Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey guys, this is Naeeb and you've reached the mosaic church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I'd love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So, would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: How's everybody doing?
Good. Good. I know they've already asked you to call in response and, like, answer back. I'm gonna ask you to talk to me again also, just so you know. Just so you know. So my name is Kristen. I'm one of the pastors here. And we are in the middle of a series called why Jesus? And the reason we are asking this question is because oftentimes Jesus makes claims about himself. He makes claims about God. And to be very quite honest with you, they don't always make sense. They don't always make sense. So we're trying to figure out what exactly does he mean when he says these things. What does it say about him? What does it say about God? What does it say to us? And so Pastor Naim, the first week explained what it means when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Last week, he helped us to understand what Jesus said when he said, I am the door. And this week, we're going to talk about what Jesus meant when he said that he was bread.
Bread, guys, isn't that weird? It's weird. It's weird. I am bread. I am the bread of life, he says. So if you're not a Christian, I know you might already be like, good luck with this one. Make some sense of that. But also, if you're not already a Jesus follower, doesn't this kind of make you want to be right, like a God Jesus? That's going to be like, but let's talk about food. Let's use bread to relate and for you to understand better who I am and what I'm about. There is not a person that does not love bread.
Am I right? That is right. This is one of those universal things that everybody loves. It doesn't matter what country you go to, what part of the world you're in. There is bread, and it is good, right? And I'm not just talking about sandwich bread. Although if you do go to Jimmy John's and get that sandwich bread, that stuff is legit. Legit. But we've got all different kinds of bread. We've got. We got tortillas, we've got roti, we've got non. Do you guys want to learn a new word? A new word for bread?
Okay. You gotta get, like. You gotta get ready. Like, with a. You ready?
Hubs say hub. Did I do it right? Pastor Naim taught me this is the word for bread in Arabic. And I just think it's really fun to say.
You're gonna be saying this all day. See, hubs? Well, I think that bread and using food is definitely a way to get our attention, because people love food. Even those of us that maybe have a complicated relationship with food, we still love food. We might have a love hate relationship with food, but we do love food. Is there a food that you have a love hate relationship with?
Pizza. That's a good pickles. Okay. I didn't expect that one. Clearly. What else? Any other foods you have a love hate relationship with? Ice cream. Love it. My stomach does not totally understand that. For me, the food that I have a love hate relationship with is salad.
Salad. My husband's laughing so hard. Cause he loves salad. I love the idea of a salad. I might even love certain parts of the salad, especially if you get that market salad from chick fil a. Tip. Get rid of that garbage grilled chicken. Bring in the original fried filet patty. Put that on there. If you smother it with enough of that avocado, lime ranch dressing, you don't even know there's lettuce underneath. Guys, it's so good. I eat it, like, once a week. I have a love hate relationship with salad because I love the idea of it. I love that it's supposed to be good for me, but I hate it because after I eat a salad, an hour later, I'm. What? Hungry. Cause I ate a salad for lunch.
I don't know about you, but I am not my best when I'm hungry. So on the days that we hit chick fil a and I do a salad for lunch, I'm like, hey, so sorry. People that work for me got to be in meetings because I'm going to be hungry, and I might not be my best version of myself. Now, when we're having to debate and talk through some things, you know what I'm saying.
I think just as physical hunger has this effect on us, you also aren't yourself when your soul is hungry. And sometimes it gets to the point that other people can tell. Sometimes it does show in your words or your behaviors. Maybe you react instead of respond to things, or maybe you're the only one who knows. But you know your soul is hungry and you're not yourself. And you haven't been yourself maybe for quite a while, because something is different, something has starved you. Something that promised to sustain you isn't doing it. And this could be a variety of things. We use a variety of different things to try to fill that hunger within us and satisfy that longing. Some of us use significance or success. We use achievement. But that drive never really seems to let up. Some of us use affection to try to fill that hole. And relationships, maybe we call it being a social butterfly. We never really want to be alone. We're always trying to be with somebody else. Yet we've not found the right person to make that go away.
Some of us try to fill it with peace by controlling things and organizing and having plans. But somehow still we never get to the place where it's enough to make us feel safe.
