If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to the gospel according to John chapter 6, verses 35 through 51. John chapter 6. verses 35 through 51. This is a very rich and deep passage. We'll not be able to look at everything going on in these verses today, but we're just gonna touch on a few points about our savior and about the salvation that he brings to our souls and our bodies. John chapter six, beginning in verse 35. This is the word of the Lord. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. The Jews then complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered and said to them, do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for this wonderful teaching that you have given us today, that you, Jesus Christ, are the bread of life, that you are that living bread, that you are the bread that came down from heaven. and that if we eat of you, we will never die, but we will live and reign with you forever. Thank you for this, Lord. God, be with us now. You have summoned us into your presence. You have blessed us by your word. Before long, Lord, we will dine at your table. But now, Lord, let us just lay our hearts bare before you and receive your goodness. Lord, be with me as I preach your word. Let me only speak that which is true. God, if I begin to say anything wrong, if I begin to dive into an area that you don't want me to go, Lord, even if it is not wrong, If it's not where you'd have me lead, God, I pray that your spirit would lead me back on the right track. God, I pray that your spirit would bless each and every person here, that they would hear from you and be taught by you. God, we just ask your blessing on us now. Let a double portion of your spirit fall on this congregation. In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. The first point I want us to dial into today is that Jesus Christ is a humble savior. We've gone over this truth a number of times already in the gospel according to John, but that's not because I have nothing else to preach about. It's just because John keeps putting Jesus's humility on display over and over and over. J.C. Ryle says that we must never be ashamed of repetition in religious teaching. Just look at how many times in the section we just read of John 6 that Jesus says, I am the bread of life. And of course he says it before this passage we read and after. He keeps saying it over and over and over. He repeats and repeats and repeats himself. So if I sound like I'm repeating myself, I probably am. And that's okay. If I don't sound like I'm repeating myself, it's probably because you missed something that I said before. And so extra good for you that we're hearing this point again. My hope is that this pulpit never becomes a stale, worn out soapbox for me to just preach my own favorite pet doctrines, but that we preach the whole counsel of God, that we'll preach anything and everything the scripture says, because all of God's word is meant for all of life. As Van Til famously said, the Bible is authoritative on everything to which it speaks, and moreover, it speaks of everything. politics, food, as we'll see today, medicine, marriage, capital punishment, economics, what clothing we should wear, how the world will end, everything. But it's also true that the Bible emphasizes some things more than others. the sovereignty and holiness of God, the humility and glory of our Savior, God's commandments for his image bearers, and the plan of salvation in Christ. Those are a few of those things which just come up all over his word. Frequently, we see those topics coming up. And here today, we'll look at some of those common places together, beginning with the truth that Jesus is a humble Savior. Now, how do we see that in our passage today? Why is that important? Jesus here says in John 6 that he was sent by the Father. He says that He has been given a people by the Father. And then most clearly, Christ says that He has come down from heaven, not to do His own will, but to do the will of the Father who sent Him. So here in these instances, as well as others, we see that the authority of God the Father is put on display, and the humility and submission of God the Son is evident. Both father and son are fully and equally God, but the son obeys what the father tells him, and he delights to do so. The obedience of God is not a burden to Jesus, but a great freedom and a great delight. The father sins. We see here in John 6, what does Jesus do? Jesus goes. He's sent. The father gives. to Jesus, and Jesus receives. He receives what the Father gives Him. The Father wills, and the Son says that it is His joy to carry out the Father's will. Now when Jesus says that He did not come to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, does that mean, as some people have asked and some people have proposed, that Jesus and the Father have two different wills? Well, as Paul might say, by no means. They do not have two different wills. What Jesus is explaining to the Jews is that he has not come to do a will which is uniquely his own. Jesus has not come to make his own decisions and choices according to the flesh. He does not decide what he's going to do out of self-interest. Jesus has come to do the will of God the