Jesus Bread Of Life

[0:00] I want to encourage you to open your Bibles to the book of Exodus in chapter 16, Exodus chapter 16. As we look at the passage, it's a little bit of a unique situation in that last Sunday I was preaching through Exodus 16 and realized that I didn't have time to get to one of my points that I wanted to spend a little bit of time on.

[0:34] And so I stopped and came back. And so today we're going to preach just one point. I mean, just the one application point that I left out from last week. So yeah, not four, not five, whatever the rule is I'm supposed to do, just this one.

[0:49] I think I made it into more than one now, but okay. But we're going to finish last week's sermon in some way. We're looking at Exodus 16, 1 through 20. It's the same passage we looked at last Sunday.

[1:01] And we're going to also be looking at John chapter 6. But let me read there and then we'll pray. Exodus 16, verse 1. They set out from Elam, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai.

[1:19] On the 15th day of the second month, after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

[1:31] And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full.

[1:42] For you brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you.

[1:53] And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.

[2:09] So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord.

[2:23] For what are we that you grumble against us? And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we?

[2:36] Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.

[2:51] And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.

[3:04] Say to them at twilight, you shall eat meat. And in the morning you shall be filled with the bread, with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, your God. In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp.

[3:16] And in the morning, dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness, a fine, flake like thing, finest frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it?

[3:29] For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat.

[3:43] You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent. And the people of Israel did so. They gathered some more, some less.

[3:55] But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over. And whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.

[4:06] And Moses said to them, let no one leave any of it over to the morning. But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it to the morning. And it bred worms and stank.

[4:19] And Moses was angry with them. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and pray that your spirit would be with us now as that word is open, that you would give us understanding, even help us to see how this points us to Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

[4:35] Amen. Now, as I said earlier, last time we were looking at the same passage. And one of the things we noted was that there was more grumbling going on. They had grumbled before because of lack of water.

[4:48] And God turned the bitter water sweet and then brought them to Elam, where there were 12 springs there. And we said they lived there for about three weeks and really enjoyed the blessing of all the water. And then as they leave there and go deeper into the wilderness, they don't find food.

[5:03] There's no food available for them other than what they brought with them. And so they began to grumble again because of lack of food, even to the point that they argue that they're going to die of hunger.

[5:17] And we saw, as we read there, and we saw last week as well, verse 7 and verse 8 tell us that they were grumbling against the Lord. And we quoted Psalm 78, 17 that says they rebelled against the Lord.

[5:29] And so it wasn't against Moses and Aaron, ultimately, they were complaining about. It was God and his providence, what he had brought in their life, that he had not provided for them the food that they desired. And so God answered their grumbling by providing quell in the afternoon.

[5:46] And then the next morning, he provided manna. And that provision of manna continued for 40 years, every single day, except the Sabbath day, for 40 years. And I mentioned last week that the manna pointed us to Jesus, but we really didn't have time to dive into that.

[6:05] So this is what I want to focus on this morning. We saw that manna is called spiritual food. In 1 Corinthians 10, 3 through 4, it says, they all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink.

[6:17] For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. So we haven't yet got to them drinking from the rock, but we know there that that was Christ. The food is called spiritual food. If the rock is Christ, we can already conclude that it's following that same idea that Jesus, the spiritual food of manna was pointing us to Jesus.

[6:38] So what I want to do now is go to John, and we're going to read some in the Gospel of John and see how Jesus fulfills this. So John chapter 6. So even if my sermon is short, we've read from Exodus, and then we'll read from John, and we'll fill up the time.

[7:04] All right, John chapter 6. I'm just going to breeze through and read parts of this because it is a very long section. So we're going to read verses 31, starting in verse 31 to 35.

[7:16] Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.

[7:31] For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

[7:45] Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Skipping to verse 40. 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 them up in the last day.

[8:00] And then we'll get to verse 47. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

[8:14] This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

[8:26] And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

[8:37] 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 them up on the last day.

[8:52] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

[9:09] This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. And so we see Jesus' explanation of what was going on.

[9:22] And remember they said that they were dying of hunger back in Exodus 16, verse 3. But this manna foreshadowed Christ. Jesus says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.

[9:35] And he compares himself directly to the manna that they had in the wilderness. If I want to say it as boldly as I can, and I think the way it's really intended is this, that God gave them manna in the wilderness to point them to Jesus Christ.

[9:50] It was a foreshadowing of who Jesus would be. In other words, God in his providence allowed for them to go without the food. That they would cry out to him, knowing their need and their hunger, feeling as though they're going to die if they don't get this provision.

