The Bread of Life: Finding Rest in the Finished Work of Christ

• The Seven 'I Am' Statements [00:23:33 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces the seven self-portraits of Jesus from John's Gospel, framing them as definitive claims of divinity and identity.
• Spiritual Hunger vs. Physical Hunger [00:28:33 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor clarifies that Jesus satisfies the deeper, spiritual hunger for validation and security, rather than physical needs, addressing the universal exhaustion of modern life.
• Visio Divina (Divine Seeing) [00:35:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor introduces an ancient tradition of using artwork and portraits to connect with God in a prayerful, reflective way to understand Jesus' identity.
• The 'I Am' Statements and Divine Authority [00:33:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that Jesus' 'I am' statements are not just to show off authority, but to lead believers to believe in Him for life.
• Visio Divina and Art [00:34:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > References Caravaggio's 'The Incredulity of Thomas' and the ancient tradition of using artwork for prayerful reflection.
• The Fall and the Origin of Bread [00:35:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > Connects the introduction of bread in Genesis 3 to the curse of toil and the breaking of the relationship between humanity and God.
• The Striver's Curse and Human Brokenness [00:39:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > Discusses how high achievers work from a place of brokenness and insecurity, citing Arthur C. Brooks and King Solomon to show that work cannot satisfy deep spiritual hunger.
• Jesus as the Bread of Life [00:44:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > Contrasts the 'bread of death' (toil and curse) with Jesus, who offers life instead of a daily reminder of death.
• The Process of Wheat [00:45:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > Describes the physical process of wheat growing, dying, being threshed, and winnowed to illustrate the cost of producing life.
• The Bread of Life Analogy [00:45:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor details the arduous process of making bread (falling, threshing, grinding, baking) to illustrate Jesus' journey of death and resurrection, emphasizing that Jesus is the bread itself, not just the baker.
• Satisfaction of Spiritual Hunger [00:50:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > Using the example of Thomas, the pastor argues that seeing Jesus' scars confirms his sacrifice, leading to confidence and the realization that Jesus satisfies the need for approval and belonging.
• Daily Dependence on Scripture [00:57:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the manna in the wilderness with Jesus, arguing that just as bread is a daily necessity and not just for looking at, believers must daily consume the Word of God to live, rather than treating faith as a weekly obligation.
• Daily Dependence on Scripture [00:58:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that just as physical bread must be eaten daily for sustenance, believers must engage with God's word daily for spiritual strength, rather than treating it as a weekly obligation.
• Practical Application of Faith [00:59:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor illustrates how seeking God's word before challenging situations (like an unexpected meeting) leads to responses characterized by courage, calm, and wisdom, rather than immediate miraculous career changes.
• Human Need for Divine Validation [01:00:53 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor asserts that humans are not designed to satisfy their deepest needs for belonging, approval, and security through their own efforts or work, but must rely on God.

• Sermon Illustration [00:25:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his high school ambition to be an oil painter, which was curtailed by his father's practical questions about affording food and housing, leading him to become a designer instead. He also recounts visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum to study Van Gogh's self-portraits, specifically the one painted after Van Gogh sliced off his ear, using it to illustrate how honest self-portraits reveal true character.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:58 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor tells a humorous story about attending a baseball tournament in Indianapolis with his 14-year-old son. They were playing Mafia in a hotel lobby when the manager, frustrated by the noise, yelled 'I am the hours' when asked about lobby hours. The pastor uses this to illustrate the concept of making an 'I am' statement to assert authority, contrasting it with Jesus' divine claim.
• Sermon Illustration [00:33:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > A humorous anecdote about a guy at a lobby yelling 'I am the hours' to express authority, which the pastor uses to transition into Jesus' authority.
• Sermon Illustration [00:40:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > A personal story about moving frequently as a child and young adult (2nd grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, college, Greenville, Cincinnati, Crossroads staff), leading to feelings of not belonging and a drive to prove worth through achievement.
• Sermon Illustration [00:37:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > A humorous hypothetical about wanting a 'bread tree' (like a garlic naan tree or King's Hawaiian roll tree) to avoid work, contrasting with the reality of the curse of toil.
• Sermon Illustration [00:45:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > A detailed historical and agricultural description of how first-century bread was made: wheat stalks falling/dying, being cut with a scythe, bound into sheaves, threshed by oxen with flint rocks, and winnowed.
• Sermon Illustration [00:45:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the historical process of bread making: wheat falling and dying, being cut by scythes, bound into sheaves, threshed by oxen with flinty rocks, winnowed by wind, ground into flour, and baked in fire, bearing scars throughout the process.
• Sermon Illustration [00:49:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor parallels the bread-making process with Jesus' passion: coming from heaven, being bound in Gethsemane, whipped and beaten at Pilate's court (like a threshing floor), nailed to the cross, scored by a spear, and rising from the 'fire' of death bearing scars.
• Sermon Illustration [00:49:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The story of Thomas (Doubting/Honest/Confident Thomas) who required physical evidence of Jesus' scars to believe, leading him to become a confident disciple who traveled to India to plant churches.
• Sermon Illustration [00:53:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > A personal anecdote about the pastor's second date with his wife Sarah at Grater's in Cincinnati, where he confessed his insecurities (short, bad teeth, big ears) because he knew God approved of him, allowing him to date from a place of freedom rather than seeking human approval.
• Sermon Illustration [00:54:42 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the feeding of the 5,000 and the crowd's desire for more physical bread (manna) rather than the Word of God, contrasting temporary physical sustenance with the eternal life found in Jesus.
• Sermon Illustration [00:57:24 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of sourdough bread trends on TikTok to illustrate that while God's word (or Jesus) may be 'beautiful to look at,' it does not provide sustenance unless it is 'eaten' or internalized daily.
• Sermon Illustration [01:00:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares an anecdote about his mentor, Kirk Perry, a Fortune 500 CEO, who was given a job offer with only five minutes to decide. Perry asked for a minute to pray, received a 'word of peace,' and responded with calm wisdom, which ultimately helped him secure the job.

• Pastoral Charge [00:37:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > Turn to neighbor and share a humorous preference for a 'bread tree'.
• Pastoral Charge [00:39:43 ▶️ 📄]
  > Engage in group activities, service, giving, and stepping out of comfort zones.
• Pastoral Charge [00:57:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor urges the congregation to commit to weekly gathering and implies a need for more frequent spiritual engagement, warning against spiritual starvation.
