sore throat and I need a gargle. And the young doctor he says no, no, no, forget about the sore throat you have. You have a terminal disease that is very contagious. He said do you have a wife? Do you have kids? We should get them in here right away. They need to be tested. We need to talk about safety protocols, hygiene. And the man he's an old Russian soldier, just looks at him sternly. He says so are you telling me you don't have the gargle? And the young doctor says forget about the gargle, you're going to die. He says it is as bluntly as he can to get the man's attention. The man storms out of the hospital room complaining that this doctor doesn't know what he's talking about, can't even give him a gargle. The thing is that the doctor knew what the man needed. He was going to die if he did not get this treatment. But the man could not see past his sore throat, which was only a symptom of the syphilis taking effect.
Speaker 1:And in the same way, jesus, when he's talking to this crowd, he's trying to tell them something very important. He's trying to communicate to them that they have very big and important needs, but they're still hung up on their physical need, on their next meal. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to dive into that. We're going to figure out what Jesus says, what weung. What we're going to see is that he's speaking a lot to our needs, is that we're going to see the nature of our needs. We're going to see the stakes of our need and then we're going to see the satisfaction of our need. So again, we're going to see the stakes, sorry, again we're going to see the nature of our need. We're going to see the stakes of our need and then we're going to see the satisfaction of our need. First, let's consider the nature of our need, in other words, let's see what we need.
Speaker 1:So we know that our passage starts with Jesus feeding a large crowd and it develops into a conversation about the bread of life, and that movement happens in verses 14 through 15. So let's read those. Jesus had just fed the people and they move. Sorry, he's just fed the people. And we see in verse 14 it says this when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world, proceeding then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king. Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. So Jesus has just fed the people and, as a result, they want to make him king by force.
Speaker 1:And this might seem strange, but let's think about it, it really does make sense. These guys, they live in a time and a place where food is not as sure as it is for us here today in the West, and here comes someone who was able to feed tens of thousands of people with one boy's lunch. And I say that because it says that there are 5,000 men that Jesus has fed, and we know that that is counting heads of households. So a conservative estimate would be 15,000-20,000 people that Jesus has fed, and so this is a no-brainer. This guy can take a small fare and turn it into lunch for 10,000-15,000-20,000 people. This is the kind of guy that we want to charge, because one of the most enduring expectations of leaders is that they provide access to food for people. Throughout human history, a leader's merit was judged by his ability to prevent starvation in his kingdom. So what better king than the one who could feed so many with so little?
Speaker 1:But Jesus runs why? And this is a point where we have to stop and we have to think, because if Jesus was just trying to get a movement of people on his side, well, this would have been great for him Become king. There's a power, there's a group who is backing him and his bid for control over the area. Or let's just say, if Jesus' sole purpose was just to come and do good things for people like to feed people. Well then, of course, having him as their king would be the best chance to keep feeding people. You see what I'm saying? Like, if Jesus' goal was power, this was his opportunity. If Jesus' goal was just good works, this was also his opportunity. But it's not. And we see why in the next section.
Speaker 1:His next day, jesus runs, he fled, and he flees on the other side of the little lake and people find him and when they find him they kind of corner him. He's in the synagogue in the next town over and he's teaching. And the crowd shows up and they say basically, hey, where did you go? Why did you go? Why did you run? And look at what Jesus said in verses 26 through 27. Jesus answered them truly.
Speaker 1:Truly, I say to you you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you, for on him God, the Father, has set his seal. You see, he says the reason he left was that they only wanted him for another meal. They didn't want him or what he really offered. And by doing that, they're chasing what he calls the bread the parishes, not the food that endures to eternal life. In other words, they're chasing their physical needs over their greater and deeper spiritual need. Let me say that again, they're chasing their physical needs over their greater and deeper spiritual need. Let's talk about what that means. We see, jesus is talking about bread, but he's not just talking about bread. See, bread is the staple of the diet at the time, and it's come to represent food as a whole, and so in this passage it basically represents our physical needs. And so Jesus criticism here is that they had solely focused on their physical needs, in this case hunger, and instead they should be working for the food that doesn't spoil, the things that nourish their souls. And we'll talk about what that is. We'll talk about what food nourishes our souls.