[10:05] And God provided this manna to them to point them to Jesus Christ. Jesus says, the fathers, their fathers, those in the wilderness, ate the bread and they still died.

[10:17] And he contrasts that with Jesus who is living bread, who through him they will have eternal life, as we saw in verse 49 and 50 of John chapter 6.

[10:29] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is a bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. So there's a contrast. Jesus is like the manna, but he's greater.

[10:41] That manna provided for them temporarily. It kept them from dying of hunger, but they still died. It didn't prevent their death. And Jesus is saying, the bread that God has provided in me will give life so that you will never die.

[10:56] And he makes clear the bread that he gives is his flesh. I think he's speaking of the cross, the fact that he would give himself, he would offer himself up. He speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

[11:08] That's not literal, which is what the Israelites who were around really struggled with. How can we do this? You know, are we supposed to carve him up? How do we do that? And of course, it's speaking of by faith, depending upon Christ and his death on the cross.

[11:22] In John 6.50, it says that this bread that comes down from heaven. And again, it's comparing it to the manna. And we're not told specifically how this works, but we know that God said, tomorrow I will rain down on you bread.

[11:36] And we read that there was dew, and when the dew disappeared, the bread was there. We don't know if it fell down like snowflakes upon them or how it worked out exactly. But it speaks of it coming down or raining down.

[11:49] But here, Jesus is specifically speaking of his deity. He comes down from heaven. He was eternally with God the Father and God the Spirit. And now he becomes flesh incarnate and comes to earth.

[12:03] And the comparison here is that we know bread meets our physical needs. Bread, or if I were to broaden that some and say food, is necessary for life. This is probably more so the case in Jesus' day.

[12:18] I know in my visits to Zambia, they have something that they eat with every meal. And they have this joke or saying or whatever in Zambia that if you don't have nishima, then you haven't really eaten.

[12:32] And so you may go over to someone's house and you may eat some food. But if they give you a little food, it's just a snack. You've got to have nishima. And nishima is, I would almost call it, it's like grits. I know that that went over most of your heads because grits is such a southern food.

[12:47] But grits is ground corn hominy. And they grind the corn up even finer than grits. And they make this doughy stuff out of it that they sometimes use even to pick the food up.

[12:57] But they eat it with everything. And it basically becomes a filler. It's corn, which they have plenty of, that helps fill you and make you feel full. And in Jesus' day, grain would have served much of the same purpose.

[13:10] Bread would have been served very often, maybe with every meal. And it helped to fill you up and give you the idea that you have been sustained. And so as important as this was, we know that bread met that physical need.

[13:23] The people would have understood, I need bread. This was probably long before keto diet, right? There's some of you who are probably like, who needs bread? They would have understood we need bread for our substances to sustain us.

[13:34] And what this is pointing to is that our most profound need is not physical. They were worried that they were going to die of hunger.

[13:46] And Jesus is pointing out to them that their deepest need is not to have their bellies filled. You may remember even in John 6, this is what happens after the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus goes across the lake.

[13:57] They follow him there. And they're wanting more of the buffet. They want more food. Jesus, give us more food. And this is how he answers them. And they even ask him, show us a sign that you are a great prophet like Moses.

[14:12] And they're, of course, thinking of the manna. He says, no, Moses didn't provide that manna, but God did. But our most profound need is spiritual, not physical.

[14:23] John 6, 35 speaks of us never being thirsty or hungry again. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

[14:34] So, again, thinking back to what was going on in the desert, in the wilderness wandering. They had been thirsty, and now they're hungry. And this is meant to teach a spiritual lesson to them that there is coming one who will feed them his flesh, who will give them his blood, who if we have faith in him, we will never be hungry or thirsty again.

[14:55] Now, that doesn't mean that Christians don't have to eat or drink. Even if it's a talk about getting thirsty, you know, the throat kind of dries up on you. You feel it. So, we do still eat and drink.

[15:11] So, what is it exactly that Jesus is speaking of here? Well, he's telling us that he is all that we need. That he sustains us through the wilderness wanderings of life.

[15:22] Think back to the Exodus as an example of salvation. God saved them from bondage. And we said, even spiritually speaking, bondage to sin. He rescued them. They passed through the waters, which the scriptures speak of in terms of baptism.

[15:36] They wandered through the wilderness before they entered the promised land. And we said, that wilderness wandering really speaks to us of the Christian life. And so, we're taught here that what sustains us spiritually is Christ.

[15:49] What's going to get us through the wilderness wandering? What's going to one day cause us to enter into the promised land is Christ. And so, we understand there's no spiritual life without him.