• Pastoral Charge [00:58:31 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor challenges the congregation to establish a daily habit of reading and receiving the Word of God.
• Pastoral Charge [00:57:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > Establish a habit of weekly gathering and attendance.
• Pastoral Charge [01:02:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > Pray specifically for God's word and guidance for the current day's challenges.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:00:00] Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name's Andy, and if you're brand new, hey, thank you for spending a chunk of your week with us.
[00:00:06] One thing that we say around here a lot is that we're a church for people who've given up on church, but not on God.
[00:00:12] So, if you are showing up carrying doubts, skepticism, questions about faith, you are in exactly the right place.
[00:00:18] Today, we're talking about who Jesus says that He is, and we're actually gonna start off our time with worship.
[00:00:22] Worship isn't just singing songs. It's not just listening to songs. Worship is about inviting God into our real lives, the good and the bad, the easy and the hard.
[00:00:30] The song we're about to sing has been on repeat in my house lately for the last like three months.
[00:00:37] It says, man, God, if you start something, you'll complete it.
[00:00:40] I can take you at your word that these lyrics, man, I need to sing them because they're a reminder of what I need to be true of, what I need to remember that God is trustworthy in the midst of health scares,
[00:00:51] in the midst of not fun financial stuff.
[00:00:53] It's been a way for me to remind myself that God is true, that he has good things for me and it's true for you too.
[00:00:57] Let's sing this song right now.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:58] another song in just a moment but i want to interrupt real quick to point something out

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:08:47] now we're in a series called the jesus exhibit and we're looking at these seven statements that jesus made about himself seven self-portraits seven times that she basically says you want to know who i am start start here and every one of them begins with the same two words he says i am
[00:09:03] now that can sound normal to us i we say i am all the time i'm tired i'm hungry but when jesus says I am. He's doing way more than giving us a nice metaphor. He's reaching all the way back to the
[00:09:13] book of Exodus, where Moses encounters God in a burning bush. And before sending him to lead the people out of slavery, Moses basically says, okay, but when they ask who sent me, what am I supposed
[00:09:25] to say? Here's how Exodus 3 puts it. It says this, Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me. And they ask me, what is his name? What shall
[00:09:39] I say to them? God says to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are saying to the Israelites that I am has sent me to you. This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation
[00:09:56] to generation. It's not just a name at that point. That's a claim where God says, you want to know who I am? I am before everything, above everything, dependent on nothing. So when Jesus shows up over
[00:10:10] a thousand years later and says, I am the bread of life, or I am the way, or I am the life.
[00:10:16] He's not just saying, if you want to know what God is like, I'm sort of like him. If you want to see God, Jesus is saying, I am him. If you want to know what God is like, this is, I am God
[00:10:28] incarnate with flesh and blood. To be honest with you, when I read that I am statement, it like makes me take a step back. I don't know how to approach a God who could just say, I am, end of
[00:10:38] story. But man, when I am reminded that this I am is for me, that Jesus is God with flesh and blood on. He put some more color on the canvas, some more flesh on those bones. It gives me a picture.
[00:10:52] It's the best news that I could ever hope to hear, that I am is for me and he's for you.
[00:10:58] So Kyle is going to talk about today that if you have a hunger, man, I am the bread of life.
[00:11:05] He has that satisfaction, that thing that will fill you that you won't find anywhere else.
[00:11:11] That's what Jesus has on offer, not for somebody else who's more spiritual, not for somebody else who's read the Bible more.
[00:11:17] That's what he has for you.
[00:11:18] he's the light the life that he is the bread that can fill you up and sustain you let's sing about

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:11:24] that right now which means the power of god and the nearness of you the one who's with us

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:16:59] it's become so normal to just hear your name or say your name i've said it in ways i'd be ashamed of to ever say on a microphone but i've just tossed your name around at times and that's the
[00:17:19] truth is there is power in your name and your name is like no other name. I never want to throw it around or toss it like it's cheap. I want to recognize that when I speak it something
[00:17:34] changes in my heart and something changes in the space around me because your name has power and divinity being grace all right here in it. Thank you God for even allowing us to speak your name
[00:17:55] like this. Thank you, God, for inviting us closer and closer to you and giving us more life. You, full of grace. Thank you, Jesus, for showing us what God looks like. I bless you and I praise you
[00:18:14] today. Amen. It's good to be together. It's good to sing like this. Hey, why don't you turn to somebody you're with and just say, hey, glad you made it. Glad you're here. If you're online with

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:18:30] us, we're glad you're here with us too. Well, thanks so much for singing with us. Hey, again, my name's Andy. We're so glad that you're here giving us a part of your weekend or a part of
[00:18:43] week. Now, I don't know what your summer plans look like. Maybe it's travel, vacation, pool days, cookouts, camps, or, you know, just trying to keep the kids entertained without spending a million dollars. Hey, this was my family actually yesterday at our inaugural trip to the community
[00:18:58] pool, which was a blast, but involves lots of sunscreen and snacks and trying to like stay relaxed while counting heads every eight seconds. Summer is, it's full, right? It's full for all of us. My daughter, Ella, the tall one who's in the middle, she and I are actually leaving
[00:19:12] on a go trip to Puerto Rico in just a few weeks, and she's actually also headed to student camp for the very first time. It's going to be an incredible week, an incredible summer with our
[00:19:22] church and actually in whatever your summer plans look like. And one of the things that I love, love, love about our church is that you can take it with you wherever you go. So if you're traveling
[00:19:35] at the lake or at the beach, visiting family, or just watching from a different couch than normal, hey, the Crossroads Anywhere app is one of the easiest ways to stay connected and to stay growing. Now, you can stream the weekend. You can read scripture every day alongside thousands of
[00:19:51] people through the Bible reading sections and plans. You can find articles, videos, podcasts, and practical resources and events to help you stay connected and growing and serving.
[00:20:03] And these are the things that help you just find what's relevant to you, to what you need right now. Man, I love it. Hey, if you haven't downloaded the app yet, just get it. Android,
[00:20:13] iOS, whatever it is. Most of us carry our phones everywhere with us anyways. You might as well use them for something better than just checking the weather app 17 times before pool day or doom scrolling. Now, I want to talk not just to everybody. I want to talk to a specific
[00:20:28] group of people in our church. So if you're brand new around here, you just need to hear me.
[00:20:33] I am not talking to you for this next part.
[00:20:36] I want to talk to like the next level down.
[00:20:39] Some of you who are going, yeah, I'm like newer, but I'm not brand new.
