Mark 8 verses 1-10. Be reminded as you turn there that this is God's Word. Every single word of it is completely true and without error of any kind. God's Word is sufficient. You need no other revelation on the same par as God's Word. And His Word is authoritative over every area of your life. So please be addressed by the Holy Spirit today in these areas. Mark 8 verses 1-10. In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. Some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said, seven. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. Let's pray. Lord God, we do not know what Your Son, besides what is in this passage, was thinking exactly at this time, but Lord, I think about the words of the psalmist that You inspired, who asked the question as he looked out at the crowds and the world, the cynical voice that says, who will show us some good? And the psalmist's response Lord, lift up the light of your face upon us. God, I pray that as we battle unbelief and cynicism, and as we neglect truths that you have told us over and over again, as we are dull of hearing, as we lack the taste buds for the spirit that we ought to have, I pray that you would visit upon us now with fresh bread from Your presence, from Your Word, that You would strike a chord with us, that we would hear in this, not some story that we can look back at the disciples and say, man, they didn't get it like I would have gotten it, but that we would see ourselves in this, that we would be changed, challenged, convicted, and strengthened to come back and to leave everything beside, to follow You anywhere, and neglect any meal, or any amount of comfort, or privilege, or prestige, or applause, that we'd follow You to the ends of the earth, if only we could hear Your voice and be fed. God, I pray that You would feed us by this Word right now. We pray that You would do this for Your glory and for Your namesake, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. The title of this message is simply Taste and See. You might be looking at this and thinking to yourself, where have I heard this before? Didn't we just do this two chapters ago? Is Mark stuttering? Is he forgetting that he has written this before? Is this an echo? You're right. We already have seen this. Jesus feeding a multitude. So why does Mark record another instance of this same thing? Well, judging by the number of people that he fed in the two different accounts, it would seem that he did this. on at least two different occasions. And Matthew's Gospel agrees. But that doesn't really answer the question, why? Why does Mark record? For all we know, Jesus may have done this numerous times or something like it. So why does Mark record such a similar miracle a second time? He doesn't really tell us exactly. We can gather it from the account. Maybe it's something new that the disciples need to see. Maybe some new angle, maybe some new depth of Jesus' teaching. Or maybe it's the same lesson that they learned the first time, and they just weren't getting it. So He has to hammer it home into them. Or maybe it's both. We're going to see this passage split up into three different sections today. Number one, we're going to see Jesus having genuine compassion for a genuine hunger. This is a real compassion that Jesus has And it is for a genuine hunger that these people have. Then we're going to see something a little bit disingenuous, namely the disciples. And Jesus is still going to honor that in a sense. He is going to give them signs even for their disingenuous skepticism. And then we're going to finally see in the last part, starting at verse 8, that this is more than enough. for the disciple of Christ. The big idea, if you get nothing else out of this passage today, please get this. This is very short and it comes directly from our fighter verse in Psalm 34. That those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. By the way, that doesn't mean that if you seek the Lord, you're not going to be under the impression sometimes that you lack something, or that you're not really going to be lacking something. I lack, for example, right now a million dollars. I lack more applause than I would like sometimes. Not that kind of applause. It's not a good thing. But part of the lesson is that I don't need it, is the point. Is that God is hammering home to me. So those who seek the Lord lack no good thing as God defined it. They lack no thing that they actually need. So there's a difference here. We're going to see a lot of differences here today. There's a difference between being what we would today call a seeker, as these people are seeking the Lord, Because the seeker in today's culture gets to define what he's seeking. I'm seeking the Lord. I'm seeking some religious spirituality, or something like that. Versus someone who is seeking the Lord Himself. Because in that case, you're actually seeking something that has been defined for you. You have been sought first, and your target, namely Christ, is what He is, and He is not something else. So, what you are seeking for has been determined for you ahead of time. Likewise, there's a difference between seeking something from God, maybe some good that you can get from Him, other than Jesus, less than Jesus, as opposed to seeking Him personally, to know Him personally. That even goes for knowledge about Him, as those groups that are studying knowing God have gotten to see. There's a huge difference between knowing about God versus