[16:01] Matthew 16, 26 says, And so, we're being taught that this is far more important than bread and water.

[16:18] And yet, we have to have bread and water to sustain us. Sometimes we think maybe our house or our car or our job are the most important things in life. But we know there are more basic needs that we have to have to sustain ourselves.

[16:33] And God's saying there's a yet more basic need than that, a spiritual need that we have in Christ. And so, when he talks about not needing, not being hungry or thirsty again, he's not speaking of that physical need anymore.

[16:47] He's saying that there's this reality in all of us that we know that we hunger and thirst for something more. For joy, for satisfaction, for what God's made us for, to glorify him and to enjoy him forever.

[16:59] And nothing in this life satisfies us. And we go from thing to thing hoping that this is going to satisfy us. And it doesn't. And it leaves us feeling empty. We still hunger and we thirst for something more.

[17:11] Even the greatest joys in this life, as good as they are, we know that they don't ultimately satisfy us. We want them again or something better than them. They don't last long enough.

[17:24] They're not joyful enough. And Jesus is saying, in him, by faith in him, those needs will be met. Our greatest and deepest, most spiritual needs.

[17:36] And he makes clear in verse 47 that he's speaking of eternal life. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I think there's probably some idea of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden.

[17:50] Eating of that would provide a life. And it pointed us to Christ. And so, here, Christ, if we believe in Jesus, we have eternal life. And he even tells us it's the will of the Father in verse 40 of John 6.

[18:02] 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. So, not that we would ever imagine the will of God the Father and God the Son could be opposed to one another.

[18:17] But the will of God the Father is that we would look to Christ, have faith in him, and have eternal life. And it says that I will raise him up on the last day.

[18:28] And, of course, we understand that to mean to eternal life in heaven. And so, he gives us life through his death. Verse 51, I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

[18:40] If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. And so, he's going to offer up himself on the cross. He's going to give his flesh that we may have salvation.

[18:53] We also note that manna went bad in a day. Right? If you left it overnight, you wake up and it stunk. And it had worms in it. Or maybe even maggots in it of some sort.

[19:07] And Jesus is resurrected after three days in the grave without decay. Lord willing, tonight we're going to look at Psalm 16.

[19:18] And one of the things it talks about in Psalm 16 is that God would not allow his Holy One to see decay. And so, this is contrast how, again, he's light in the manna, but he's greater.

[19:29] And far from going bad, he gives life to the world. That world that's dead in sin, he provides life to. And so, far from going bad and dying and stinking, he gives life to that which is dead.

[19:47] And Jesus pointed out that the manna was given by God and not by Moses in verse 32. We see the superiority of Jesus to Moses. Hebrews 3, 5-6.

[19:58] Now, Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son.

[20:09] And so, this bread from heaven is superior to the man in the wilderness. But also, they're basically bragging on Moses. Moses, our father, he gave us bread in the wilderness.

[20:21] What can you give us? He says, it wasn't Moses who ever gave you that. You grumbled against Moses. You grumbled against the Lord. But God provided that. And so, now, Jesus is offering up himself something even greater.

[20:38] I want you to notice another connection, I think, to our passage back in Exodus 16. If you look at John 6, 41-43. Others said, this is the Christ.

[20:51] But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? And it's a rhetorical question. Right? Nothing good comes from Galilee. He cannot possibly be the Messiah. Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

[21:08] So, there was a division among the people over him. And so, we see that they're dividing over this.

[21:19] And Jesus warns them or tells them not to grumble. And I didn't mark the Scripture verse for that.

[21:32] But Jesus tells them not to grumble. And then we see their response is really the same as the Israelites in the wilderness, isn't it? They're grumbling. They're complaining. They're doubting. Look, we didn't read this earlier, but John 6.

[21:50] I'm sorry. John 6, verse 62. Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was, I'm sorry, 61. But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do not take offense at this.

[22:05] And so, they're grumbling about it. Even his disciples are grumbling about it. The Israelites are grumbling about what he said. And I think there's a clear parallel to what preceded all of this for the Israelites.

[22:16] The lesson that they're meant to learn is don't grumble. That grumbling ultimately is against the Lord. And so, they're not to grumble, but rather to trust by faith in the Lord.

[22:28] All right. So, we see from this that this manna that we were looking at in Exodus 16 was meant to point us to Jesus Christ. I even would say was given so that we could see a picture of Jesus Christ.

[22:41] That we would learn how we depend upon Christ. That he sustains us. That he, like bread, is necessary for life. So, Christ is necessary for spiritual life.