[00:20:43] I'm coming back, right?
[00:20:45] And maybe that means Crossroads is starting to feel a little bit like home for you.
[00:20:49] If that's you, if you're at the beginning of your time or close to the beginning of your time with Crossroads and you're thinking, maybe this is going to be my church.
[00:20:57] I want to be so bold as to encourage you and challenge you.
[00:21:00] what would it look like if you started to give?
[00:21:04] Now, starting to give, man, why would you do that?
[00:21:07] I get it, it's a big ask.
[00:21:09] Well, one surface level reason is any of the things you get excited about here, whether it's the worship, whether it's the teaching, whether it's students meeting Jesus at camp or go trips or people serving their cities all around the globe
[00:21:21] or people meeting Jesus in a language they can understand, you can give to those things.
[00:21:26] As a lot of people would say, I just wanna give back.
[00:21:28] That is a fantastic place to start.
[00:21:31] But I also wanna tell you, there's a deeper place.
[00:21:33] There's a deeper reason that I think you should experiment with giving.
[00:21:37] It's because when I got serious with God and my money, it turbocharged something in me and my faith and my relationship with him.
[00:21:45] When I say, God, the first part of what comes in, I'm gonna give that back to you.
[00:21:50] I'm gonna give that to you because money doesn't have the same hold on my life as it used to.
[00:21:55] Something powerful happens.
[00:21:56] to say, God, you have all of me and you're going to provide more than I can do by hanging on to everything myself, something special happens.
[00:22:05] So maybe you're looking for the thing outside of this hour that could take your walk with Jesus to the next level.
[00:22:11] I would just encourage you to check it out at crossroads.net slash give or in the app or even via Apple Pay.
[00:22:17] It's very 2026 of us, it's brand new, but you can do that any way you want.
[00:22:21] The important thing is you figuring out what it looks like for you to take your next step in your walk with Jesus, whatever that is. So it doesn't matter like the amount so much as just
[00:22:31] trusting God with your money and see what happens. So today we are actually going to continue this series called the Jesus exhibit, looking at these seven statements that Jesus makes about himself.
[00:22:41] Somebody described him as these self portraits. I love that picture. This is how Jesus chose to describe himself so that we could understand more of who he is. He says, you want to know who I am?
[00:22:51] look here. At a time in our world where everybody has a thousand conflicting opinions about everything, I want to hear exactly how Jesus describes himself and what he has to say.
[00:23:02] He's saying, look here, look at me. This week, Kyle's unpacking one of the most powerful examples of these I am statements where Jesus says, I am the bread of life. This isn't just a metaphor.
[00:23:12] It's not just a nice spiritual image. This is Jesus making a claim about himself. That claim that says, I have the thing that can satisfy you. I have the thing that can meet your need. Let's

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:23:22] jump into where we are in the Bible right now. In the New Testament, in the gospel, according to John, this is a firsthand biography of Jesus by one of his closest friends. In it, John records
[00:23:33] seven iconic I am statements that Jesus made. Seven metaphors, seven self-portraits of the living God. This week, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Here's how it goes in the book of John chapter six. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave
[00:23:53] you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And they said to him, sir, give us
[00:24:04] this bread always. And 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. But I said to you that you've seen me
[00:24:17] and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:24:23] never cast out. Well, hey, how are you? My name is Kyle, who we've never met before. And if we have met before, my name is still Kyle, actually. Good to be with you this morning. We're in the series
[00:24:44] that you just saw, the seven self-portraits of Jesus, the Jesus exhibit. Now, Jesus is probably the most talked about person in human history, which means that a lot of people have had a lot of hot takes about who he really is and what he's really like. He's got a lot of names out there.
[00:25:01] And even inside the Bible, there are 198 different names and titles given for Jesus in the Bible.
[00:25:07] all of them are accurate, all of them are helpful, and yet seven stand above the rest.
[00:25:15] These seven I am statements from the book of John, because Jesus is describing himself.
[00:25:21] In this series, we're saying the best way to think about them, the best way to approach them is to consider them as self-portraits. You know, when you study the work of an artist, you can learn a lot about the actual artist. I used to do this in high school. In high school,
[00:25:36] I wanted to be an oil painter. That was kind of the career trajectory that I had for a while. I was really serious about it until one day my dad kindly asked me a couple of key questions. He's
[00:25:46] like, son, I will support you no matter what you want to do. I just want to know later in your life, do you want to be able to afford food? I was like, yeah. He's like, do you want to live inside of a
[00:25:57] house? I was like, yeah, I do want to do that. So I became a designer instead of an oil painter.
[00:26:02] But I loved in high school.
[00:26:04] We lived in Philadelphia and I would go to the Philadelphia Art Museum and I would just spend hours poring over the paintings.
[00:26:10] My favorite artist is Vincent Van Gogh and they had a room full of some of his paintings, his sunflower paintings.
[00:26:16] I would just try to look at them and I know what some of you are thinking.
[00:26:19] You're judging me right now.
[00:26:20] You're like, Kyle, you sound like you're really cool in high school.
[00:26:22] You went to the art museum by yourself.
[00:26:24] Relax.
[00:26:25] I also wrestled and played soccer.
[00:26:26] Relax.
[00:26:27] By the way, pro tip.
[00:26:29] This is like now we're way off in a tangent at this point, but I got to get this out here. If you're in college especially, friends at Uptown, and you want a great date, take her to the art museum. Number one, it's free. And number two, she'll
[00:26:43] think you're way smarter than you actually are. You just follow her around. She stops in front of a painting. And when she stops, you just rub your chin and say something like, wow, such depth.
[00:26:56] Pray she doesn't ask a follow-up question, but just trust me, it's going to be great for you.
[00:27:00] I would go and I would study these paintings. But if you really want to understand an artist, you got to get to the self-portraits of them. Vincent Van Gogh actually painted one of the most famous self-portraits in all of art history at a time in his life that was deeply troubled.
[00:27:19] December of 1889, he had a mental breakdown to the point where he actually sliced off his own ear.
[00:27:24] really did, true story. And in January the next year, he actually painted a self-portrait of him with the bandage on his head. It says something about who he is. The self-portraits that you and I respond to the most are the ones that don't try to pretty themselves up, don't try to make
[00:27:45] themselves higher than they actually are, but the ones that are just real, the ones that are honest, the ones that show their scars and everything. And that's particularly true of Jesus. These portraits of Jesus are real. And today's portrait in particular is meant to show us his scars.