knowing Him directly. So there's a huge difference. between seeking God for these things that are not God Himself, versus seeking Christ Himself. So let's look at this genuine compassion for this genuine hunger in verses 1 and 2. First of all, we're going to notice a personal compassion of Jesus. This is a teaching moment for Jesus for His disciples. It says, In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, He called His disciples to Him. I hope you've gotten that so far, that when things are going on in the Gospels, these are not just happy coincidences that have happened, that God's Word has sort of, you know, put all the pieces back in place and made a story out of it for us. God has intentionally written this into the story. The Holy Spirit has intentionally communicated what He has through the biblical authors for our instruction. These are not just things that just so happen to happen and Jesus, being the infinite chess player, works it out and He gives you a lesson at the end of the day. In those days when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, He called His disciples to Him. Remember, disciple means student. So the teacher is gathering them. The disciples are not just functioning as waiters here in some meal. They are being brought to the teacher for a teaching moment. Jesus said to them, I have compassion on the crowd. That's Jesus' leading idea for class this day. I have compassion. on the crowd. You need to avoid two extremes here. On the one hand, you need to avoid over-spiritualization. So you see the social gospel, you see people feeding, you see people bandaging people up, you see people being all about what they can do for people down here, and you want to avoid that extreme. And so you fly all the way to the other extreme, and you say, well, this is just, everything's, the blade of grass symbolizes, like, you know, and you just stretch the thing to where it has no earthiness to it. Don't make that mistake either. On the other hand, you don't want to make the mistake of over-materialization. You see Jesus feeding people. He's doing that a lot. And say, well, that's how Jesus sends us on His mission. He fed people. He served people. We copy Him. Like I say all the time, there's at least one thing that Jesus did that you can't do. And that's atoning for people's sins. There happens to be a lot of other things like it too. But let's just start there. He specifically says that He came here, Mark 10.45, to ransom many from their sins. You can't do that. He's not sending you out to copy Him doing that. So you have to pay careful attention not to fall to either one of those extremes. The point here is that when Jesus sees somebody hurting, His heart hurts for them. His real personal heart aches for them, reaches out to them. That's what compassion means. That's not just a throwaway line. That's not just something Jesus is symbolizing for people that can really pull that off. Jesus has more compassion than you could ever have. God specializes in compassion. He has infinite compassion. And now He's going to tell you why His heart goes out to them. But whatever the ultimate spiritual status of each of these people, God actually – try to get your mind wrapped around this – God has more compassion even for His enemies than you and I have even for our friends. How does that work out? He has a special love for his people, his believers, and everybody else he loves in Adam because he created them, because he made them for his own glory, but that's just like a symbolic love. No, who told you that? God's actually so big, so loving, so powerful, that he has more love, quite frankly, for a blade of grass and for an animal in creation because it glorifies him than you can pull off for your own mother. Or do you doubt that God is that loving? See, our problem is we want to slice and dice God apart and pit His love against some of these other attributes. But Jesus is saying literally and clearly, I have compassion on these people. Who are they, Jesus? Are they your elect? I'm not telling you. I have compassion on this crowd. But why does He? He is specific. There's a spiritual hunger of this crowd in verses 2 and 3. We can see that this compassion isn't just about their weakness, isn't just about them about to faint and He has pity on them, although He does. But it's about another kind of hunger. Verse 2 continues, "...because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat." So what did Jesus say? These guys just so happen to be wandering around. I ran into them. Look, these guys are dying. No, He specifically says, I have compassion on them because they've been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. There was an expectancy in these people. There was a personal attachment of these people to Jesus. They intentionally left food behind and had been not just wandering aimlessly, but intentionally following Jesus to hear something from Him. Some of these people may have recalled the Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount. Let me just give you a couple of examples. Matthew 5.5, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. for they shall be satisfied." That's a divine guarantee. Sounds like it. Matthew 6, 17, and 18. But when you fast, and that isn't just food, that's giving up anything, any amount of comfort, any amount of time so that you can have more of God. When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will There it is again, an