Speaker 1:But first I want to unpack a few implications of what Jesus said here. First, it shows us that humans are not just physical creatures. If we were solely physical, then our needs would be solely physical, but instead we have spiritual needs, and if we looked elsewhere in the Bible, we would see that we have emotional needs, social needs, even existential needs. We have to understand that this is a fundamental part of what Jesus is getting at here, and it's hard for us sometimes because, you know, our culture tells us that we are either exclusively or primarily physical beings, and we see this all over. You can pick from 100 examples.
Speaker 1:I think a clear example of this is how our culture talks about sex. According to our culture, sex is a physical need, some call it even an appetite, and maybe there's an emotional component. They'll concede that that's depending on who you ask but that's like secondary to the physical part, and so if there is no spiritual aspect to it, then therefore sex between any two consenting adults could never be quote bad. You see what I'm saying. If there's no other dimensions beyond the physical, then the physical act could not be bad, again, assuming that it's between two consenting adults. That's that's what someone would say, and, living in Madison, you know we get this purely physical worldview all the time. It's it's very prevalent, it's always around us, we're constantly imbibing it, and so we have to be really aware that the Bible offers a different view of humanity.
Speaker 1:The second thing I want us to see is that Jesus shows us not only that we have more than physical needs, but he shows us the priority of our needs. So you just said that we ought to give energy to satisfying our spiritual need over our physical needs, and that that must mean that our spiritual needs are deeper and truer. And sometimes here's the deal sometimes, when Christians or pastors they say something like this, we get, we get uncomfortable, like we've all seen times when people have used this idea harmfully or wielded this idea harmfully. People think that we're out here telling starving people, you know, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and get over it, you know. Or like you don't need a meal, you need Jesus or whatever. But that's not what we're saying. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that our spiritual need is more important though it's usually not more immediate than our physical needs, and I think we instinctively know this. So here's an idea Part of why Christians are so serious about people's physical needs is because they are immediate and demanding and obscure our view of our spiritual needs, and that's why Jesus fed the people before he taught them.
Speaker 1:He knew that their physical needs were demanding their attention and focus over and above their spiritual needs, so he met their physical needs first. But we know that that meeting these needs are not necessarily what leads to what we would call the good life as a Christian. Not, they don't lead to long term happiness or health necessarily, or satisfaction, right. So one study done in 2011 surveyed over 60,000 people from 123 countries and they asked them questions about the various types of needs, and they had what I would say is basically three categories that physical needs, like food and shelter. They had emotional needs, like love and support, and what I would call like existential needs autonomy, respect and what they found was that often those who did not have their physical needs met but their emotional and existential needs met, would still say that they have a good life. But the inverse was not true. So someone had their physical, physical needs met and maybe either their emotional or existential needs met, but not the other. They would not necessarily say they had a good life.
Speaker 1:And one of the authors of the study said this I think it captures it well Although the most basic needs might get the most attention when you don't have them, and you don't need to fulfill them in order to get the benefits from the others. I'll say that again. He said although the most basic needs might get the most attention when we don't have them, you don't need to fulfill them in order to get benefits from the others, and I think this captures the idea well. Our basic needs get the most attention because they are the most demanding they tend to be the most demanding, but we don't necessarily need them to get the benefits from the others which, as we're saying, are deeply beneficial. And in Kinsey and I, when we worked in homeless ministry, we saw this all the time. You know, someone comes in from having slept on the street for a few nights and they're single minded. They want a bed to sleep in, a meal to eat and a hot shower, and you know what that makes sense. We can all understand that.
Speaker 1:So often we would see people in desperation spend their last few dollars on hotel room for one night, or or even on one meal, even at the expense of something that could lead to long term benefits, like paying a phone bill or paying a fine. They would keep them out of jail. Do you see what I'm saying? We know instinctively, we know that we have more needs than just physical ones and, more importantly, I think we know that, though they're often the most demanding of us, the physical needs are not the most important. Okay, so we've seen the nature of our need, namely, we've seen that we have spiritual needs in addition to our physical needs, and we've said that this need is deeper and truer. But let's unpack this a little more by considering the stakes of this need. And we're going to see the stakes of our need by seeing how Jesus responded to the crowd. We're going to look at verses 51 through 55. And at this point, jesus has told them that they have a deeper spiritual need, and he's even told them that he is the answer to that need. And again, we'll unpack that in a minute. But I want us to focus on first is this In saying that he meets their spiritual need, he calls himself the bread of life, and this raises a lot of questions, not least of which is what in the world does that mean?