[00:28:04] It's the bread of life. It comes from John 6, 35. We'll start with this. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me
[00:28:17] shall never thirst. That's a pretty incredible promise, right? If you come to me, you'll never be hungry. You'll never be thirsty. Now, this doesn't mean physical hunger. He's not saying walk up to me and my arm is endless breadsticks. It's awesome. No, it's not what he's saying.
[00:28:33] What he's saying is you have a deeper, more important hunger than physical hunger. You have a spiritual hunger. You have a hunger that manifests itself in a need for validation, for approval, to know that you're enough, to know that you're secure. He says, I can satisfy
[00:28:49] that kind of hunger, the hunger that comes from a place of exhaustion and weariness from just being alive. Now, I don't have to know the first thing about you. And there's people all over the room, wherever you are, if you're watching online, watching online with you,
[00:29:04] people all over the spectrum of faith and life and young and old and all the things. But what I do know that all of us have in common is that all of us got tired this week. All of us hit a moment
[00:29:17] of exhaustion. I think that's just life. And I think that's this season of life. I've heard people say that May should be called May timber, like December, because December is so full of stuff and you're busy and it's supposed to be happy, but it's actually just like exhausting. It's kind of
[00:29:31] how May feels. If you're a parent, you're running around like crazy, trying to finish up the end of year stuff, and your kids have sports, and trying to make all the practices, and all the end-of-the-year
[00:29:40] school things, and it's just exhausting. If you're in school, if you're in high school, you're finishing up your exams, or maybe you just did. You're getting your summer job. Same with college.
[00:29:49] Exams finish right into summer internship. It's just tiring. And what Jesus says is the bread of life is, you know, I can satisfy the hunger that you have for life. I can satisfy it. My prayer
[00:30:06] today is that no matter where you are, you would leave with a powerful picture of the gospel, a powerful picture of the scars that Jesus took on for you to once and for all satisfy the deepest
[00:30:22] cravings of your soul. Now, today and every week of this series, you can look at them as like brain ticklers or philosophical discussions or theology points, and I would just encourage you not to. I would encourage you to approach the paintings open and honest about who you are to
[00:30:40] and where you are to, showing your scars and all to so that you might find life.
[00:30:47] Let me pray for us before we go any farther.
[00:30:49] Jesus, I thank you that you are the greatest artist in the history of the universe.
[00:30:55] And that when you paint with words, it's alive and active.
[00:30:59] I'm asking you to give us the courage to approach you honestly.
[00:31:01] You give us the eyes to see you as you really are.
[00:31:06] And I'm praying that it would lead to an increase in the God-empowered life that you want for each of us.
[00:31:12] Amen.
[00:31:14] Well, like you heard earlier from your community pastors, the idea behind these statements is pretty divisive Jesus wasn't just saying you know I'm kind of like bread when he says I am he's making a definitive claim of divinity in fact in John
[00:31:32] chapter 8 he comes right out and he says before Abraham was I am Abraham if you didn't know lived a long, long, long time before Jesus. He's saying, I am eternal. I am God. And when you say I am,
[00:31:48] you got to be able to back it up. Last week, I heard someone say an I am statement. I was in Indianapolis for a baseball tournament with my 14-year-old Eli. We go over there, which by the
[00:31:58] way, parents, don't ever let your kid play baseball. If you enjoy free time, disposable income, just don't. Just don't do it. I hear other sports parents complain, you know, oh, we had a soccer game this weekend. I'm like, soccer games last an hour. Relax. Volleyball, people get upset about.
[00:32:16] We have a volleyball tournament. Oh, volleyball. It's like 32 minutes a game. Big deal. Baseball games last like four days. So we're in Indianapolis for the baseball tournament, and it's raining. And so Saturday morning, we wake up. Our games are delayed into the evening. We're just trying to
[00:32:33] kill time. And so we're playing Mafia in the Team Hotel. The Team Hotel is the best Western in Fishers, Indiana. And I don't mean to throw shade at the best Western in Fishers, Indiana. I'll just
[00:32:44] say the word best is generous. That's all. It's a Western. It's a Western. And we're playing mafia in the lobby with the boys and they're being loud. You know, they're 14 year old boys. They're
[00:32:58] being loud. The manager twice asked us to quiet down and we don't get any quieter. And so he stands up and he yells, the lobby is closed. One of the parents is like, it's 9.30 in the morning,
[00:33:13] the lobby's closed? Like, where, what are the hours for the lobby? And the guy, the guy just points at himself. He goes, and the parent can follow. He's like, no, no, like, what are the
[00:33:28] hours for the lobby. And the guy yells, I am the hours. We're like, okay, wow. Now, I think when he said that, he was trying to express his authority, you know, kind of like Jesus is doing. He's
[00:33:44] showing us his authority here. But the point isn't just that you and I would go, oh, wow, he's God, good for him. The point is that it would impact us. John actually gives us the point in John 20,
[00:33:58] verse 31. He says, but these are written, these I am statements are written, that you may believe that one, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that two, by believing, you may have life
[00:34:10] in his name. So the point of the portrait is not interesting theology. The point of the portrait is not he's God, good for him. The point of the portraits is that we would see Jesus as our Messiah,
[00:34:23] our Savior, our Redeemer for us. And that because of that, we'd be able to experience the God-empowered life in his name, according to that name. What that means is that each of these contains two portraits. One is a picture of the gospel, and the second is instructions
[00:34:42] for living. Last week, Chuck put up a picture at the end of the service of Caravaggio painting called The Incredulity of Thomas.
[00:34:52] At the very end, it was like Thomas putting his finger in the side of Jesus post-resurrection.
[00:34:59] And he gave us this term that I don't know we've talked about before, visio divina, divine seeing.
[00:35:05] It's this ancient, literally two millennia old tradition of using artwork, using portraits to connect with God in this prayerful, reflective way.
[00:35:16] And so as we're going through this series, what we're doing is something ancient and sacred and old and powerful as we study these portraits.
[00:35:25] So we're gonna look at two of them today, like I said, the portrait of the gospel and the portraits for instructions for living.
[00:35:31] The portrait for the gospel, I would title broken bread.
[00:35:36] That's our first portrait, broken bread.
[00:35:39] You know, Messiah means redeemer or savior or just fixer.