appeal to reward, an appeal to leave behind this so that we can have God. Matthew 6, 31-33, Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, And all these things will be added to you. So, remember what I said about applause and food and stuff like that? How much do you have? You have exactly what God's given to you. You have exactly what you need to receive Christ right now. Do you honestly think the Lord will fail to fulfill His Word, to provide for and to satisfy those who sacrifice comfort for just one chance to hear His Word, This informs how we do family. This informs how we do ministry. This informs how we do meals. This informs how we look to other things and devise plans for our life. And what do I need to pull this off? In verse 3, Jesus continues. He says, And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. Now that just underscores how far these people were willing to go to be fed by the Word. These people are real Christians. Even if they only acted like it for these three days, we don't know. But however long they were in Jesus' company, this is the way to act in Jesus' company. Let's look at these signs for a disingenuous skepticism in verse 4 and 5. This should have been a huge clue to them. Seven loaves, in a desolate place. Some of you that were there in chapter 6 and saw that they used that same phrase are going to remember this. Verse 4 says, that His disciples answered Him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? Now, get this out of your system now because you don't want to do it as we progress. You want to say to these disciples at this point, are you serious? Go two chapters back. You didn't just do the same thing. You used the same words twice. How are we going to do this in this desolate place? And Jesus is saying, come to this desolate place, and hint, hint, hint, and wink, wink, wink. And what is the matter with these people? I wouldn't have done that. Well, get that out of your system. Because I think we do do that all the time. Before we're too hard on these disciples, we have to put ourselves in their place. And don't do that by imagining yourself back in the first century, where they didn't have Bibles yet. Remember the kind of things that you have been thinking this week, the kind of things you have been thinking of as you've been here at this church, as you've been asking yourself, what has God called me to do in life? There are things just like this in our own lives that cause us to desperately ignore all of the ways that God has provided for us in the past, all of the ways that God has been good for us in the past, and that we have never been without what we really need when God is calling us to do something. And one of the reasons that the Bible always shows us the dullness, the spiritual dullness I'm talking about here, the dullness of God's people, is because God's people always are spiritually dull. Read the Bible. The people of God are always having these duh moments. These spiritually dull moments where God has to constantly doink them. And your first response as a natural person is to say, what's the matter with those idiots? In Israel, God had just opened up the ground and swallowed like a couple thousand of their friends. Fed you guys, and the next day they're whining and complaining. I wouldn't do that. Okay? He's always doing this in Scripture. Because maybe it is human nature to constantly forget the goodness of God and how little we actually need to be in His Kingdom. We are not exceptions to this. Jesus always whispers to us today through these stories, Oh you of little faith. He says to His people in the wilderness in Deuteronomy 8.3, this is God explaining to the people of Israel why we've been through all this in the wilderness. You know, He could say, because of your sin you've wandered for 40 years, but here's another way that God looks at it. Deuteronomy 8.3, And He humbled you, and let you hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. You remember that coming up later in the Bible? Jesus quotes from that to the serpent when the serpent wanted him to change methods for how to do church. Come on, Jesus, you're the Son of God. Turn these pieces of stone into pieces of bread. Otherwise, I don't think you're really the Son of God. And Jesus quotes this. How do we fare answering that call? Jesus asked them. By the way, Jesus could have doinked them in a lot of different ways. He could have put up a screen and said, hey guys, remember just a couple weeks ago? And showed them what happened. But he doesn't do that. A lot of times Jesus doesn't directly respond to these criticisms. But he says to them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven. That's verse 5. God always focuses on what little we have so that He can make much of Himself. Now, there's a couple of wrong ways you can go with that. There's a couple of wrong ways you can think about resources when it's just you and God and just a couple of pieces of bread. The first mistake you can make is to grumble against God, to disbelieve in God's ability or His care for us. But the other mistake you can make is to see this, God asking us what we have, and to think, yeah, that's what matters. Me making much of what little I have, and I can pull myself up by my own bootstraps with this little, because I'm being simple and stuff like that. Well, oftentimes in the Bible, it's the exact other way around. God gives us little, and then when He gives us little, He says, that's