Speaker 1:And the people are still in this physical needs mindset, and so their question is does that mean we're supposed to eat you? And a lot of ways? I think that's a fair question, right? They're thinking in physical terms and their minds are on physical needs, and so when Jesus replies that they need to work for bread that doesn't spoil, they think he means work for food that is shelf stable or something. So when he moves on to try to show them that he's talking about a spiritual need, he calls himself the bread of life. But they don't get it.
Speaker 1:And here, in this section, this is where Jesus turns the dial up again. And so let's read, starting in verse 51 to 55, what he says. He says I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give him for this, for the life of the world, is my flesh. So the Jews disputed among themselves, saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And so Jesus said to them truly, truly, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Man. There's a lot to unpack, but first just think about how gruesome this language is. Eight times in five verses, it says something about eating flesh and drinking blood.
Speaker 1:Now here's what I think. Most of us are a bit desensitized to this, you see. I think either we're Christian and maybe we've been around the church long enough and we've heard this language, we've heard this being said, and so it's not quite so jarring. Or maybe you're just an average American or person from the West and you've seen more than your fair share of zombie movies, like, yeah, we get it, it's gross. Eat flesh, drink blood, zombie suck, but I've all seen, we've all seen walking dead, so I can handle my stomach right. Or maybe third option You've been around teenage boys enough that you're used to people saying gross things for attention.
Speaker 1:Either way, jesus says this and the result is that most of the crowds disperse and leave because it's so gross, so offensive, so gruesome what he said that people respond and leave, even his own followers. Some of them leave him over this. They say this is hard. Who can listen to this? And I think the truth is they hit the nail on the head. This is a hard teaching. It's intentionally hard.
Speaker 1:Jesus has chosen to teach in this way specifically because it is a hard thing to swallow. Pun intended, jesus is doing the equivalent of shaking their minds so that they'll snap out of their stupor, take a step back and try to figure out what's going on and, friends, he's not a fool. He knows that teaching this way is going to drive some people away. He knows that some, maybe even most, are going to hear what he said, get disgusted and leave. But he did it anyways, and he did it because that's how serious these stakes are, that's how deep this need is. He's willing to risk pushing people away in order to give them the truth that they desperately need. It's like Jesus is that doctor, the young doctor, surrounded by people dying of syphilis, and none of them knows that they're dying. And he's got the treatment. It's effective. It will help that no one sees that they're on the brink of death. They've got a deadly disease, but they just want their gargle and Jesus man. He's doing everything he can to get them to listen and it shows us something that is difficult but so vital to understand. Jesus is showing us that the stakes of this need are so high that it is better for someone to be jarred by his words, have to wrestle with them and even possibly leave, rather than stick around and not understand who Jesus is and what he's doing. Let me say it another way it is better that each person wrestle with who Jesus says he is and reject him outright, than hang around forever and not commit.
Speaker 1:And we see in the book of Revelation, chapter 3. Jesus was sending a message to a church and he challenges them to take seriously their faith. And he says that they are lukewarm, that they're neither hot nor cold, and it's wild. He says you know, it would be better if you were just cold than lukewarm. In the same way, for those of us who are orbiting around Jesus, we're brought to a decision point. Do we want him and what he offers? Do we want the bread of life, or are we just in this for the benefits? And look, here's what I want to challenge all of us, christian or not.
Speaker 1:It's easy to stand here and criticize these people who were so focused on food that they couldn't see who was really in front of them. But let's not forget we do the same thing to Jesus all the time. Some of us are here for the temporary benefits. Some people orbit the church because this is where they get their physical needs met, and you know what it's good that we do that. Jesus did it too.
Speaker 1:But to you who come just for the food or for other tangible things, remember you are more than a mouth to feed or a body to clothe. You're a person made in the image of God and you're meant to have a relationship with your creator. To you, jesus is the bread of life, god reaching out to be with you. Do you understand the eternal weight of that? Of course you don't. None of us do, and you know some of us. We feel good about ourselves because we're not here for support, we're not here for help. In fact, we're here to help.