[00:35:45] the one who would come and fix what was broken between humanity and God. Now, if you go back to the original story of where this relationship between humanity and God breaks, all the way back
[00:35:57] to Genesis chapter 3, bread shows up smack in the middle of it. This is the story, if you're unfamiliar, of Adam and Eve that might ring a bell, and if that kind of trips you up, Adam means
[00:36:08] mankind or humankind, Eve means life, and so this is really the story, the beginning of human life.
[00:36:13] That's what we're talking about. And in the beginning of human life, human life has one rule.
[00:36:19] It's eat any fruit from any tree except that one. And when Adam and Eve hear this, they respond like your toddler. They're like, all I want to do is touch that tree. That's all. So they do. And the
[00:36:31] relationship breaks. It breaks. And listen to these words from God, Genesis chapter 3. God says, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
[00:36:47] In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. To you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. This is the moment that bread
[00:37:03] is invented. Before this, the way that humanity ate, when you go to a tree, you pick up a piece of fruit, you eat it. Food's just right, right there. God says, now you'll have to work in order
[00:37:15] to satisfy your own hunger. And I'm not making a bread tree. That'd have been awesome, by the way.
[00:37:20] Bread tree. Think about that. If there were bread trees, I have an orchard. I would have a garlic naan tree. I'd have a King's Hawaiian roll tree. Turn to your neighbor and tell them what kind of
[00:37:30] bread tree you would most like in your life. Maybe it's pretzel bites. I don't know what it is.
[00:37:34] croissant tree I'm hearing. That'd be a great one. But God says, no, no, no, no. Food's not coming like that anymore. You're going to have to work for it. And follow the story here. You're
[00:37:49] going to have to work from a place of brokenness. The relationship breaks. And God says from this moment, this moment of brokenness, now you will have to work to satisfy your own hunger. And oh,
[00:38:00] by the way, it's not going to work. And you'll know because you're going to die. It's kind of brutal, if you think about it. Like, man, God, that's like, it's kind of brutal. It is, but it's
[00:38:09] also clear, and it's honest, and it's accurate. Still to this day. Still to this day. There's a lot of people out there who want to write off the Bible as, you know, outdated fairy tales and
[00:38:23] kind of hollow truths or whatever. No, that's couldn't be farther from the truth. That's ridiculous. But what happens is that as we study more about human psychology and how the world actually functions again and again, these deep truths from the Bible are revealed to be true,
[00:38:38] even from the most ancient stories, like the story of Adam and Eve that we're looking at right here. It's shown to be deeply, deeply meaningful. Our work cannot satisfy our real hunger. If you go to the most cutting-edge research on happiness and satisfaction and
[00:38:57] mental health, this is what the experts are saying. No matter how hard we work, no matter what we try to accomplish, no matter what we rack up on our resume, no matter what the plaque in the front of our desk says,
[00:39:08] no matter what anything else our bank account says, we cannot, cannot satisfy our truest hunger for meaning, approval, satisfaction, identity.
[00:39:19] We cannot do it.
[00:39:21] We can't.
[00:39:22] And they're also saying that increasingly, they're seeing that this idea of work for that comes from a place of brokenness, particularly, by the way, amongst high achievers, which I would argue that we are a church of high
[00:39:36] achievers. If you're not into doing stuff, you're not going to like Crossroads very much because we're going to push you to do stuff. We're going to push you to get in the group. We're going to
[00:39:43] push you to serve. We're going to push you to give. We're going to push you to go get outside your comfort zone. And high achievers tend to work from a place of brokenness, brokenness around
[00:39:55] wondering who I am. Am I actually enough? Do I really belong? Will anyone love me? Can I show everyone in high school they were wrong about me? Can I convince that parent, even if they're no
[00:40:06] longer even on this earth, can I convince them that they should be proud of me? We operate out of these places. Shows up in me too, by the way. I'm not immune to this. In my life, I moved a lot
[00:40:18] as a kid, and even into early adulthood. I was the new kid at school in second grade, eighth grade, ninth grade again in ninth grade in college I moved to a brand new state hundreds of miles
[00:40:30] away brand new culture didn't know anybody my first job Greenville South Carolina didn't know anybody moved to Cincinnati didn't know anybody started on staff at Crossroads didn't know anybody joined a team at Crossroads and I was the only one on it and so you add all that up
[00:40:46] and sometimes I can wonder whether I really belong and when that you have a thought like that, what happens is you work from that place. I'll show them that I belong. I'll show them that
[00:41:00] I'm enough. I'll show them that they should want me around here, wherever here is. Whoever you are, you are likely operating out of a similar place or trying to prove something, trying to show your
[00:41:11] worth and trying to prove them all wrong. I am smart. I am good enough. You're trying to operate and satisfy a hunger, and it will not work. It won't. It won't, no matter how hard you work.
[00:41:25] There's a leading expert on happiness.
[00:41:28] I would actually say he's probably the world's foremost recognized expert on happiness right now.
[00:41:34] Arthur C. Brooks out of Harvard.
[00:41:37] And he's done a lot of research around this phenomenon of trying to satisfy your own hunger and it not working.
[00:41:44] And he's labeled it the striver's curse.
[00:41:48] And what he basically says is that achievements that you think will satisfy your hunger deliver dramatically diminishing returns.
[00:41:56] And so the job that you got last month, that promotion that last month felt incredible and you thought would finally satisfy you, this month, it turns out it's just another job.
[00:42:06] That house that you worked so hard to get into in that awesome neighborhood, that was a massive upgrade that you bought last year, this year, it's just another house.
[00:42:14] That achievement that you were going for and striving for is just another Thursday, dramatically diminishing returns no matter what it looks like. In his book, From Strength to Strength, he wrote this, what I found was a hidden source of anguish that wasn't just widespread but
[00:42:32] nearly universal among people who have done well in their careers. I came to call this the striver's curse. People who strive to be excellent at what they do often wind up finding their inevitable will decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and their relationships
[00:42:50] lacking. The strivers curse. I think it's fascinating he picks that word, curse. Why?
[00:42:57] Well, Genesis 3, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. And oh, by the way, no matter how hard
[00:43:09] you work, it will never satisfy your deepest cravings. Cannot, will not, can't make you whole, can't validate you, can't make you feel secure, can't make you feel safe, can't make you feel the belonging that you crave, no matter how hard you work. You know, 3,000 years before Arthur C.