None of the things that the world has promised would sustain us is working. And so we're left with this constant hunger, this constant unnamed thirst, this longing for something else.
And that already is our answer for why Jesus? Because we were meant to be sustained by someone and not something. And Jesus says, I'm it. I'm the guy. I'm the one. I am the bread of life. So before we jump into the passage, which is quite long, I encourage you this week we don't have time to unpack all of John six here, even just this section. There's a lot of information in there. But I encourage you to go back this week and listen to it and just kind of see what sticks out to you. But what's happening is that Jesus is going to make this claim that he is the bread of life. People are going to misunderstand as they do. They're going to get upset. They're going to get angry and offended. And then instead of Jesus being like, hold on, let me explain. He actually doubles down. He repeats himself a couple times and just makes the claim stronger and stronger every time. So we're going to look at that in just a second. But it's also important for you to know that what happened right before this was the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. If you know this story, he took a little boy's lunch and he multiplied it miraculously to feed thousands and thousands of people. And so now a lot of those people who were not following him before were like, that was very cool. We like free food. We are now going to come and follow you. So that's what's happened in the story. The crowd literally went to find Jesus. Cause he went away after the miracle and they were like, yay, Jesus. We found you. Now we're here. We want you to do the bread thing again. And if you do, we will follow you everywhere you go. Thank you so much. And this is where Jesus says in John 635, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. And so we have two directives here. Two things that tell us how to fill that void. He says, come to me and believe in me. What are they? Come to me and believe in me one more time. Come to me and believe in me. So that's how he starts. He says, come to me and you'll never be hungry again.
The best picture that I could come up with of this going to Jesus, coming to him when we are hungry is my own children. I have two girls that are ten and eight. And though they are quite capable of knowing how to get food and where it is, when they are hungry, they don't go to the kitchen. And when they are thirsty, they don't go to the sink. They come to mom.
They come to mom. So this is what happens. This is actually the soundtrack of my life every single day. Second they wake up. Cereal. I'm sorry. Try again, please. Mom, can I have some cereal, please? Sure. Even though the bowls and the cereal are literally at your level. Did this on purpose. Got it quick. Okay, here's some cereal. What's for breakfast? Can I have some breakfast? We get them breakfast. The second breakfast is over. Can I have a snack?
Okay. Yep, go get a snack. Help yourself. Do a snack. Soon as they get their snack. When's lunch? I'm still hungry. What can I have now? Can I have another snack? Can I have another snack? When's dinner? I'm still hungry. What can I have now? By the end of the day, I'm like, go to Jesus so you'll never be hungry again.
It's too much.
All the time. It's too much. But I also think that we do this too. We do this too. We go to the things and we go to the people, and we go to the places that we think have what we need to satisfy that hunger within us. And sometimes it's dependent on what we need, right? We are going to go get food for different reasons, for different needs. Are you going to eat the same thing before you go do a workout that you eat when you're sick? No, probably not. You're not going to eat the same food when you're sad that you eat, when you're trying to control your blood pressure. These are probably very different menus. Okay, we understand this. We understand that what we take in and what we eat affects more than our hunger. And some of us have been going to the wrong places and eating the wrong things for too long. You're trying to fill your cravings, maybe from going to job to job, or from city to city, from person to person, relationship to relationship, maybe even from church to church, or denomination to denomination.
And Jesus is saying, you are always going to be hungry if you keep going to the wrong places to be filled. Come to me and I can give you the only food that satisfies.
So he says, come to me. And then he says, believe in me and you will never be thirsty.
Y'all know what thirsty means now, right?
People that are laughing do. Okay, let me explain it to the rest of you. Thirsty no longer means like, I'm parched. Now, if someone calls you thirsty, it's not a good thing.
They're saying, you're a little too eager. You're a little too desperate. It's actually what it means. If somebody's like, oh, she's thirsty, she desperate. That's what thirsty means now. And did you know that if you get physically thirsty enough, your body also becomes desperate? Your body also becomes desperate and it will start to male function. One of the first signs of severe dehydration is confusion.