Speaker 1:But let's consider some other possibilities. You know, some of us are following Jesus around, doing everything he said, because we think that it will make us good enough, we'll have enough value, we'll have worth. Or maybe, if we do all the right things, god will have to accept us. Or let me put this in a different way we think maybe it's as simple as if I do the right things, god will give me a good life. And what I want us to see is that if we're doing that, we're doing the same thing that the crowd was doing 2,000 years ago. We're following Jesus, using him to get what we think we need, do you see? I mean is following Jesus for a meal, or following him for a blessing, so that he'll make you have a good life. Is there really a difference? Because it's not about him, it's about you and what you're getting.
Speaker 1:And here's the deal. This is difficult, this is hard. We are messed up creatures and we have a hard time pulling apart our needs and wants and our motivations. It's hard to know why you're here and sometimes you know what. It's possible to want Jesus for multiple reasons. My goal is not to blast anyone, to push anyone away. I believe that my goal is the same today as it was for Jesus 2,000 years ago. I want us to seriously consider our spiritual need and, very importantly, I want us to consider who can truly satisfy that need.
Speaker 1:So let's consider how can we have our spiritual need truly satisfied? Let's skip back a little bit and let's read verses 35 through 40. Jesus said to them I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said that to you and you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. Well, we knew that Jesus was the answer, but now we're seeing how and why he is the answer. Jesus promises that he alone can fully satisfy our spiritual needs. But what are our needs? Well, let's see what Jesus says. He does In verse 37,. He says that whoever comes to him, he will not cast out, meaning we will always be his, and so what that means is that we have a deep spiritual need to belong specifically belong to God, and there's two parts in this I want to pull out First.
Speaker 1:One of the themes of the Bible is that all of creation is God's. He made it. It all belongs to him. He's the rightful owner of all reality, and so there is a goodness and rightness to us belonging to him. In that sense and this is good news, because God cares about his creation a lot it says in the Bible that he is jealous for his possessions, meaning he does not easily part with them nor let people abuse them. He's protective of his treasured possessions, and so there's a sense in which the best thing we can be is his. But there's another dimension here, relational sense of belonging. See, there's a, there's a promise here that if we come to Jesus, if we believe in him, then we will always have a relationship with him and we will never be sent away. Jesus never does breakups.
Speaker 1:And of all the deep spiritual needs, this is probably the deepest, see. We were created to have a relationship with God In the garden. The plan was that men and God would live and work side by side. God would teach us and show us the world and we would walk and talk with him and rule on his behalf. And you know, one of the primary names for God is father, and all of us need our divine father in our lives Because we know, we know how damaging it is to have a bad dad or no dad at all, how much more so when we scale that up to the cosmic level. These are, I'm saying like, like. We attribute lots of bad things to fatherlessness crime, poverty, domestic violence, drug addictions. Fatherlessness leads to all kinds of things like this.
Speaker 1:And so I ask you, what's the effect of not having our divine father in our lives? A broken world, chaos, death. One of the reasons why we experience as much chaos in our lives is because we do not have a relationship with God. And the reason we do not have a relationship with God is because each of us, without fail, has chosen to abandon him. We've chosen to listen to ourselves and to prioritize our own needs over him and each other, and in doing that we've wronged him and we've wronged ourselves. And all of us have at some point said to God what the crowds and what even some of Jesus own disciples said. They said this is too hard. Who can listen to this? We've left, we've gone our own way, we've tried to meet our needs in our order, and we've all gone off to shrivel up and die. So he's. We have a deep need, a deep need that we can't meet, one that we don't prioritize, and, man, we have burned the bridge to the one who satisfies that need. And that is why it is such good news that Jesus is the bread of life. Because Jesus is the bread of life that has come down to us.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about it. How easily could God have stayed far off and said hey, you're hungry, you better come eat. It would have been like telling a starving man hey, buddy, all you can eat, buffet. All you got to do is free, climb that cliff face. You might as well have said, hey, hey, buddy, you're gonna die, and you know the food is right there. And if you were better, you wouldn't have. You see what I'm saying? That's not what happened.