[22:52] So, how does this apply to us? I told you there's really one point. I was right. That's it. So, now just some application. Remember the Israelites were afraid that they were going to die of hunger.

[23:08] And the Bible warns us of a greater famine. Amos 8, 11-12 says, And so, Amos warns us that there's a day when there will be a famine of the word of God.

[23:40] And even though they seek it, they won't find it. Now, I think even of our day, how maybe the warning that Paul gave to Timothy about people gathering for themselves, those who will scratch their itching ears, who will tell them the things that they want to hear, how true that is today and how the word of God, even in many churches, has become less and less important.

[24:01] And so, we're warned of a famine. And again, what do we need for that? Well, we're told in John 1 that Jesus is the word. Right? We need Christ. We need his word. And so, lest we fear death, or if we think again spiritually, dying of hunger for the word of God, we have God's word.

[24:22] We need to be feasting on it while we have it. Secondly, in Exodus 16, we saw the glory of the Lord being revealed.

[24:32] In verses 6 through 7, it said the glory of the Lord was manifested in the pillar of cloud. Well, in John 1.14, it says, The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

[24:48] And again, in 2 Corinthians 4.6, And so, as we think of the manna and how it points us to Jesus Christ, even the glory that was manifested to them, along with the manna, remember it said, the glory of the Lord will be shown to you in the morning.

[25:10] And then it says, the glory of the Lord appeared to them in the evening, or in the afternoon, in the pillar of cloud. And so, God manifested, and we talked about last Sunday, that this was the first place in God's word where it says, the glory of the Lord.

[25:24] And so, the glory of the Lord is shown to them in the pillar of cloud, and I'm saying that points us to Christ, but he also said, you will see God's glory in the morning. What did they see in the morning?

[25:36] They saw manna. Right? They saw God providing for them food, but they looked upon the manna, and then we see in God's word again, in the New Testament, it's revealed that Jesus is the glory of the Lord.

[25:48] His glory has shown upon us, and in his face, we see the glory of God the Father. No man has seen God at any time, but Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

[26:01] And so, again, I see another way that it points us to Christ. Thirdly, we can be encouraged, a really just practical application of this, is to know that God provides for us.

[26:12] God provides for us. This is true in the sense of we know in God's word it talks about that God clothes the lilies of the valley, and he feeds the birds of the air.

[26:24] And if he cares for such as these, will he not also care for his children? And so we can know, in terms of even physical provision, that God's looking out for us, that God cares for us. He met the physical needs of the Israelites in the wilderness.

[26:38] He provided meat and bread for them in the wilderness. And so we can trust that God cares for his people, that he will provide for them. But ultimately, how do we see the Lord's provision for us?

[26:53] God gives us our greatest need. You know, sometimes we talk about how we pray, and often we pray for our perceived needs. But God knows our deepest need, and he meets it.

[27:06] And how does he do that? It's in the person of Jesus Christ that he's met, really, our deepest need. And so we learn about hunger. Maybe I even want to say, I think I'm okay saying this, just as a man, I believe, was given to point us to Jesus Christ, so was hunger and thirst.

[27:24] That we would hunger and thirst for God. That we would desire him. And so our greatest need is eternal life, is spiritual life, and God provides that. And you'll note that they only had to collect the manna.

[27:39] God gave it. They just had to go out and receive what he had already provided. I didn't have time to get into this, but John 6 is very clear that God the Father gives a certain people to his son.

[27:52] He saves them. It's the work of God. And so, in many ways, we see that connection as well. And so Christ is sufficient in his person and in his grace. He's all that we need.

[28:06] Here's what Matthew Henry says. He said, There was manna enough for them all. So in Christ, the fullness of grace for all believers. He that gathers much of this manna will have none to spare when he comes to use it.

[28:19] And he that gathers little, when his grace comes to be perfected in glory, shall find that he has no lack. I haven't really gotten into the dividing up of the man and how that worked, but it said those who gathered much had all that they needed, and those who gathered little were not lacking.

[28:35] And Matthew Henry says, The same is true for Christ and his grace. Even those of us who know little of his grace, one day we'll be glorified. We'll find that even what little grace we know was sufficient.

[28:47] And those who are great in their faith and in their grace will again find God to be enough, that his glory to be enough. So how do we feed upon Christ, fourthly?

[28:59] Well, we feed upon Christ in various ways, and I want us to look at those. One is in belief. So by faith and trust, we believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in him to be the Son of God, who he said he was, and our Savior.

[29:13] Verse 35 of John 6, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And so how do we feed or drink upon Christ?