Father. Each person of the Trinity has their own active role to play in creation, in redemption, and in the judgment of the world. But each person, even though they have their own roles, they all work together in perfect harmony and communion. The Father wills. That's something special and unique to the Father. He wills, he decides, he plans. He decides everything that will be. He decides who will be saved. He decides how this salvation will be accomplished. But He does not do this apart from the Son or the Spirit. The Father's will is the Son's will, and there's no disharmony between them. Now, because of Jesus having two natures, that he is both fully God and fully man, he's subject to all the ordinary, non-sinful human weaknesses and temptations that are common to every single man. This is something that the father, however, does not experience. He doesn't experience things like getting tired, having to sleep, being hungry. The father doesn't experience death. And what Christ is saying here in our text today in John six is that he has not allowed his human desires and inclinations to override the will and plan of his heavenly father. Jesus has not given into the temptation to do whatever would feel best in the moment to him. He is completely submitted in all things to the father's divine will. As he prays in the garden of Gethsemane before his death, he says, father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Jesus is crying out in the anguish of his soul. He's saying, God, I really want not to have to die on the cross, not to have to bear the sins of the world, not to have to experience death. Let this cup pass from me. If there's any way, Lord, to still accomplish your purpose in the world and not go through the horror of the cross, please make it so. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. He's committed to the will of His Father. And what is that will that Jesus is committed to specifically? Verse 39, we learn of it. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. That's the will of God. Sometimes people think, oh, what is the will of God? What is the will of God? And what they're normally mean is, well, what am I supposed to do next in my life? That's a good and important question. One we should be asking. But let's not miss the main plot here. We're one character in the will of God. The overarching will of God, Jesus tells us right here, that Jesus will save those who call on his name. Now that's not the entirety of God's will, but it's what Jesus emphasizes for sinners who are hearing his word preached to them. This is the will of the Lord that you obey my gospel. The will of God is the complete and perfect salvation of all of his elect children through Jesus Christ. Sometimes we doubt whether God really loves us, don't we? I think all believers, if they live long enough, sometimes experience that feeling. Does God really love me? But Jesus makes it so clear here. He says, he repeats himself, this is the will of my father, and that is what I'm completely and totally committed to, saving my people. That's proof that Jesus loves us, that He says, I am committed above all things to saving my people and glorifying my Father who's in heaven. Some might push back at this point and say, well, I hear what you're saying, but how is that related to humility? Jesus is talking about the amazing things He's going to accomplish, and you're saying that's proof of Him being humble. How can Jesus be humble while also going around telling people He's going to save the whole world? I can see why someone might say that. But Christ's willingness to obey his Father's will is in fact proof positive of his humility. The Apostle Paul says that the incarnation itself, God becoming a man and ultimately dying on the cross for us, is the highest example we have of someone being humble. He put the will of his Father and the needs of the world far above his own earthly desires, and he humiliated himself. Jesus became a poor, despised, wandering minister with no place to lay his head. He left the glorious, continual praises and pleasures of heaven to not only come into his broken and sin sick world, but to become one of his creatures and even to be killed by his creatures. That is ultimate humility right there. He left everything. and became nothing for us because he was obedient to the Father and because he loved us. However, the Jews here thought that Christ was being proud. They thought he was being proud because he was saying, I've come down from heaven. They thought that he ought to be more humble because they believed, ah, this is actually, he's just a simple carpenter's son. His dad's just a working class guy. We know exactly where he's from. We remember him when he was growing up. How can he be so special? The Jews say you have a humble origin, Jesus, and yet you're exalting yourself to highest heaven. But the reality of the situation is that Jesus came from highest heaven and chose to humble himself. Those that were in the bond of sin got it backwards. They thought his origins were humble and he was seeking his own glory, far from it. The Jews totally misunderstand, once again, Jesus's true identity here. And that leads us to our next point, which is