not even little enough. Think of Gideon. He had a couple thousand, a hundred he was going to go up against this army with, and God kept saying, nah, too much. And then when He finally whittled it down, He said, now I want you to go to the river and those of them that drink uncivilized like dogs, those are the people I want to send everybody else home. In other words, he wanted to tell Gideon, I want you to take none of the credit for this. I'm going to take all of the credit for this. So, it's going to be you and a bunch of losers that don't experience doing this and I'm going to whoop the other side. What does Jesus do here? That phrase there, what I mean by that, pray, feed and ignore. By ignore, I only mean that Jesus ignored the opportunity to explicitly give them a spanking. To explicitly respond to this criticism. And you do understand, this is criticism. They might not have thought so, but they were calling into question Jesus' ordinary means of feeding people. Verse 6 says that He directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks... Stop right there. Notice, first of all, again, Jesus prays to the Father. Jesus, the Son of God, fully God, prays to the Father. And it's not just in His human nature. He's communicating with the Father, and the Bible says He's interceding for the saints right now. He's praying to the Father. He loves to communicate to the Father. But He also loves to show everybody Himself doing that. Reconcile that with Matthew 6. Don't let anybody see. He wants people to see that the Father is doing this. He wants people to see the glory of God. He doesn't have any problem. Remember, he says that with Lazarus. He said, I am saying this to you for their benefit, so that they will see and give you glory and so on. So, he wants people in the crowd to see where all good things come from. He thanked God for what he had there, rather than obsessing over what he didn't have. The human Christ, pay careful attention to this. So you think, maybe, that we're supposed to be thankful because that's a good, nice thing to tell your kids because you're annoyed when they're not thankful. Being thankful is powerful. The human Christ was literally and truly thankful. Jesus was the only one. We talk sometimes about Jesus being fully human. And what we mean by that sometimes, as a mistake, is that He is more like us. Fact of the matter is, only Jesus is fully human. We'll get that when we get final glory. Only Jesus is fully and finally what a human being ought to have been from the beginning. And so Jesus shows us what a fully developed human being ought to be like. And one thing he ought to be like is thankful. A fully developed human being operates better for others, is more happy, is more secure, and it has more to provide for others with out of thanksgiving. Psalm 121, 1 and 2 says, I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Simple lesson, right? But how many of us live like that? How many of us, when we're in a panic, when our kids are asking us, when our spouse is asking us, what are we going to do? Look up to the hills and show them where our help comes from, instead of trying to manipulate. or scratch back at them. How often do we live like that? Verse 6 and 7 says, He broke them, broke the bread after He gave thanks. He broke them and gave them to His disciples and set before the people. Or two set before the people. And He set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, He said that these also should be set before them. Again, what Jesus... Here's the principle here. What Jesus hands off to His disciples, they hand off to the church. We give to people what we have been given to give to people by Jesus. Jesus never directly responds to the disciples' unbelief here. He never says what would have been very easy for Him to say. Don't you guys remember me just doing the same thing? He doesn't do that. Jesus simply speaks our spiritual nourishment into existence by His Word. Even His servants. called the church, often don't understand him. They often forget. They're often confused. But he doesn't throw them away. He never has to correct every single I that's not dotted, every T that's not crossed. He doesn't slap people with a ruler every time they get something a little bit wrong. He simply intercedes for them. He gives us the Word. And mercifully, he overlooks our petty impatience. And that's an example for us to follow. When people are getting impatient with the Word, when they're getting impatient with what they have, when they're waiting for God to do something, not even knowing themselves what God should be doing right now, we follow Jesus' example here. This is an example of something we should follow Jesus' example on. Let's look at this last point, that what they have is more than enough. Verse 8 says this, simple statement. They ate and were satisfied. Jesus makes good on His promise here. He promises to satisfy those who earnestly seek Him. And that's exactly what these people have done. They left everything behind. They're willing to starve themselves to come and follow Jesus. And Jesus satisfies them. A disciple of Jesus is somebody who comes to a place where we expect to be satisfied by God alone. And when we come to that place, in that place, our physical hunger is satisfied. Our health is satisfied. Our employment is satisfied. Enough. You say, well, I haven't had as much to eat as I should have. I haven't provided enough for my kids. I'm not employed