Speaker 1:Jesus came to us. He comes to us still. He regularly offers you and me his flesh and blood. He says again and again eat and be full, drink and be satisfied. Instead of making us go a little farther, he comes to us. It's like the scene in the movies where the man is starving, he's dying and he's so weak he can't even feed himself. And Jesus is that friend who comes and hand feeds us so we can live. And there's a tenacity in that, a tenacity of Jesus. That is exactly what we need. And we see his tenacity most clearly in what he was willing to do for us. And he tells us we need his flesh and blood, and nowhere is that clearer than when Jesus was on the cross. His body was torn and battered, thorns digging into his crown, scourge wounds on his back, spikes piercing his hands and feet. We have to see that there is actually a tangible component to Jesus offering himself as the bread of life. He said at the last supper he would be broken for us. And he was broken. He told us that his blood would be poured out and it flowed.
Speaker 1:Do you see the depth of our need, that Jesus had to die to meet it? Do you see how poorly we prioritize God, that God had to prioritize us at the expense of his own life? Do you see how estranged we were from God, that only death, and not just any death, but the death of life, could bridge the Gulf and forgive us? This is our need. We need to relate to our creator, and it's a desperate need, desperate enough that Jesus was willing to go to great lengths to show us our need and meet it at the cost of his life. And it is because of that we know how deeply satisfying Jesus is to our spiritual needs. He's a feast in the wilderness, he's a spring of water in the desert, and you know what those illustrations don't do justice, and so you have to come and see for yourself how satisfying he is. I just want to end with with this. There are a lot of ways we can unpack these truths and apply them to our lives, and I just want to pull on this thread.
Speaker 1:My daughter, stella, is getting into her hangry phase. Well, maybe she's always been in the hangry phase, but what I mean is like she's getting to the point where she wants to keep playing and keep going and she gets hungry, but she doesn't really recognize or admit or maybe even know that she's hungry, and the result is that she gets angry, right, hangry, and what we have to do is we have to stop and we have to say Okay, why are you so upset right now? Is it because you're hungry? And then she, you know, looks really deeply and says, yeah, as we feed her and she's okay. And I just wonder how much of us, or how many of us, are spiritually hangry? Do you know what I mean? Like, like we just keep going and life keeps demanding from us and we want to keep performing, keep doing, keep achieving, keep playing, whatever, and we have not stopped to take account of our spiritual hunger. And so what I want to challenge us is is to do that, to slow down, to stop and to take account of our hunger, and I think one of the ways we do that is through fasting. You know, fasting makes sense if we were not just purely physical beings. Right, if there are other, deeper needs, then it makes sense to fast, because we fast our physical needs for deeper and spiritual ones.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, we're coming up on the season of Lent and I just want to encourage you, consider, in this season, some type of fasting. Maybe it is a physical need, maybe some meat or or a meal or a day or something like that. I want to encourage you to consider that, kinsey and I, we are giving up not a physical need, but like different entertainment things, and the whole premise is that we're giving up a good thing, you know, food, clearly a good thing shows games, good things. We're giving these things up because we believe that we have deeper spiritual needs that we need to do the work of uncovering and digging into. And so I want to challenge you in this season of Lent, is there something you can give up, something you want to challenge yourself to fast from in order to pay attention to your deeper spiritual needs? And here's the deal, here's my promise to you. I promise that our Lord is faithful to meet to satisfy your deep spiritual needs.
Speaker 1:I've recently heard one pastor talk about these kinds of things, like when you become a Christian. It's like you get a package in the mail with all the things that you need. God's promised that he is there for you. He's promised that he saved you. He's promised that he's forgiven you. All of our things, all the things we need, are there, but there's some assembly required. We have to put on these things, we have to pick up these things, and that's the picture you know. Jesus is there, he is offering to meet your need and just go to Him and ask Him to do it. He's faithful, I promise.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, god, I just thank you for this day and I thank you for your word. I pray that, as each of us choose on what it means to need you, to hunger and thirst for you, I pray first that you would just keep that hunger, strong front of mind for us, strong in the sense that we want to do something about it, that we want to spend time with you. I pray that you'll help us to quiet the other noise in our lives that distract us from you and from pursuing you and Lord, I'm just particularly aware of the painful things in our life, the needs that demand from us and the needs that we don't even necessarily want to meet, whether they fight and demand us. And God, I just pray for anyone who is affected by that you would just give us grace and that you would just speak clearly and softly through those loud needs, loud voices screaming internally, and that you would just grant us the peace. They can only come from you. We love you, lord, and, as in Jesus' name, we pray amen.