[00:43:26] Brooke wrote about the striver's curse, King Solomon, the wisest man in the world, said something very, very similar. Ecclesiastes 2.11. He wrote, then I considered all that my hands had done, in the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the
[00:43:45] wind. That's the curse. No matter how hard you work, you can't satisfy yourself. Now, that's the bad news. But remember, the Messiah came to redeem what's bad. He came to fix what's broken. And so
[00:44:01] when bread is introduced, bread is not the bread of life. Bread has been the bread of death for generations after generations. And when Jesus shows up and he says, I'm the bread of life, everyone's like, what? So we think about this with bread. Bread is something you interact with
[00:44:16] every single day. And for the history of humanity, humanity had this daily reminder of death. And Jesus comes along and says, you know what? I want you to, instead of having a daily reminder of
[00:44:26] death, I want you to have a daily reminder of life, life that I offer you, that I am the Messiah is the point of the broken bread.
[00:44:36] Now, when we think about bread, this is tricky for us, but when we think about bread, you and I start here with bread.
[00:44:43] We actually have a bread tree called Kroger.
[00:44:48] And we go and we pick one off the shelf or more, we pay somebody else to pick it off the shelf and click list.
[00:44:53] And then we pray that when they put it in our trunk, they don't put the eggs on top and squish it.
[00:44:58] Most of the time when I get my bread, it actually looks like this from my, you know, it's like, thank you.
[00:45:04] that's really helpful. Listen, I was a grocery store bagger, just bagger to bagger, man. Just heavy stuff on the bottom, bread on top. We would just love if you would do that for us. It'd be
[00:45:12] awesome. Amazing. We start here with bread, but this is not actually how bread begins. And the people back then knew this. We buy our bread in plastic. It's pre-sliced. They made their bread.
[00:45:27] In fact, one of the things that every single first century family, which is when Jesus was saying these words, I'm the bread of life. Every single family he was talking to when he said these words,
[00:45:37] every person, every day made bread. It was part of their routine. It was part of their life. It was actually hard, hard work. It's interesting is that the bread had to go through a lot in order
[00:45:51] to give life to them every day. And they were keenly aware of this. What would it go through?
[00:45:56] Well, a stalk of wheat would grow up. A kernel would rise to the top. It'd be above the ground and it would have to fall. A kernel of wheat would have to fall into the ground, die, and once it dies
[00:46:08] in the ground, then it would produce life, a field of wheat. And when that wheat was fully grown, they would go out with a scythe and they would start to just whack it down. They would just chop it down
[00:46:19] from where it is up high, knock it to the ground. And when it was all on the ground, they would come along and they would bind it up into sheaves, literally tie it together, and they would haul it
[00:46:30] all off to a threshing floor. What's a threshing floor? Threshing floor is a wide circular stone area. They would spread all of the stalks of wheat out and then oxen would come onto that circle
[00:46:44] with carts dragging behind them. On the bottom of the cart or the sled were like sharp flinty rocks and the ox would go around and around the threshing floor and those rocks would just cut apart the
[00:46:57] stalks of grain. Then someone will come along with a winnowing fork, a sharp, almost like a spear-like thing. They would jam it into the stalks of wheat. They would toss it in the air.
[00:47:07] The wind would come and blow off the chaff, and then the kernels of wheat would fall to the ground.
[00:47:13] Those kernels of wheat would be gathered together and then ground into flour. Sometimes it looked like a big millstone pulled by a donkey in a circle, and a lot of times it looked like daily
[00:47:23] just grinding and pounding by families of the kernels that they had separated themselves.
[00:47:30] And that flour was made. It would be mixed with water and wild yeast. It would be pounded and rolled until it was in the shape of dough. And then the last step is they would take a knife
[00:47:42] and they would score the bread so that as the heat intensified, the air had a place to escape.
[00:47:49] And they would take that bread and they would put it into the oven.
[00:47:54] They'd put it into the fire.
[00:47:56] And when it came out, what's interesting about bread is it would bear all of the scars of its journey to get there, all of them.
[00:48:07] You know, when Jesus comes along, he says, I'm the bread of life.
[00:48:11] He's saying, I'm this.
[00:48:12] He didn't say, I'm the baker of the bread of life.
[00:48:16] He's saying, I'm the bread.
[00:48:18] itself. You know, he goes through a similar journey, is what he's trying to get us to understand. He's God on high, over and above everything, who voluntarily comes to the earth to die. He says this in John 12, very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground
[00:48:40] and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Jesus says, this is me. I've come to the earth to die for you. I hadn't exalted above the everybody position,
[00:48:57] but I came here to produce life in all of you. He comes to the earth. Did you know that he was cut?
[00:49:05] Do you know that he was bound in the garden of Gethsemane? He's literally tied up and led away.
[00:49:10] where? To a place that's very much like a threshing floor, the courtyard of Pontius Pilate, where what happens to him? He's whipped and he's beaten and he's cut apart. And then he's taken to the cross where nails are pounded into him. And then he's hung on the cross. And the last step
[00:49:29] that happens is a soldier takes a spear and cuts him, scores him in the side. And then he goes into the fire for three days. What's fascinating is just like bread, when he comes out of the oven,
[00:49:44] he's bearing his scars that we can see. Chuck talked about Thomas last week. Thomas, who we call Doubting Thomas. And we call him Doubting Thomas because he's like, look, I'll believe this whole Jesus is the Messiah thing when I can see his scars and I can put my fingers inside of
[00:50:03] them. And Chuck said, no, we shouldn't call him doubting Thomas. We should call him honest Thomas.
[00:50:08] He should be the patron saint of Crossroads. Well, I'll tell you, we should also call him confident Thomas. Because do you know that after Thomas saw the scars, saw the evidence of what the bread of life had gone through in order to save and rescue him, Thomas became one of the
[00:50:25] most confident, powerful disciples in history. Now that moment with Thomas is actually the last chance the Bible tells us about him, but church history that's pretty reliable tells us that Thomas actually journeyed further than any other disciple, all the way to India, where he planted
[00:50:42] seven churches. He also probably planted a garlic naan tree, if that was a thing over there. That's what I would do. He goes all the way over there. He's confident. Why? Because Thomas is convinced
[00:50:54] that Jesus has satisfied his deepest hunger. Thomas is convinced that the journey of bread, that everything that Jesus went through for him shows conclusively once and for all that Jesus approves of him, that he does belong,
[00:51:09] that he has a savior, that he doesn't have to satisfy those deepest needs himself.
[00:51:12] He believes that Jesus has satisfied them for him and it changes everything, everything.
[00:51:20] See, the best news about the bread of life is that while your work is fruitless to satisfy your hunger, his wounds do it all.