right now. If God wants to be glorified in my life, wouldn't He at least, wouldn't it be God glorifying for me if I could stay home with the kids, or if I could send them to this school, or if I could have this job and produce? Isn't this disgraceful to God what I'm doing right now? So wouldn't God send me to the right neighborhood and the right place and do this, fair minimum, not this, you know, fancy life? Maybe. Maybe not. But what you have is exactly what you need. God has given you exactly what you need and nothing more. So if you ever want to know what you need, just look at what you have. Paul says in the Thessalonian letter, be thankful in everything, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. In everything. You don't ever have to guess, is this God's will for me? In terms of what I have, I'm not talking about your sin. That's not God's will. I'm talking about what's coming to you. It's God's will for you. These people had exactly what they needed, their daily bread, and nothing more. The prayer of today's shepherd, the person in the church that's wondering, how do we do this? How do we witness? What should this look like? Our prayer should be the same thing that Jesus had to be thinking at that moment. And I pray this prayer all the time. God, prove the power of your word in this sea of compromising alternatives. Because I know when you leave from this place, you are going to hear in about 500 different ways until the next time we get together, all the reasons why you shouldn't get together the next time. Because the lights are blinking better somewhere else. Because there's more satisfaction in some other way of doing it. Because there's some other script, nobody would say it like this, better than this script. But anytime you're not reading from this script, What does it say but that you don't believe what it says and that it's powerful? You know, Jesus had to be wrestling with that. Jesus faced temptation. He never succumbed to it. The Scriptures say he was without sin. But I think one of the, you know, imagine all the sins that Jesus was tempted with. One of the sins that I think we don't really take into consideration much is all the doubt and the disbelief. You know, we're always focusing on him correcting and being this teacher of these people, and he is. He always has the right answer. But don't think for a moment that the devil wasn't tempting him to slap one of these disciples. Say, look, I'm God. I just did this before. We just covered this. And there's this doubt and this disbelief pressing in on him, demanding an answer. Psalm 22 is a messianic psalm. It talks about Christ and it speaks through the voice of Christ. David is speaking, but it's also Christ speaking in so many places. Places that are clear about the cross. But in verse 25 and 26, the voice of Christ is saying this. From you... He's talking to the Father. From you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear Him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek Him shall praise the Lord." The demanding temptation to produce something new for the crowds is actually an old, old temptation. The church growth experts say, if it's newer, it's truer. But the Bible says that every word of God proves true. Psalm 35. And notice here at the end that even the leftovers are perfect in verses 8 and 9. Now, I know there's a lot of symbolism here, and I read the commentaries, and even they're engaging in it. The 4,000 versus the 5,000. Well, there was 40 this, and 400 this, and 7 that, and honestly. And bread and fish, there were two things. Maybe that's foreshadowing the Lord's Supper. And he broke this first, and the commentators finally say, well, you can't really say conclusively. And I agree with that. You don't want to make too much symbolism out of this imagery that is explicit in the text. But the number seven in the scriptures is almost always very, very intentional. And it's the number of completion, the number of perfection. Jesus completes even our leftovers in order to send us with them. We serve other people out of the abundance that He's given us. Verse 8 continues, that they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full, and there were about 4,000 people, and He sent them away. Seven baskets full afterwards. I really do think that this is one of those examples of imagery that is intentional. It's repeated by all the Gospel writers about this meal. Those who rest in the Lord, Those who rely on the Lord, those who take their cues from the Lord, those who learn to see all good things coming from the Lord, are always going to find that we have more than enough to serve people with. And here's the key principle to this whole thing. If you remember the last time that Jesus fed the crowds, we looked at John 6, and Jesus specifically says, this is the meaning of it. And He chastises those people for not getting it. Reread John 6 as a homework assignment this week. You'll see it clearly. The last time Jesus fed the crowd miraculously, He specifically said that this was a sign that He was the true bread that we feed on. Not simply knowing about God from afar. Not just getting a little meal so that we can get on another day so that we can know God from afar. But through Christ, directly, personally, moment by moment, knowing Him. This is not simply a matter of reflection. It's not simply a matter of memorizing Scripture verses, although you should. It's not simply memorizing facts about Him. But