Exodus 25, we'll begin in verse 23 and read down through verse 40. You can find that on page 83 in the hardcover Bibles, in your pews, and page 57 on the softcover. Hear now the word of the living God. You shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it. and you shall make a rim around it a handbreadth wide, and a molding of gold around the rim, and you shall make for it four rings of gold, and fasten the rings to the four corners at its four legs. Close to the frame the rings shall lie as holders for the poles to carry the table. You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with ease. And you shall make its plates and dishes, for instance, in its flagons and bowls with which to pour drink offerings. You shall make them of pure gold. And you shall set the bread of a presence on the table before me regularly. You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be made of hammered work. Its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, its flowers shall be of one piece with it. And there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it. Three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower on the other branch. So, for the six branches going out of the lampstand, and on the lampstand itself, There shall be four cups made like almond blossoms with their calyxes and flouts, and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold. You shall make seven lamps for it, And the lamp shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it. Its tongs and their trays shall be of pure gold. It shall be made with all these utensils out of a talent of pure gold. And see that you make them after the pattern for them which is being shown you on the mount. Now may Jesus Christ who is the living word speak to us this morning from this passage which is his written word. You may be seated. Will you pray with me? Father, we do ask for your kind presence as we consider your word this morning. Would you speak to us? Would you meet with us? Would you continue your transforming power in us? Might you fill us up with all the fullness of your glory that we would know it and see it and rejoice in it and respond to it appropriately. Lord, we seek to commune with you. We are called by your name, gathered by your spirit, and we ask that your spirit will be active and present in us and among us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I have my sermon notes included, an outline of them, where most of my scripture references are printed, so you might find that very convenient, as I tend to zip around quite a bit. And I want another little just editorial note. I keep meaning to tell people what a cubit is, and I keep forgetting. So let me tell you this moment, because we're working our way through the tabernacle, and they're measuring everything in cubits, and our eyes glaze over, and we hear, this cubit, this many cubits, and that many cubits. A cubit is from the tip of your pinky to your elbow. It's an average tip of the pinky to an average elbow. That's what it is. You can measure it. Nice and handy. You've got your measuring rod with you everywhere you go. and it's about 18 inches or so. Okay? That's a cubit. So I get that off my chest. Now you know. Hopefully I'll remember to tell other people if they come next week and they're new. But that's what a cubit is. But I think as we continue on with our study in the Tabernacle you will find that it is a rich study indeed with many rich and deep and wonderful pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. To get us thinking about today's topic, as we're going to land on the table and particularly the bread of the presence, is what? Do you want to live forever? Thank you, brother. Of course, the answer to that question might be somewhat dependent on how you're doing. If things are going real well, life is good. I don't want to lose any more of this life. I want to keep this life going. If things have been a struggle, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, well, living forever doesn't sound like such a cheery prospect. I've always been intrigued by some of those science fiction shows, which probably says a lot about me, but those ones where it had some sort of immortal in them. Recently, a movie came out, Hancock, that he had been living for ages and ages and ages, and he kind of empathized with such a character. Or the Connor McCloud out of the Highlander series. It really says a lot about me that I know about those. But there is this group of immortals that we're all trying to, and the good ones and the bad ones are always duking it out, trying to mop off each other's heads, so the only way you could kill them. Now, as distracting as that illustration might be, what I found intriguing about the storyline is how do you deal with, you're the only one that doesn't grow old. I mean, life goes on and it becomes a sense of futility to it. I mean, even in the Bible you have Laman. Do you remember Laman? He was Noah's father. We have there in Genesis 28-29 a little message from Laman. When he was 182 years, so older than all of us, When he was under 82 years, he fathered his son and he called his name Noah, which means rest, by the way, saying, out of the ground that the Lord is cursed, this one shall bring us relief or rest from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. And you do get that as you grow older, you do see a bit of this. Even when you have a very nice life. There can be a wearisomeness in it, a futility built into it. Like, what's it all about? What's all the point? We even label these things. We call them midlife crises, right? Well, what is that but a wondering what the point of it all is? Have I done anything worth doing? Is there anything worth doing? So, the question, do you want to live forever, really