this. The natural man cannot come to Christ, but everyone whom the Father draws will come. The natural man cannot come to Christ, but everyone whom the Father draws will come to him. This is how Jesus answered the unbelieving Jews when they complained about him, when they murmured against him, thinking that he was arrogant by saying he was the bread from heaven. He says in John 6, verse 43, do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. The only way that anyone ever gets to Jesus and has salvation is if God the Father sovereignly draws that person to himself. If you are still unconverted, you cannot convert yourself. If you are still dead in your sins, you cannot give yourself the new birth. The natural man is like the water at the bottom of a deep well. There's only one way that water is getting out of the well. That's if someone throws down a bucket and draws that water up. That's what that word drawing shows us here. That's the picture that that word paints. The water in the well is totally passive. It's just gonna sit there. It's not gonna leap up into your plumbing. It's not gonna shoot out of the well and come down out of your shower head or out of your spigot. It has no power within itself to be drawn up. It has to be drawn by someone else. Now, of course, that's not all that happens in regeneration. When the father draws someone, God's word tells us they then come to Jesus. It's still completely and totally the work of God, but you don't stay inactive and passive and dead. The Christian life isn't one of you walking around like a robot with God doing the works and you're just a shell. You don't stay inactive. When God draws you and when he puts his Holy Spirit within you and gives you the new birth, you stop being like the water in a normal well. When God puts His Spirit within you, you become like a spring. Spring's different than a well. A well, you have to draw that water up, but a spring bubbles up on its own. It sends the water forward on its own. Doesn't require pumping because you go from being dead to being alive. It's a big difference, death to life. And the living water of Christ becomes within you a well of water springing up, Jesus says, to everlasting life. So when the father draws you, you come to him and you keep coming to him for the rest of your life and on into eternity. The spring doesn't dry up. Everyone, Jesus says in verse 45 of our text, everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Now, Jesus doesn't mean that everyone who hears with their ears, the message of salvation will come. We know that's not the case, but everyone who hears with his soul shall come. This is the difference in what theologians call the general call of the gospel, where the gospel is preached freely and openly to all, as we discussed last week. Where Christ is offered indiscriminately to the lost, that's the general call. And the effectual call of the gospel, where the preached word goes out and goes into a sinner's heart and converts him. Many will be called, Jesus says. That's the general call. Many will hear the gospel. Many will be presented with the truth claims of Christ, that he is Lord of all. But few will be chosen, he says. That's the effectual call. All who effectually hear the gospel will be saved. All who hear come. all who hear in their souls come to Christ. And the next point, all who come to Christ will be preserved in the faith and raised from the dead. All who come to Christ will be preserved in the faith and raised from the dead. One of the wonderful and essential things about having everlasting life is that it is everlasting. There are people that believe there are pastors that teach that you can have everlasting life and lose it. But it wouldn't be an eternal salvation if it didn't last for eternity. You can't have everlasting life and then lose everlasting life. Then it would not have been everlasting. That means that once you receive the gift of eternal life from the Father, it is impossible for you to lose it. If you lost everlasting life, then what that really means is you never had it to begin with, because how could you have something eternal that comes to an end? All that the father has elected will, Jesus says, will persevere until the end. Jesus will preserve all of his children in the faith. And if someone is baptized and confesses Christ and come to the Lord's table and is a member of a church and then falls away, then they may have been under the administration of the covenant of grace. They may even, we could say, have been in the covenant of grace, but that is absolute proof that they were never of the covenant of grace. They were of a different stock entirely. If you lose your salvation, it is because you didn't really have your salvation. All who are drawn by the father are kept by him and are raised up on the last day. There'll be no one who is born again who experiences the second death. What an enormous comfort. Jesus loves you. We can see it on display here. Even when you sin against him, even after you have taken his name for your own, and then afterwards you go and lust after the false gods, Jesus still loves you. And he who began a good work within you will carry it to completion. Christ is not only the author