Confusion. I'm going to start using that in meetings when I can't remember stuff. I'll be like, I just need water, guys. So sorry, gotta go get a drink. Confusion is one of the first signs of dehydration, because your body needs the water that it takes in to convert it into energy that you use for mental processing.
Mental processing. That means if you're thirsty enough, you can't think straight.
Do you know what requires mental processing?
Literally everything.
Literally everything. But especially all of those internal things that other people can't see. Anything that you're secretly carrying those unseen needs. The thing that you feel like you are processing over and over and over, but you can't quite figure out the emotion that you can't seem to shake, the thought that won't let go of you. If you're feeling lost or confused or overwhelmed or you don't know who you are, it could be because your soul is thirsty. It is desperate for the one thing that can quench it.
Jesus is saying, believe in me. I am who I say I am. I can do what you have heard people say I can do, and I am the only one that will sustain you. Now, the people that were listening to Jesus in that time, when they heard him make this claim that you will never be hungry or thirsty again. For them, this had a whole nother level of meaning in the roman culture. Caesar was the guy. He was the guy. He was in charge of everything. He ruled, he made decisions, he put systems in place. He held people accountable to the laws and the structures and all of the things. And even though the Romans had their own gods that maybe they prayed to or sacrificed to, it was very important. And it was very well known that in that culture at the time, Caesar was the guy. He was the one that you had your allegiance to and that you gave all of your adoration and everything to.
Also, there was a class system. Caesar was obviously at the top. He was the highest, and there were a variety of classes all the way down to lower level citizens and marginalized people. And he liked that system because it kept him in power. Now, when the people in the lower classes would get hungry enough, they would start to beg the higher class citizens for food. And Caesar didn't really like that. So what he would do when his people started to grumble is he would get a caravan, he would take his little, I don't know, trolley train of people, he would go out to the outskirts where they were, and he would give them, guess what? Bread. He would distribute bread to them. Not because he cared about them, because he wanted to pacify them, because he wanted them to be quiet, because he wanted to control them, and because he wanted them to understand that when you're hungry and you need something, it comes from Caesar.
He was the one that looked out for them. He was the one that provided for them. He was the one that they needed to be dependent.
He even changed the money and put his face on it so that every time people bought something, they would remember their dependence on him and how he provides everything. We actually have a photo of one of these coins, and I don't know how to read Latin, but I do know how to use Google, and so I know that what this says is, it says, caesar, the son of the divine. The son of the divine, because people believed that he was a descendant of Augustus, who they also believed became a God after his death. So that would make this Caesar the descendant of Augustus, the son of a God.
This is what people believed. This is what Caesar required everyone to believe. I am the son of a God. And so when someone was stopped by a roman soldier and asked to pay homage or respect to Caesar, that was their response. Caesar is lord. Caesar is lord. It was forced worship for Caesar. It would even happen when he was out giving them bread. You want bread, you better say it. Caesar is lord. Here's your bread. Caesar is lord. Here's your bread. Caesar is lord.
Now, we know the phrase not Caesar is Lord, but who Jesus. Jesus is lord. This is because the disciples, the early church, went ahead and they were like, we're going to reclaim this phrase. We're going to take this back and take this over. And instead of saying Caesar is lord, we're going to remind ourselves that Jesus is Lord. It's actually Jesus who is Lord of our lives. So when he says, I am the bread of life, it wasn't strictly metaphorical. He was purposely comparing himself to what these people were used to so that he could challenge it, because he wanted them to understand that what God offers was so much bigger and would last so much longer than the quick fix of Caesar's bread that continued to leave them hungry.
And I think he's saying the same thing to us. I think he's saying to us, I need for you to begin a practice, a new practice of coming to me. If you believe in me, if you believe that I am the one that can sustain you, then when you're hungry, when you're having a bad day, I don't want you to go back to Caesar. I don't want you to go back to that thing that you think you're dependent on. I want you to go to God.
And we all are dependent on something, or we have a tendency to be dependent on something that's not goddesse. It might be food, it might be drinking. It might be over exercising. It might be appearance. It might be power. It might be your sense of humor. We all have a thing that it's easier to run to and turn back to instead of going to God. And Jesus is saying, your soul is thirsty. For me, I am the only one.
