WEReveal

Pastor Bart at Flatland Church started a new ser­mon series this Sunday called “Truth.” It is going to be fol­low­ing 6 pas­sages of John where Jesus says “I am the .…” If you want to hear his ser­mon (and sev­eral older series) you can go to the church’s web site www.flatlandchurch.com or sub­scribe to the pod­cast on iTunes.

This Sunday’s ser­mon was based on John 6 [show]John 6 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. [2]And a large crowd was fol­low­ing him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. [3]Jesus went up on the moun­tain, and there he sat down with his dis­ci­ples. [4]Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. [5]Lifting up his eyes, then, and see­ing that a large crowd was com­ing toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these peo­ple may eat?” [6]He said this to test him, for he him­self knew what he would do. [7]Philip answered him, “Two hun­dred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a lit­tle.” [8]One of his dis­ci­ples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, [9]“There is a boy here who has five bar­ley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” [10]Jesus said, “Have the peo­ple sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thou­sand in num­ber. [11]Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he dis­trib­uted them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. [12]And when they had eaten their fill, he told his dis­ci­ples, “Gather up the left­over frag­ments, that noth­ing may be lost.” [13]So they gath­ered them up and filled twelve bas­kets with frag­ments from the five bar­ley loaves left by those who had eaten. [14]When the peo­ple saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!“ [15]Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus with­drew again to the moun­tain by him­self. [16]When evening came, his dis­ci­ples went down to the sea, [17]got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. [18]The sea became rough because a strong wind was blow­ing. [19]When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walk­ing on the sea and com­ing near the boat, and they were fright­ened. [20]But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” [21]Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and imme­di­ately the boat was at the land to which they were going. [22]On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his dis­ci­ples, but that his dis­ci­ples had gone away alone. [23]Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. [24]So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his dis­ci­ples, they them­selves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seek­ing Jesus. [25]When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” [26]Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seek­ing me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. [27]Do not labor 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.” [28]Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” [29]Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” [30]So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you per­form? [31]Our fathers ate the manna in the wilder­ness; as it is writ­ten, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” [32]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. [33]For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” [34]They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.“ [35]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. [36]But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. [37]All that the Father gives me will come to me, and who­ever comes to me I will never cast out. [38]For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. [39]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. [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 him up on the last day.“ [41]So the Jews grum­bled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” [42]They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” [43]Jesus answered them, “Do not grum­ble among your­selves. [44]No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. [45]It is writ­ten in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me– [46]not that any­one has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. [47]Truly, truly, I say to you, who­ever believes has eter­nal life. [48]I am the bread of life. [49]Your fathers ate the manna in the wilder­ness, and they died. [50]This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. [51]I am the liv­ing bread that came down from heaven. 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.“ [52]The Jews then dis­puted among them­selves, say­ing, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” [53]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. [54]Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eter­nal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55]For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56]Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57]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. [58]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.” [59]Jesus said these things in the syn­a­gogue, as he taught at Capernaum. [60]When many of his dis­ci­ples heard it, they said, “This is a hard say­ing; who can lis­ten to it?” [61]But Jesus, know­ing in him­self that his dis­ci­ples were grum­bling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? [62]Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascend­ing to where he was before? [63]It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spo­ken to you are spirit and life. [64]But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the begin­ning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) [65]And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.“ [66]After this many of his dis­ci­ples turned back and no longer walked with him. [67]So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” [68]Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eter­nal life, [69]and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” [70]Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” [71]He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him. (ESV)
where Jesus says “I am the bread of life.” The main points of the ser­mon were:

1. Come and Believe — We must believe Jesus is the “I AM” (see Exodus 3.14 [show]Exodus 3:14 [14]God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the peo­ple of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (ESV)
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2. Listen and Learn — We must also lis­ten to God and learn from Him, through Bible study, Prayer, Fasting, through life coaches
3. Eat and Drink — We must have a rela­tion­ship w/ Him Totally. He must be Number One. To quote the church’s motto, “Our One Passion is a rela­tion­ship with God that dra­mat­i­cally trans­forms every area of our lives.”

My Response

I have been chal­lenged in sev­eral ways by the Holy Spirit. I think it can be summed up by say­ing I desire to live our church’s motto with a twist. I desire to have my One Passion dra­mat­i­cally trans­formed in my rela­tion­ship with God.

I sup­pose some­times I am a very intel­lec­tual Christian. My belief in God, His Son and in the Holy Spirit (see Apostles’ Creed) is unwa­ver­ing but my life doesn’t always pro­claim it. The first thing I need to do is to sit at Jesus’ feet, lis­ten and learn.

I need to spend more time in scrip­ture. I have a scrip­ture read­ing pro­gram that was given to me by a wise elder pas­tor when I was a young pup. One reads the Old Testament one time a year, the New Testament twice a year and the Psalms twice a year. I may try to post the plan up on this site at some time. Many find read­ing the Bible hard and to read it through in one year very hard. I have no excuses. I can sit down and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in a week and there are cer­tainly more pages in those two books as there are in the Bible. Some peo­ple really have a hard time read­ing, and for them, an audio Bible may be the right answer. I had the Psalms on tape where not only was the Psalm read but appro­pri­ate music was played in the back­ground and response music played occa­sion­ally after a Psalm. It was a mag­nif­i­cent expe­ri­ence lis­ten­ing while driving.

Now, when one reads the Bible, it should go slower than a novel since one needs to allow the Holy Spirit speak to you through the Scripture and then respond. It is a rea­son that read­ing only a few chap­ters a day is good many times — to allow us to con­sume what it says and respond. On the other hand, and this is always a chal­lenge to us all, there are many books that were writ­ten as a whole and was intended to read in one sit­ting — for exam­ple, Paul’s let­ters to the churches. I chal­lenge myself to not only duti­fully read scrip­ture but to allow it to speak to me, to always set aside enough time to not only read but to listen.

I need to spend more time in prayer. Pastor gave us an acronym for PRAY that I had not heard before and one I really like. P — praise, R — repent, A — ask, Y — yield. As he said, some­times we act as if pray is spelled p-r-a for we don’t always yield to God. I desire to spend more time in prayer and maybe even more impor­tantly, to “Pray with­out ceas­ing” — 1 Thes 5.17 [show]1 Thessalonians 5:17 [17]pray with­out ceas­ing, (ESV)
& Eph 6.18 [show]Ephesians 6:18 [18]praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and sup­pli­ca­tion. To that end keep alert with all per­se­ver­ance, mak­ing sup­pli­ca­tion for all the saints, (ESV)

Finally, I am chal­lenged to set aside a time to fast. Now, my wife knows I can acci­dently for­get to eat a meal or two. I eat begrudg­ingly when I am hun­gry although I love to cook. But eat­ing itself is a waste of time. As such, a food fast may not be the best type of fast for me unless it is over an extended period of time. I do believe that a food fast is sym­bol­i­cally very good. It sym­bol­izes our trust in God, that He will sus­tain us even when we don’t have food. As such, I will do a food fast but I think maybe what I also need to do is a “tech­nol­ogy” fast. Take all the time I spend on the com­puter play­ing games and ded­i­cate it to God. I think an extended period of time like a week or two would be needed since I can eas­ily … well, I think eas­ily walk away from my com­put­ers for a cou­ple days.