of your faith, he is the finisher of your faith. not a single one of his true elect children will be lost. If you still have your Bibles open, look with me now at verses 39 and 40 again. This is backtracking just a little bit, but it's important. Verse 39, this is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. We're gonna look at the grammar, the words, the syntax here just a little bit. In verse 40, we see that Jesus says He will raise Him. up at the last day. I will raise him. Him refers to every single person who believes in Christ. But in verse 39, Jesus says, I will raise it up at the last day. Verse 40 again, everyone who sees the son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. Jesus used the words everyone and him. That's people. Christ is talking about people. Verse 39 again, all different word than everyone. Of all he has given me, I should lose nothing, not no one, not nobody. Jesus says of all that he's given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it, not him, up at the last day. What's going on here? Why does he use words like it, and nothing and all in one verse, and then almost exactly repeat himself, but say words like everyone in him in the next verse. In John 6, 40, Jesus is talking about raising up his children. That's what he's talking about. What's he talking about in verse 39 then? He's not just talking about his children in general. He's talking about his children's bodies. God did not just give your soul to Jesus. You're not just a soul walking around in a skin suit. God gave all of you to Jesus. Your body matters to Jesus. Your body is important to God. Your body will exist for eternity. We sometimes have a hard time wrapping our minds around that fact because of another fact that is so absolutely evident to us each day, especially the older we get with each passing year, it's so evident, and that is that our bodies die. Our souls don't die. Our bodies die, though. They die, they are buried, they decay. But our bodies, Scripture tells us, will be raised. Death is just temporary. Jesus says, don't think that this is just some spiritual resurrection that I am promising. All that my father draws will hear my voice. All will come to me and I will raise them up, all of them, body and soul on the last day. That's our final point. Jesus saves our souls and our bodies. In less than 150 years, everyone in this room will be dead. All of us, every one of us. And our bodies, when they die, they will be sown. Scripture tells us that describing a burying of a seed into the ground, they'll be sown in corruption. But the scripture also tells us that we will be raised in incorruption. When we are laid in the ground, we will be sown in dishonor. It's a dishonorable thing to die. It's something that's not part of our original design. It's bad. Death is not good, but we will be raised in glory. Our bodies will be sown in weakness, but brothers and sisters, they will be raised in power. They will be sown as natural bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. A lot of talk about bodies. Our bodies are important to God. That's why we must stand against the wickedness today that says we can do whatever we want with our bodies. I absolutely hate that phrase, my body, my choice. What an utter lie our culture has bought into. First of all, that phrase is used in an attempt to justify killing babies, which is a demonic practice. But even if that disgusting phrase, my body, my choice, wasn't used to advance the murderous practice of abortion, it would still be a wicked lie. This is my body. Those are your bodies. But this body doesn't belong to me. And your bodies don't belong to you. And we don't get to choose how to use our bodies. The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism goes like this. What is thy only comfort in life and death? If anyone has it memorized, feel free to say it with me now. that I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with his precious blood hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head. yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation. And therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto him. I am not my own, the catechism tells us, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Sometimes we can slip into that type of thinking that we think Jesus owns our souls, and he's in charge of all the spiritual things, but you know, earthly things, my body, Jesus doesn't care too much about that. That's such a lie. What about unbelievers, someone might ask? That catechism talks about Jesus being my faithful savior who's paid for my sins. What about unbelievers? Do they belong to Jesus too? You better believe they belong to Jesus. He's just not their savior. And his ownership is not a comfort to them. Your body matters. That's why it's wicked to mutilate your body. That's why it's good to eat food and to exercise and not neglect your body. That's why it's a sin to defiantly and angrily say to your maker, why did you make me this way? That's why it's a great and terrible sin to try to change your body into something it is not. Speaking specifically here of the wickedness of so-called transgenderism. Your body matters to God. That's why you should be grateful