The people that are missing that were listening to him say this, unfortunately, as they often did. They missed the point.
They missed the whole point because, remember, their goal was just for another miracle, for Jesus to give them more bread. And so they're like, great, great, great. But you remember our ancestors, like, cool. But remember the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness? They at least got bread. Like, Moses did a miracle, and they had gotten manna down from heaven. And so we can call you the bread of life if you want. Like, that's fine, whatever. But also right here in our hands, we still need, like, actual food.
And so Jesus is like, listen, don't Bible splain me, okay? I know the Israelites. I know the story.
And here's his next response. He says, I tell you the truth. Whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread that gives life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they still. What they still died of here is the bread that comes down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will never die. There's that call to belief again. And believing in Jesus is more than just saying, I believe in the person of Jesus. It's more than just saying, I believe that he was a guy who lived, and maybe he was the son of God, and he did some really cool miracles. Believing in Jesus is a lot more than that, and I think it's where a lot of christians get stuck. A lot of christians go, I believe in God. I believe Jesus was his son. And so I'm gonna go to church, and I'm gonna get hyped up in worship, and then I'm gonna get inspired by the message. It might be a little bit weird, but it's still gonna be cool, and God's gonna be in there somewhere.
I'm going to be encouraged by being in community and being around other people who get my life and who understand, and I'm gonna cry out to God, and I'm gonna pray for things, and then I'm gonna leave, and that's it.
And the problem with that is then, instead of coming to church to actually make a connection to God, you're coming to church on a Sunday morning for a dopamine hit.
If you pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, ask God for all the things, but then you don't actually do what it is that he says. Are you really eating the bread of life?
Are we really taking it in?
Think about if I gave you actual bread. I had, like, a panera bagel here, and I said, this is going to nourish you. This is your nourishment, and I gave it to you. There is only one thing that you could do for it to work. What is it?
You have to actually eat it.
You can look at that bagel. You can take pictures of that bagel. You can know all of the ingredients that are in that bagel. You can know the process by which it was made. You can sing songs about that bagel.
You can talk about it on social media if you'd like, but until you put that bread inside of your body, it cannot do anything to nourish you. Part of believing in God is trusting him enough to do what he actually says, even if it doesn't make sense, even if it's different than what you expected him to say, even if it looks different than it did before.
And so Jesus is like, listen, I get it. I know your ancestors. I know their story. But they're gone. And I need their old ways to go with them, too. I am new bread. This is new life. And the miracles of your ancestors didn't save them. It didn't save them. The manna the Israelites ate in the desert, it wasn't sinful. It wasn't bad. It wasn't wrong. It was a miracle provided by God for those people in that time. And then that time ended. So he's challenging them to reimagine their beliefs and their systems. And we already can imagine, knowing how controlling Caesar was in the roman empire, that they did not actually love this challenge to new systems into new ways. But the religious leaders of Jesus time didn't either. It was the political leaders and the religious leaders who worked together to eventually get him out.
It was a strong statement for Jesus to say, what's always worked in the past isn't working anymore. And I think he's still saying that to some of us today.
When Jesus says, come to me, come to me, come to me, it's because some of you can't. You're still holding on to the past or looking back at the past. So when he says, come to me, you can't actually get to him, because you are rooted and anchored in an old belief system, in an old spiritual practice, in something else that you've believed just because you believed it your whole entire life, just because you've been told this is the way it is. But if you're honest, you know it's not working for you anymore.
Even a past that was good, even a past that was of God, can keep you from knowing him now in the present.
For 30 years, 30 years, I believed in a God that I had been taught. I believed in a good God, a God that was good, a God of forgiveness, a God of grace, a God of love, a God of peace and protection. And he was good. And I read my Bible, and it was good. And going to church was good, and praying was good, and listening to christian music was good, and it was all good, and it was all real, but it was all just good.
It didn't actually change my life until I was able to let go of the God of my past.
And once I was able to do that, it changed everything for me. It changed everything, not because God changed, but because I did.