isn't good enough. It's not specific enough. Where do you want to live forever? Who do you want to live forever with? What will you be doing forever? Those are more pertinent and appropriate questions. There is a futility noted by the writer of the Ecclesiastes. He searched out wisdom, everything done under the sun. It is an unhappy business, he says, that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. And a little code in Ecclesiastes when he's talking about under the sun, it's without reference to God. And without reference to God, everything under the sun is empty. That's what vanity means. Empty. There's a meaninglessness to it. So, when we talk about the good news of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, It doesn't offer eternal existence. I mean, my goodness, you get that in hell. He offers eternal life. And we mean much more by life than existence. As our Lord Jesus said Himself in John 10.10, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Abundant life. And this abundant life is found only in one place. One place alone. We read about this in Psalm 16. The psalmist says there, You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So it's not just an eternity. It's not just a forevermore. Pleasures forevermore. Joy forevermore. with God and with God's people. It's important as we consider now life that we have our eye on the prize. Eternal life. The real life. The life to which all things are just a little taste. The good things in this life are just pale reflections of what real life really is. This brings us to our study of the tabernacle, because we're looking at the bread, the bread that imparts satisfaction in life. We've noted in our previous studies, we've been in about three weeks now, that the tabernacle is a copy of heaven, or heaven on earth. It's actually both. The tabernacle itself in the middle is heaven, and then the courtyard is earth. It's a picture of that, a little mini picture of heaven and earth. Last week we looked at the Gold Ark, which was the only piece of furniture in the Holy of Holies. There's a partition, there's two rooms in that tent. The inner tent, the Holy of Holies, had only one piece of furniture, the Gold Ark of the Covenant, with two cherubim on it, with their wings outstretched, protecting the glory of God. And we noted that it was a footstool for a throne. God's throne would come down, the glory cloud of God's throne room presence would come down, and he had a footstool for his feet. Very similar to the footstools that any ancient Near Eastern king would have. An ornate big box that would be in front of his raised throne, fit a place for his feet. But as you move back out of the Holy of Holies into the other room in the tent, it was called the Holy Place. It is interesting to think about for a minute, how do you get holier than holy? You've got holy, that's sort of pretty all-inclusive. If something is holy, it's pure. I mean, it's hard to get more pure than pure. But nonetheless, to describe just how utterly holy the interim is, it's called the holy of holies. And in Hebrew you did that. When you wanted to emphasize something, you said it more than once. Holy, holy. Or if you wanted to worship God in heaven like the cherubim do, they'd say, holy, holy. Holy! So they do in Hebrew. You want to emphasize they don't just have exclamation points, they repeat the word. But we're moving from the holy holy rum to the holy rum. And there we have three pieces of furniture. We have an altar for incense. We'll get to that later. But actually that was a typical item in a lot of nomadic tents. If you lived in a tent full time, not much in the way of shower equipment. Bathing equipment. Incense, really big deal. Important function in a tent. You would have that, so it was typical to see an author for incense in a tent. Then there was the lampstand that we read about, all made of gold. A gallon of gold is about 75 pounds of gold. The whole thing was about 75 pounds of pure gold. And then the table that we're going to focus on today, it was also covered in gold, and all the dishes and all the things, the jug that held the wine, and the platters that the bread would sit on, were all made out of gold. So as we look at God's furniture in his tent, You see, an interesting combination, you'll see this throughout the study of the tabernacle, of the common that, well, it's a typical tent. You have an altar of incense, you have a lamp for light, and you have a table where you have food and drink. God's living there, you see. You're not going to have to eat this food, we'll get to that in a minute, but this is God's tent. He would host people there, he'd have food for the priests when they came in. So it's sort of like an ordinary tent in that sense, but it's all gold. So it's an extraordinary tent, it's a majestic tent, it speaks of God's glory. So there's that otherness of this tent, and there's this commonness of the tent. There's a tent, actually, they're going to have poles and all these things so they can take it with them and move it along so wherever Israel travels, their God is going to travel with them. And he has his furniture, and they have their furniture, and it's sort of like their tent, but it's very different from their tent, and it's majestic in its glory. Well, that's the overview of the room. Now, as we zoom in on the bread of the... the table that held the bread of the presence, we find that that is actually the most prominent thing. It did have wine in there, but I'm not going to... that's kind of just a tag-along for this morning's message. There's probably a whole line of things we could say about that as well, but the prominent feature is the bread of the presence. And as we consider this bread, We'll note a couple things. When we looked at it a few weeks