[00:51:31] They do it all.
[00:51:33] And you and I have this choice to make when it comes to the gospel.
[00:51:35] We can either keep working, we can keep working to satisfy our hunger, or we can receive the gift of the broken bread for us every day.
[00:51:46] I'll tell you, friends, there's a reason that Jesus made a bread of life, because we see it every day.
[00:51:53] Do you know that every day his hope for you is that when you see bread, you have a moment where you're like, that's right.
[00:52:00] Jesus loved me this much.
[00:52:02] That's right.
[00:52:02] What he went through for me, that's, I don't have to worry today about whether somebody loves me.
[00:52:07] I'm loved.
[00:52:08] I don't have to worry about whether a place where I belong.
[00:52:11] I belong.
[00:52:13] Every single day, his heart is that you and I would have that kind of reminder.
[00:52:19] I'll tell you, when you sink your teeth into this, no pun intended, it changes how you live.
[00:52:25] It really does.
[00:52:27] In every area of your life, by the way, even the ones you might not expect.
[00:52:30] I'll give you an example.
[00:52:31] Dating.
[00:52:32] This can dramatically, if you're single and you're dating, this can dramatically change how you date.
[00:52:38] So most of us date from a place of trying to gain approval from the other person or trying to work for approval.
[00:52:48] But when they flip like this and you go, you know what, I'm already approved, instead of trying to gain approval, you can give approval.
[00:52:54] You're not working for approval, You're working from a place of approval.
[00:52:59] And when you do that, everything changes.
[00:53:03] I remember having this conversation with Sarah on our second date.
[00:53:06] I was at the point in my life where I was really beginning to believe deeply, truly the gospel for me, that Jesus really was for me, did love me, did care about me, had plans for me, all that stuff.
[00:53:18] And I remember telling her on our second date, we were at Grater's in Hyde Park in Cincinnati.
[00:53:23] And I said, you know, here's the facts about me.
[00:53:27] I'm short. I got bad teeth. I got big ears, you know, really selling myself. So act fast. And I said, you know, those are all true about me. And that used to really bother me.
[00:53:40] It gave me deep insecurity and it affected how I dated because I was just trying to get someone to approve of me and like me and tell me I was good enough anyway. And, you know,
[00:53:48] all those kinds of things. I said, you know, I just know that God approves of me. God loves me.
[00:53:54] And if he has a wife out there somewhere for me, I know she's not going to care about any of those things. And so I'm not trying to get approval. And I wasn't saying that in a defiant
[00:54:03] way. I was saying that in a life-giving freedom way. It's beautiful. It's beautiful when you can live from that kind of a place. It's beautiful. That's how God wants you to live, in the place
[00:54:15] of believing in the broken bread for you. That's the portrait of the Messiah. But John tells us the portrait has two pictures in it. One is the portrait of the Messiah, and two is instructions
[00:54:28] for how to have life in his name. And that's the second portrait we got to talk about, the portrait of daily bread. This entire scene of Jesus talking about the bread of life, it comes out of the book
[00:54:42] of John chapter 6. It's on the heels of one of the most famous miracles Jesus ever performs, the feeding of the 5,000, which is really the 25,000. He takes 12 loaves of bread, which is not
[00:54:52] enough to feed that many people. He breaks it, spreads it out. It feeds everyone. And they're all like, this is amazing. And so Jesus goes to the next town and the people follow him there.
[00:55:01] Now he had preached like an all day sermon to them and they follow him to the next town, not wanting more of the word of God. They just want more bread. Jesus actually calls them out
[00:55:10] on this. He's like, all you guys want is bread. And they're like, well, kinda. What if you made us manna, Jesus? Like God did way back then. Manna, if you're not familiar, it's the story,
[00:55:20] to Exodus. The people of Israel go to the desert. They have no food. God makes miracle bread every morning. They're like, what if you did that? Because they think Jesus is a bread tree. That's
[00:55:30] what they think, right? This is amazing. And Jesus says this to them, John 6, 48, I'm the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna and the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down
[00:55:43] from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
[00:55:49] if anyone eats this bread he will live forever and the bread i shall give him is my flesh which i shall give for the life of the world this is the bread which came down from heaven not as your
[00:56:01] fathers ate the manna and are dead he who eats this bread will live forever now god actually already made this point about about manna of like hey the point wasn't actually how god satisfies your hunger. That wasn't the point. The point was how you don't actually have the deepest need of
[00:56:21] physical hunger. You have a deeper need than that. God says this in Deuteronomy 8.3, talking about the manna incident. He said, so he humbled you. He allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna,
[00:56:31] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that, here's the point, Man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
[00:56:48] You know, the thing about bread is bread is not optional.
[00:56:51] Bread's not a luxury.
[00:56:53] There's a reason Jesus didn't come along and say, I am the caviar of life.
[00:56:58] I am the whipped cream and cherry on top of the sundae of life.
[00:57:03] I'm kind of extra.
[00:57:05] I'm optional.
[00:57:06] No, it's a necessity, a daily necessity.
[00:57:14] My question for you is, do you daily seek after the word of God?
[00:57:20] Do you take it in?
[00:57:21] Because the thing about bread also is that bread's kind of cool to look at.
[00:57:24] Like right now, there's like bread talk on TikTok, like a beautiful loaves you can look at.
[00:57:28] Everyone making sourdough bread everywhere.
[00:57:30] Beautiful to look at, amazing.
[00:57:32] Doesn't help you a lot to look at it though.
[00:57:34] Not gonna do much for you.
[00:57:35] Not gonna give you a pep in your step.
[00:57:36] Not gonna fuel you just by looking at it.
[00:57:38] Great to smell.
[00:57:39] helpful. I think a lot of us treat Jesus this way. We treat Jesus at an arm's length, or at most, we come around once a week. I love that you're here. I love that you're watching online. That's
[00:57:52] amazing. This is an important, sacred tradition for getting back 2,000 years of weekly gathering together. Really critically important. Highly encourage you to make it a habit. Highly encourage you to come back. And, and, and, and, you know you need to eat more than once a week, right?
[00:58:09] If all you're doing is eating once a week, you're gonna be hungry.
[00:58:12] You're gonna be going through life a lot weaker than you need to be.
[00:58:16] Jesus came to be daily bread.
[00:58:18] In the middle of the Lord's prayer, that's what he tells us to pray for every day.
[00:58:21] Give us today our daily bread.
[00:58:24] I don't think he was necessarily talking about this kind of bread.