I did.
I found Jesus in a way that I'd never met him before. I saw sides of God that I'd never seen before. And I found the truest version of myself that I had never even known existed.
Believing in Jesus and living a life with Jesus means it's choosing a life where everything that's true of both him and of you never dies.
Everything that's true of Jesus lives forever. Everything that's true of you lives forever and has eternal life.
And it can be scary and it can be hard feeling like you're letting go of these foundational things that have upheld your faith and have upheld your christianity, have upheld your identity or maybe even your belonging for so long.
But until you let go of the God of the past, you won't truly be able to understand and get to know the God who is moving within you and wants to know you right now in your present.
Going back to this passage one more time, Jesus said to them again, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give up so that the world may have life.
What's so important about this message, especially today, is that he was alluding to his death. He was alluding to the crucifixion that he was walking toward, because everything that he was claiming, everything that he was saying about bringing eternal life and bringing life to people and being the one to sustain us and being the bread of life, he was about to back up.
He was about to bring the receipts and show them exactly what he meant. Today is Palm Sunday, and it's the Sunday before Easter, which actually leads us into the Holy Week, which is the beginning of the end of Jesus life and ministry here on earth. And so on Palm Sunday, Jesus is riding a donkey and he finds himself once again in the middle of a crowd as he rides his way into Jerusalem. And I need to know if any of you, like me, picture this like a parade I always pictured, like, a Passover parade, right? Like, people were sitting on the sidelines waiting to have candy thrown out to them, like, but jesus didn't actually follow a marching band. You know, there wasn't a float behind him.
But in my brain, this is always what was happening. And it really changed the story for me when I realized that all of these pictures and all of the things that we've seen Palm Sunday depicted, they were there for him.
They came for him because they heard about Jesus. Some of them saw the miracles. Some of them heard about him, and they came from all different places. This was a city that was on a trade route. People had access from all around, and they came because they believed that Jesus was the one that could finally sustain them like nothing else had. They put their hope in him, and that's why they came. And they came with palm branches, which was a roman symbol of victory. They would take these palm branches often and give them to people after they had found victory in something, much like we might give somebody today a trophy or a medal, they would bestow palm branches to them to say, thank you for your victory and thank you for bringing peace over this conflict. And so here they are, taking these signs of victory and laying them on the ground before Jesus as he comes through. And as they're passing, he shouts, or they shout at him, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And Hosanna actually means save. It was a shout of praise that they gave to God at various times, but they were also calling out and crying out for Jesus to save them. They're saying, we believe in who you are. We don't want to be under Caesar's rule anymore. We don't want to be forced to worship Caesar anymore. We believe that you can save us. And so here is your victory, that you are coming in to save us no more. Caesar is Lord. We're done with that. Instead, they were crying out in the name of the Lord, their God, for Jesus to save them.
All the while, he is on his way to give up his body, just as he said he would.
On Friday, we're gonna have a communion service, and we hope that y'all will join us for our good Friday service. Communion is a really important part of our faith. Good Friday marks are really important and impactful day in the life of Jesus and being a Christian. But it's not really about receiving the bread and wine. It's not really about the elements, per se. In a way, you could say that you have communion every time you eat because the point is not the wine and the bread. The point is about taking the time to remember when Jesus broke bread with his disciples, and he told them, do this in remembrance of me. When you eat and when you drink, remember that I am the one that provides for you. I am the one that you depend on.
Have you ever wondered why christians pray before a meal? Why they say grace? Have you ever hear, like, cause my grandma told me to, I'm not allowed to eat if we don't do it. No, actually, that's not why. The early church started saying grace, started thanking God for their food, to remember Jesus, to remember his sacrifice, to remember that it is Goddesse who provides for them. They started thanking God before they ate, saying grace so that instead of going, hey, Caesar is lord. Caesar gave this to us. No, no, no, no.
Jesus is Lord. God gave this to us. God provides for us. He said, do this in remembrance of me as the bread of life when my body was broken, so that you can live.