through Christ, it is a matter of knowing Him. It is a matter for the spiritual senses. There comes a point where God says, alright, close the book. Close your eyes to those words. or to your analysis of everything, and feed on me. Taste and see. This is a matter for the taste buds. So in Psalm 34, 8-10, he says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. One way you do that is just remember, look around you. I do that all the time. Some of the best theological lessons I ever get is just to look at my kids and to realize that they're not sicker than they are. Hannah was sick this week. She had a fever for three days. She still does. She still has a fever over 100 degrees. And she doesn't have a fever of 107. I'll take it. God's been good. And not only that, He's been perfect. He's been perfectly good. Oh, by the way, what were you expecting before you were born? I wasn't. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack. The young lion suffers want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." God is saying, try Me. Feed on Me. Prefer Me. Look for me in all these things. Remember me. Not for some healing, not for some amount of money, not for some timetable, but me directly and I'll hook you up with bread. Maybe not according to your timetables, maybe not in comparison to this person or that person or that church or whatever expectation you had five years ago. I will hook you up with all the bread you need. Paul says at the end of Philippians when he's saying that I've learned the secret of living without and with and so on and he says my God will supply all your needs according to His written glory in Christ Jesus and it might as well say according to His timetables. According to the standards of His glory, meaning what glorifies Him is what sets the timetables and the amounts and the people who will clap for you or whatever else. He gives you exactly what you need. Let's apply this to just two areas of our life. Now, first of all, I hope you find yourself as both of these people today, servant and guest. Why do I say that? Because first of all, the disciples were A, saved, and B, serving. They were disciples on their way to being apostles, sent by Christ on mission to witness, to serve others, to tell the gospel. So I hope you find yourselves as both of these people, servant and guest. And maybe you're new to Jesus' free gift offered to you. And I'm going to show you the Gospel in this. But, first to the servant. The weary servants of the feast. And if you're a servant, you're a sinner, and so you are constantly trying to serve in your own strength. You are constantly battling with disbelief about God's methods. So you're in here, you're a suffering, sinful, tempted, weary, disbelieving servant. The disciples had to learn the same lesson. Here's one reason. Because they battled the same thing that you and I do. Unbelief. And especially if you hang out with Jesus. If you hang out with Jesus, the main form of unbelief is going to be philosophy of ministry unbelief. Because Jesus is always in ministry. Jesus never misses a beat. You hang out with Jesus, I'm not talking about in the first century. If you walk with the Lord now, probably the main temptation you're going to have is to disbelieve God about how to do the gospel in the church. That may not be high on your priority list, but maybe that's just another symptom of that disbelief. I don't really believe that that's even the main thing that I should be believing in for. Well, that's a disbelief. The fact is that the serving of this meal never ends because this hunger is never going to end. In other words, the Gospel is not just something you get at the front door. I believe there's a new book out now. Don't get it. It's called, After You Believe. Play on the title, After You Die, because this particular British theologian who remained unnamed, you know who I'm talking about, if you've been hanging around for a while. In his mind, if we believe the Old Gospel, you believe And then it's just you and Jesus and God will zap you one day probably in the rapture. And all the Christian life is about is about my individual self-help needs with Jesus. Me and my personal relationship with Jesus. But after you believe, not after you die, some escape, some ethereal existence where you're not good for anybody down here because that's what salvation by grace through faith alone does. It creates a bunch of individualistic self-help isolated from the world people. So the real question is, what happens after you believe? Don't read that. Have you sinned today? Say yes. You're starving. You're starving. You know what happens after you believe? You sin again! And you do things that deserve hell. And you need a gospel that is stronger than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And some ridiculous Marxist social gospel that has taken over the church. This meal never ends. This service never ends. Because this hunger never ends. Because your sin never ends. And therefore, your need for a Savior never ends. The people who Jesus physically healed got sick again. The people who Jesus physically raised died again. Bummer, but they did. There's another in the Bible that says that Lazarus was carried away by chariots like Elijah. He died again. These people who Jesus fed with physical food got hungry again. I don't expect that if I feed you, and I should. See the table back there? I don't have much to do with that, but we do that because it's