[00:58:26] I think he's talking about the word of God.
[00:58:28] Do you get the daily word of God in your life?
[00:58:31] This is the habit that leads to life in his name like he's going for.
[00:58:38] And this habit, by the way, it's not magical.
[00:58:41] I do pray every day for daily bread.
[00:58:43] It's not like you sit there and you're like, God, give me a day of daily bread.
[00:58:46] Whoa, I just feel so energized.
[00:58:49] Like I drank nine Red Bulls all of a sudden.
[00:58:51] It's not how it works.
[00:58:53] But you open yourself up.
[00:58:54] You say, God, I know that I'm gonna meet life today in unexpected places and I'm not gonna have what it takes.
[00:59:03] And so would you be so good as to give me what I need?
[00:59:06] Give me your word of instruction, your word of peace, your word of courage that helps me in these moments of my day, that gives me my daily bread that I need from you. I'm telling you,
[00:59:16] if you do this, things can change in your life. It's small things. It's before a meeting that pops up on your counter you weren't prepared for. You stop and you just pray before you walk in the
[00:59:26] door. God, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. Would you give me your word right now?
[00:59:32] I need your word. I don't live on my intuition. I don't live out of my experience. I live out of your word. I promise it will change. It's not like you're going to walk into that meeting and be
[00:59:42] like, congratulations, you're now senior vice president because you prayed that one time.
[00:59:46] That's not going to happen. But what will happen is you'll find yourself responding with courage, with calm, with wisdom, with something that's beyond yourself and people will notice and things will start to change. They will. I was talking to one of my mentors and friends this past week,
[01:00:04] a guy named Kirk Perry. He's a Fortune 500 CEO. Amazing guy. And he was talking about this moment he had where he unexpectedly got a job offer with five minutes to respond to it in front of
[01:00:16] everybody. And he was like, whoa, this crazy moment. Wasn't even sure he wanted the job.
[01:00:20] So this guy has him in the hallway and says, hey, this is what's about to happen. You got five minutes to think about it. And Kirk's response was, this might sound weird, but I need a minute
[01:00:29] to pray. And he went and he prayed. He said, God just gave him this word of peace, this word of peace. And so he went back in the room and he operated calmly and peacefully and demonstrated
[01:00:39] wisdom. And guess what? That made them want him for the job even more. Of course, of course, of course. So you and I are not made to try to satisfy our deepest need for belonging and
[01:00:53] approval. We're not made to satisfy that on our own. Our work can't do it. And we're not made to go through our day on our own power, on our own wisdom, out of our own experience. We're made to
[01:01:02] need the daily bread of God. Daily bread. Before we run out of here, I want you to just take a minute. In a minute, I'm going to ask you to close your eyes. And when you do, I want you to picture
[01:01:15] bread, either broken bread. Maybe it's part of the process that you just learned about how bread gets made. Or daily bread. Go ahead and close your eyes. Picture bread. And whichever picture you have in your mind, assume that's from God. That's the one He wants you to think about. And before you
[01:01:38] run out, have a conversation with Him about that. If it's broken bread, you can just say, thank you.
[01:01:47] Say, Jesus, would you satisfy the need I have for, maybe it's approval for you. Maybe it's security for you. Maybe it's a need to be told that you're enough. Say, Jesus, would you satisfy that? I
[01:02:05] believe your gospel. You are the Messiah. Maybe for you, you've been in a place of exhaustion and the daily bread is what God is offering you and it's what you need. If that's you, just ask him for it. You can ask him for tomorrow's bread tomorrow. Today, ask him for today's bread.
[01:02:26] what do you have in the rest of your day?
[01:02:30] Who are you going to see?
[01:02:32] Who are you going to be around?
[01:02:34] What are the challenges you have today?
[01:02:36] Ask him for his word for you, his guidance for you.
[01:02:43] Jesus, I bless you that you are the bread of life.
[01:02:46] I thank you that I do not have to, and I refuse to try to satisfy my own need for validation and approval and security, my deepest hunger.
[01:02:58] Thank you that you do.
[01:02:59] Lord, I'm asking for everybody in this room, everybody watching online, that you would give us the faith to believe in your gospel of the broken bread.
[01:03:11] And Jesus, I'm asking that today you would be daily bread for each of us.
[01:03:15] That in the moments we have coming for the rest of the day, that you would be loud in our ears, that we would hear your instructions.
[01:03:22] We would hear your encouragement, that we receive your peace, Jesus.
[01:03:27] Thank you, thank you, thank you for being the bread of life.
[01:03:32] Amen.
[01:03:34] Well, if you're thinking, man, it would have been cool to do communion after message on bread.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:03:37] Jesus has something that he wants for you.
[01:03:38] He wants to give you the necessity of your life.
[01:03:41] He wants to be and give you your daily bread.
[01:03:45] So I don't know what it looks like for you to practice receiving that, for you to practice eating that, for you to practice taking that in, in a daily way that gives you what you need
[01:03:54] to get through the week.
[01:03:55] Man, we'd love to help encourage you in that direction.
[01:03:58] It's a whole reason our church exists.
[01:04:00] In fact, I'd love to pray with you or help you find that personal custom next step for you to walk with God.
[01:04:06] If you just do me a favor, text the word anywhere to 301-301, anywhere to 301-301.
[01:04:12] I myself personally will reach back out to you and help you find the right person, the right group, the right way for you to grow and continue on your journey with God.
[01:04:22] We'd love to do that for you.
[01:04:24] Now, hey, before we go, just a quick heads up.
[01:04:26] want to invite you back to something really special. Next weekend, we're having a prayer experience. Next week, we're actually going to create space to slow down, connect with God, to hear from him in a fresh way. This time is going to be designed to be immersive and reflective,
[01:04:39] but not in like a heavy way, in a Matthew 11 way where Jesus says, come to me all who are weary, who are burdened, and I will give you rest. This experience is for you to experience more of that
[01:04:49] abiding, resting, energizing presence from being with God. So that's what we want for you to get the most out of it, man, a couple of things you can do. Come prepared. Have a pen and a paper
[01:04:59] nearby. Maybe you don't be in the car like I oftentimes am. Have some time to chill, to sit, to relax, to be with God and to reflect. And we'll also be taking communion here at our physical
[01:05:09] locations. We're going to be taking communion with bread and with grapes, talking about what it means to be connected to the vine. But whatever you have will work great. Can't wait to see you next week. Thanks so much for joining on Crossroads.