for your body. That's why you should not have your body or the body of your loved ones cremated when you die. What a disrespectful use to the body that God made to burn it up into nothing. Your body matters to Jesus. That's why he healed people's bodies. That's why he touched people's bodies. That's why he cared so much about people's bodies and why he raised his own body from the grave. So we must treat our own bodies and the bodies of others with respect and dignity. They have an eternal purpose. They're not just for this life. And that eternal purpose is to glorify God. We need to act accordingly. John 6 is a chapter all about the everlasting life offered to us in Christ Jesus. It's about the salvation of our souls, but it is such an earthy chapter too. There's so much here about flesh, about the body of Christ, about eating, about the bodily resurrection. And Jesus connects these earthy bodily elements with the spiritual elements so clearly in John chapter 6. We are body and soul, not just one or the other. C.S. Lewis says that you are not a body, you have a body, you are a soul. It's a lie, that's not true. It sounds really nice. It sounds very smart and C.S. Lewis was very smart, but that's a lie that modern Christians have believed that we are a soul and this is just kind of a shell. That's what Plato taught us, not what Jesus taught us. Look with me here at the second half of verse 45 in our chapter today. Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. We already discussed that. Verse 46, not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. What about appearances of God in the Old Testament, we might say? God walking in the garden with Adam and Eve, seems like he had a body and was able to be seen. God meeting Abraham before he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, also seemingly with a body. God walking by Moses as he hid him in the cleft of the rock. God wrestling with Jacob in the wilderness. What about all these people, Jesus? Didn't they see God and specifically see his body? Well, Jesus has already said here in John's gospel, John chapter one and verse 18, no one has ever seen God at any time. In case you're confused, no one has ever seen God at any time. Let me just pile it on there. The only begotten son, however, who is in the bosom of the father, he has declared him. That's the same thing we see here in John 6 in verse 46. What is Jesus saying? He's saying that all those people in the Old Testament that saw God, they didn't see God the father. They saw me. That's what he's telling these Jews here. Jesus was not, of course, permanently physically wedded to humanity yet as the son of Mary, but even before he became a man, he appeared to us and interacted with us as if he were already the God-man incarnate. He was picturing the work of redemption he would do by dignifying humanity, by appearing like one of us, and yet like something more glorious than any mere son of Adam. Oh, unbelieving Jews, Jesus is saying you think you follow Moses. You think that you are God's children. You think that you are Abraham's offspring. You think you worship the God of your fathers. You think you know the one that God's word calls the fear of Isaac, the mighty one of Israel, the God of the armies. But you don't. And the reason you don't know God and worship God is because you don't know me and worship me. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You want the mere manna that came down from the sky. But your fathers all ate that manna and look at the lasting good it did to them. They're all dead. But there were some of your fathers who ate not only the manna they collected from the ground each morning, but who also ate of the living bread, which was to come down from heaven. I am, Jesus says, the bread of life. That expression I am is significant. It comes up several times in John's gospel. That's how God revealed his special, unique covenant name to his children in the Old Testament. Yahweh or Jehovah translates simply to I am. God is the God who is. Now, God's essence is a spirit. He's a spirit. He does not, as part of his godness, have a body. But he cared about us so much. God loved us so much. He was so intent on redeeming us that he took on a body like ours so that he would not only be our everlasting father, but he would also be our brother. So that he would not only be our judge, but that he would be our justifier, the one who justifies us and makes us righteous before God, so that he would not only be our high priest, but also our perfect bloody and bodily sacrifice. God did not come only to redeem our souls, but our bodies too. This world is not going to be used up and consumed by fire until it's just ashes, only to be swept into the dustbin of the universe. No, God is transforming and uniting heaven and earth through the person of Jesus Christ. We talked in John chapter one and chapter two about how Jesus is the greater tabernacle, the greater temple, the greater house of God. And here Jesus shows us that he is the greater manna. The manna that God sent for 40 years in the wilderness was not everlasting, but it showed God's provision. and God's intent on saving his people. But it spoiled. Even if it was kept just overnight, that