"Needing Bread"

August 6, 2006
Ephesians series, 4/7
from Ephesians 4:1-16 and John 6:24-35

"'The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.'
They said to him, 'Sir, give us this bread always.'
Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger...'" – John 6:33-35


My sermon outline:

• Letter to editor, why go to church? (30 years: 1500 sermons, 32,000 meals. Spiritual nourishment)... So we come for spiritual food, and like meals, we come again and again, and God feeds us.

• In reading from John, the crowd (same crowd that was fed w/ 5 loaves & 2 fishes just before) is looking for Jesus. Really looking for Jesus? Jesus knows what they’re thinking, tells ’em not to waste their energy striving for perishable food but instead to work for food that nourishes their lasting lives.

• Jesus knows that even though we are looking for him today (are we really?), we waste our energy on things that do not nourish. We misuse our energy. We confess our improper action and our lack of proper action. We hold on to sins of the past (grudges) and close our eyes to sins of the present.

• Addicted to sin. Addiction is when a body so strongly craves a certain something that it neglects its own well-being to get it. Mel Gibson fell off the wagon and will reap the harvest of that for some time. If he knew the result of his fall beforehand he may have acted with more integrity.

• We are surrounded by results of sin. 61 years ago tomorrow the USAF B-29 Enola Gay dropped atomic bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima, killing a quarter of a million people. We had an idea of the power of the bomb but a lack of awareness on the full impact of its force, not only on the city and inhabitants of Hiroshima, but on the history of the world. If we knew the impact of our actions in Japan 61 years ago we may have acted differently.

• Hezbollah has admitted that it didn't know Israel would react so strongly to the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. We do not know the long term effects of our actions.

• God knows that his body the Church and indeed his children the World suffer the effects of sin every living moment, so he gives gifts for the building up of his body, and the whole body works together.

• knee surgery affected body and way of life for half a year. Different parts of my body had to work together to build the body.

• (1 cor 13 when I was a child) (static is tragic) No longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by bad teaching or trickery.

• They ask for a sign, as their ancestors had bread from heaven. (Imagine that, this crowd asking for bread!) God gives bread (it’s me) to give life to the world.

• Simple solution / NVPeale story. Sir, give us this bread always.

• We do not know the long-term effects of really any of our actions.

• Garbage In / Garbage Out.... You Are What You Eat...

• “ ‘The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’
They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ We need this bread.
Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger...’ ”

• Therefore we should frequently feast on God’s bread, that we might lead lives worthy of the calling of God, with humility and gentleness, with patience and love, striving for unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We should constantly infuse our lives with God’s life-giving communion, that all of us might come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.


- Pastor Kerry
This Sunday: comfortable weather. A communion Sunday. 67 in worship.