cool. It's fun. It's a good thing. We're not weirdos. But that's not going to make you escape hell. If you say it like that, that's obvious. Who would ever disbelieve that? Well, an awful lot of people today. Taking the name of Jesus on their lips when Jesus would have none of that. Jesus brought people to Himself. And He used those as signs of Himself. And if you didn't get it, He says, this is a sign of Myself. I am the bread from Heaven. Jesus says to the woman at the well in John 4, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. And then two chapters later in John, at the first mass feeding, he says in John 6.27, do not labor for the food that perishes. So, by all means, give people Don't starve your kids. Give them the food that perishes. But don't forget to tell them every single night that you are a sinner. Daddy is a sinner. And I need a Savior who's big because I'm a big sinner. And this big meal isn't going to make a dent in that problem. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life. How many times must the preacher say, how many times does Jesus have to say? And still we want some other way. These disciples weren't any dumber than we are. Some other food, some other method, some other script to the hungry guests at the feast. And I hope that's all of us too. If you're a servant at the feast, your only reason you're serving as frantically as you are is you know how good this meal is because you've tasted it. You know you need it. We're about to eat a meal that we should give God thanks for. But that isn't the bread and the drink that lasts forever. What does Jesus most want to feed us with? Well, turn in your Bible to Isaiah chapter 53 and we'll close on this. Isaiah 53, long before it ever happens, long before God sends His Son, as the bread of life and breaks Him for us in history. Long before that, He tells us in Isaiah 53, verse 5. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed. Remember that word. It comes up later in the chapter. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. By the way, one of the main reasons in these healings and so on and communion and everything else, that God never uses anything that He doesn't break first. If you want to be used by God, you have to be broken. Not because you're going to be the hero, but because that says something about Christ. Verse 10, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. It was the will of the Lord to crush His Son. He has put him to grief. Here's why. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. What is Jesus asking us to do today? What is He asking that crowd to do with that bread? He's not asking to see and be satisfied with anything other than He saw and was satisfied with. He sees His finished work on the cross and is infinitely satisfied with it. By His knowledge shall the righteous one, My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the straw." You want riches? You want stuff? It's going to come from him being broken first, and him being divided among the Gentiles that mocked him, and that divided his royal clothes that they used to mock him. Because of that, he will divide all of his riches of heaven with the straw. Because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors." It means for the traitors. He numbered Himself in the police investigation line-up that's called Judgment Day. With those that really had slandered God's glory. He's the only one that ever obeyed the law. He's the only one that ever pleased the Father. And yet He came down and He numbered Himself with all the people between two criminals. And the people of God were asked before the Passover, you know, you guys have a tradition. We'll release one of these prisoners for you. Who do you want? This zealot? This robber? This animal? Or do you want Your King. And they said to their King, Crucify Him. Traitors. Christ came down. The King who had all authority to judge us. All righteousness to make a case against us. And He put Himself in the dock. He took the bullet. He took the sentence of the sinners and the traitors. and all who will put their hope and their trust and their faith in His finished work, in His performance and His righteousness, He says that this is perfect. He shall see it and be satisfied. By His performance, He will make many to be counted righteous. This is the Gospel that you are to taste and see. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for the gift of Your Son. We thank You that His coming down and being broken as bread to the Gentiles and to the sinners crumbling off and spilling into the street and wasted a martyr's death or maybe a good religious teacher. But to those who You have called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Lord, I pray that You would call out of this group of people And out of this community and give ears to hear and taste buds who will say to others, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. And those who seek you lack no good thing. Share this with us now. By your Spirit, make this impressed upon our heart that we cannot ignore it. Or be distracted to the right or to the left. All that this culture says to us, this tastes better. This works better. Why isn't it happening quicker? Lord, protect us from that. Give us greater taste buds for a greater feast. That once we taste it, we are ruined for anything less. Be glorified now as we sing. and satisfy us with a taste of You. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.