And I think Jesus, too, knew what the disciples were about to face, what they were about to walk into. And he needed them to understand that they needed to eat and drink of him because of what they were about to face. They were gonna need him to sustain them through risk and danger and persecution. Long after he was gonna be physically there with them, he was going, and he was like, this is the only way that I can still be the one to sustain you. He wanted them to get the point. Remember, I am the one. You are dependent on me. He knew their lives were about to get messy and complicated and really hard, and so he really wanted to drive that point home for them.
And I think God also knows that our lives, that your life is messy and complicated and hard, that you probably need to take a risk. But you're afraid. Maybe you are afraid because you're still heartbroken over the last time that you stepped out. Maybe you still feel betrayed. Maybe you still feel bitter or burdened, or maybe it's not risk, but it's challenge. You're going through a really hard time. There's a medical diagnosis. There's a relationship, something at work, something that is a reflection of you that you actually don't even have any control over. But somehow you found yourself in the middle of this mess.
Jesus is saying, I am the bread of life. You need to eat and drink of me so that I can sustain you. I want to be with you in the midst of all of this.
I am the energy you need, in a sense, to help you get through what you don't think that you can get through.
I am the one that sustains you. And so he's offering in Jesus more than just like a snack to kind of just as you go until you're hungry again the next time. He wants to be in you and moving through you. He's still doing miracles. God is still feeding people. He's still providing. He's still working miracles in your life. But they might be different than what you expect to see. They might look different than the miracles of the past.
So why Jesus?
Because he is the bread of life. He is the answer. Jesus is the only one that can sustain us. His life showed us a lord who will never force our worship, a lord who does not want to control us, a lord who does so much more than just throwing out leftover scraps to us just to pacify us.
He's not a lord who wants to keep us desperate so that he can parade us around or control our lives. Instead, as the bread of life, he is the only one that can quench our desperation.
Jesus is the answer to that inner longing, that unnamed need, that unfulfilled hunger, your desire for something more. It's Jesus.
Jesus was God's way of extending out a hand to us, humanity, and coming to live with us, to say, hey, I know you.
I know you. I know you. I know you. I know what you need and I know where you've been going and it's never going to be enough. And I know you. And I know what you need. And I am the only thing that can satisfy. I am the only thing that will fulfill. And I am not holding out on you.
And I will note hold out on you.
If you believe, if you come to me and you believe in me, I will show up.
He will show up.
I want to pray for us. If you guys want to go ahead and stand this morning, we're going to do one more song.
And after that, or during that song, is our response time. And so maybe as you're thinking about communion, maybe it's the first time you thought about communion for a while. Maybe you haven't taken communion in a while. Like I said, I'd love for you to join us on Friday for our Good Friday service right here at 07:00 p.m. but we also have communion on either side of the room. Over here we've also got, and you're welcome to help yourself to those stations. We've also got candles just to represent somebody, maybe that you're praying for or over on this side of the room, there's a cross with post its. So if there's a prayer request, if there's something that you want to leave behind, we would love for you to go ahead and just write it on a post it and stick it to the cross.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you that you want to sustain us, God, not only that you can, but that you will, God, that it's your desire, Lord, for us to be satisfied in you. And, God, we thank you that you are a God who wants more for our lives. Lord, you could have just left us with bread, but instead you gave us so many other options, so many other things. And I think that's such a beautiful picture of what it is you want to do in our lives. God, you don't want us to just be the most basic people we can be or live the most basic lives that we can live. God, you want us to have life to the fullest.
And so, Lord, I pray that we would receive you and understand that it's only in you that that can actually happen.
So, Lord, for the person that is asking, why, Jesus, why should I risk this? Why should I consider knowing more about this guy or having a relationship?
God, I pray that you would just stir in their spirit, God, that they would be able to understand that that longing, that. That need that they've had for years, God, maybe for their entire life that hasn't been filled by other things, can actually be filled in you.
God, I pray that you would help them to be brave enough to risk just seeing what happens if they believe in you and trust in you.
God, we thank you for how you love us. We thank you that you sent Jesus to show us who you are, God, and who we are. When we live life with you.
It's in his name we pray. Amen.
Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaicchurch TV.