[29:26] Ultimately, it's by faith. It's by believing in him. In John 6, 40, it says, 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 them up in the last day.

[29:41] And again, John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one may come to the Father except through me. And so what hope is there?

[29:51] Well, it's only in Christ that we would believe and trust by faith in him. I want to encourage you as well that also in this same chapter, John 6, verse 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

[30:09] And so that ought to be encouragement for all of you here today to know that you can come to Christ who will meet your deepest need and you will not be cast out. Maybe we can think of, you guys have probably seen the restaurants that say no shoes, no shirt, no service.

[30:27] Wait, no shoes, yeah, okay. No shoes, no shirt, no service. Have you ever tested that out? I've never tried it, just to see if they're really going to kick you out. But you have the idea that there are places you can go that you're not going to be permitted to go into.

[30:40] Right? I cannot just go dine with the president if I wanted to. You know, there's certain venues that I'm not going to get into. But all who come to Christ for your deepest need, for salvation, who come to him by faith, he will never cast out.

[30:56] So how do we feed upon Christ? We feed upon him by belief. Secondly, we feed upon him daily. The manna came each and every day. Again, except for the Sabbath, they had a double supply on the day before the Sabbath.

[31:08] We think of Jesus as, in the Lord's Prayer, he says, give us this day our daily bread. Daily bread. And so we come to him daily, looking for that.

[31:18] He's the saints that spiritually, another way of saying that is, without feeding upon him, spiritually we're starving. And just like the Israelites didn't go a day without the manna, we need to be sure that we don't go a day without Christ, that we are constantly feeding upon him.

[31:34] And thirdly, we feed upon him by his word. Not just looking on him, but feeding upon him, studying his word.

[31:44] We're to desire the word of God and feed on that bread of life. And then fourthly, I'm on fourth, yes, fourthly, meditating on his person and work to contemplate who is Christ, what has he done.

[31:58] Fifthly, maybe a connected point, we must hunger and thirst for Christ and righteousness in him. Matthew 5 says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.

[32:11] And so, hunger and thirst for Christ and the righteousness that he supplies. Sixly, I would argue the Lord's table. The ordinances that God has given, and Lord willing, we're going to be taking the Lord's table tonight and encourage you to come back and be a part of that.

[32:26] But we eat his flesh and drink his blood spiritually, not truly, not physically. And again, I wouldn't even say that this is the primary thing that Jesus is saying.

[32:37] I would argue belief is the primary thing. But, the ongoing ordinance is one way that we feed upon Christ by grace and grow in him. Seventhly, we do not look to anything else to sustain us or satisfy us.

[32:54] We believe, we know God to be, or Jesus to be, ultimately, that which satisfies us. And so, the other things in life that we enjoy, they're fine for us to enjoy if they're not sinful, but we enjoy certain pleasures in life.

[33:07] But ultimately, where do we go for our sustenance? What's going to maintain us? What's going to satisfy us? Isn't those things, but Christ. And so, how do we feed upon Christ?

[33:19] I think by valuing him and knowing him to be the only thing that can sustain us. Or, if I were to say it negatively, we don't replace him with lesser things that leave us hungry and thirsty.

[33:33] So, finally, in our last point of application, and by now, you understand why we needed another week to talk about this. But finally, understand that Jesus alone sustains us because we're made for him.

[33:47] God has made us to glorify him and to enjoy him. And so, apart from him, we're empty. Our purpose isn't fulfilled. I want to just close with a final quotation from Augustine.

[34:01] And he, in his confession, said this. His confession was a book that he wrote in prayer to God. And it's one of my favorite quotes. He says, you, speaking of God, you made us for yourselves and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

[34:16] And I think that's the reality of what we're getting at here. The hearts of the Israelites are restless because they're hungry. And God has made us to be hungry spiritually.

[34:28] And until our hearts rest in Christ, they're not fulfilled. They're not satisfied. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and how it teaches us, how it instructs us.

[34:42] And we pray now that we would find Christ to be our food and our drink, that we would find satisfaction in him, that we would know that he sustains us spiritually and that those who trust in him, that he one day will raise them up to glory.

[34:59] Lord, we pray for any in this room who have not trusted in Jesus Christ, who are yet hungry and thirsty, that they would look to Christ and find him to meet that deepest spiritual need, that they would trust in him and that they would have eternal life.

[35:15] Lord, for those who have trusted already in Christ and know eternal life, we pray that you would help us to continue to feed upon Christ, to know that he alone sustains us. And as we do so, as we think about these things, that our hearts would turn to him in worship and in praise for what he has done.

[35:32] We ask this all in Christ's name. Amen.