manna would spoil. We could say it could have no shelf life whatsoever. All it was was daily bread. Here today and gone tomorrow. Except for one jar. All the manna for all the 40 years was eaten or it spoiled except for one jar. There was one jar of manna that God mysteriously kept fresh indefinitely. And that one single jar of manna was placed inside the Ark of the Covenant. and that testified and pictured to the Israelites that something greater than the temporary spoiling manna was coming. That even right next to the holy law of God, which ministers death to all the sons of Adam, even today, there was a promise of unearned life from heaven. that God had an everlasting provision for body and for soul laid up for his chosen people, waiting for the fullness of time to be clearly revealed. That's why there was that one jar of manna that remained fresh. There's something unique about that one bread from heaven that came down Jesus Christ, and this golden pot of manna testified to that. We know our old covenant brothers and sisters had faith in Christ, in Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 11 even says that Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt. Our old covenant brothers and sisters, we can say were Christians. Nothing wrong with saying that. They were in the church, but they lacked the fuller understanding of who Christ was that we now have in the gospel. Now that we gloriously see that God has come to us as a man, not just as a spirit, but as the God-man, body and soul, the Son of God, and Jesus' most common title for himself, the Son of Man, conceived of the Holy Ghost, yet born of the Virgin Mary. Now that we know that Jesus has risen bodily from the grave, something that our old covenant brothers and sisters were in the dark about, we can now have a sure and certain and proven hope that when we die, death does not have to be the final word. That one day our grave will burst open and we will rise victorious, body and soul, to meet the Lord and to be received fully as his adopted sons and daughters and to reign with him forever and ever. And we can have the guarantee of that perfect resurrection to life even today if we trust in Jesus and come to Him in true and living faith. We've talked a lot about the body today because it's so important to know that the salvation of your body is something that God cares about. But it's also necessary that you know that the salvation of your body can only be secured by the faith in your soul. The body's important. I emphasize that not only because the Bible clearly emphasizes it over and over and over, the Bible's an earthy type of book, but also because even in the church, there's much confusion on this matter today. The body's important, but the soul is the priority and the principle part of you. It's not all you are. but it's the principle part of you. That's why Paul says that bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So seek from the depths of your soul to trust and honor and love Christ. Ask that God would open your heart. And if you're wondering or doubting or distressed about whether you truly love the Lord, if you're sitting under the preaching of the word every week, but thinking, is my heart really inclined to God? Have I really come to you in faith? Then take St. Augustine's advice. He writes about this exact problem. Drawing on John six, he says, do not seek to determine whom God draws and whom he does not draw. nor seek why he draws one man and not another. But if you yourself are not drawn by God, pray to him that you may be drawn. Ask that God would draw you. Ask that God would save you. And if you've already done that, ask that God would assure you of your salvation and make a decision of the will to believe the promise of salvation, even if you can't feel it. Sophie Scholl, who was an anti-Nazi activist during World War II, who was executed by the Third Reich for opposing the wickedness of the Nazi regime, said this. She said, I will cling to the rope that God has thrown me in Christ Jesus, even when my numb hands can no longer feel it. So even if you cannot feel the power of the spirit in your life, Even if you do not have an assurance of salvation, even if you have not yet been freed from all the besetting sin in your life, believe the promises of God's word and cling to the rope of salvation, which is Jesus Christ, knowing that he is the living bread from heaven and everyone who sees the son and believes in him may have everlasting life and Christ will raise him up body and soul on the last day. Let's pray together. God, we thank you that you are a savior who is good and humble and faithful. We thank you that you have come to save us in the whole man, that our bodies will not stay in the grave decaying forever, that you have came to give us the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Lord, we thank you that you love us. God, we thank you for your resurrection, showing to us that we will be raised also. We thank you, Lord, that you are the true and living bread that we can feed on each day. God, we ask that you would bless us anew with a fresh supply of this bread in our souls that we may feed on and trust and love and serve you. In Christ's name, amen.