ago, we were talking about how the tabernacle was sort of a reenactment of Egypt, leaving from Egypt to Mount Sinai. If you were here, then you might remember that. And it is, it is that. All of the elements have some sort of reference point to this journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, where they worshipped God. God's glory cloud, his heavenly presence, his throne room presence came down on the mountain, and they worshipped him there. You might remember that the base of the mountain, they had an altar, and the courtyard has an altar. And then moving from there, from the altar to the tabernacle, there's a basin of water. This would be reminiscent of the Red Sea. And then you have the lamp post that speaks of God's fiery presence that gave them light in the darkness when they traveled at night. There's also a pillar of cloud in the daytime. It looks like it was glowing. But you have this fiery presence of God leading them, guiding them to his mountain. And then you have the bread on the table, speaking of the manna that they received, which they considered bread from. That's the picture. You see this articulated as we consider the mountain again, and we back up and look to Exodus 24, and they're just making this covenant, Exodus 24 verse 4, Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, and he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. There's the altar that corresponds to the altar in the tabernacle. Then skipping to verse 9, Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, they were his sons, so they were representative later to be the priests. They weren't ordained yet though. And the 70 elders of Israel went up. So there was a representative group of the people that went part way up the mountain. And they saw the God of Israel, there was under his feet as it were a pavement, a sapphire, which is probably that other stone I have written there, Lapis Lazuli, you don't really need to sweat it right now, but they're both royal blue, gem-like, very rich looking colors, blue. But it was like a pavement. And it says, as you read on, it says, it was like the very heaven for clearness, this pavement, that was royal blue. Like you're looking up in the sky, really. And he did not lay his hands on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and they ate and they drank. Isn't that interesting? They go up into... partway up into God's presence. They see God. They worship Him as from afar, sort of. They don't get to go up into the throne room. They don't get to go in the Holy of Holies. They go up partway and they see God. They're in God's presence. And what do they do? They eat and they drink. So, if you ever wondered when I was explaining how the bread was a sign of the manna, Why the manna wasn't outside the tent? After all, that's where they received it on the journey. After the Red Sea, they figured it was going to match the little reenactment. Why didn't they get the bread outside the tent on their way to the mountain? But no, it's inside the tent, symbolizing where the bread came from. Bread from heaven. and symbolizing that when they got to the mountain, these representatives of the people got to go up into this heavenly place, just shy of the throne room, and be in God's presence, and He didn't strike them down. No, they had a meal. It's like they went up into God's tent and had a meal. Furthermore, as you consider the work of the priests, this is the picture that gets played out in the tabernacle time and time again. Look down at Leviticus 24 in your notes. You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it. Two-tenths of an ephod shall be in each loaf, and you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion, as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly. It is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons and they shall eat it in a holy place since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord's food offerings of perpetual due. So here you have this picture of heaven and you have the priests which are representing the people. They would go in and they put new bread in there every week. Every Sabbath day, it had to be fresh bread. And then they would eat the bread they're taking off. It'd be their portion. So they're representing the people. The bread is for who? French for the people. God's people. Represented by the priests. This is the picture. This is the imagery. This is what they're meant to learn from this. They're reminded of the bread from heaven that got sent down as manna. They're reminded of the meal that the representative leaders had up on the mountain. And they're reminded perpetually as the priests do this every week. Re-enacting it. Re-enacting it. Re-enacting it. So Notice that there's 12 loaves. What would that suggest? Enough food for the 12 tribes of Israel. There are the pictures, there's the illustration that God is trying to give to his people about what? What would they get from this? What would you get from an illustration that said, I always have 12 loaves of fresh bread for the 12 tribes of Israel in my presence? There's always fresh bread on God's table in his tent. That's where the real bread is. That's where the real bread is. Now, as we got a bit of a handle to the imagery in the tabernacle, it really doesn't take a rocket science to connect it to the ministry of Jesus. I mean, I hardly have to do it. I'm going to do it. This is wonderful. But I hardly have to. You turn to John chapter 6, and there you have it. It's even more obvious when Jesus preaches in John chapter 6. But let me state the key idea, just so you're on board with me, where I'm going with this, in case you don't, you probably already get this, but let me just state it. It's in the block there in your notes. The satisfaction and nourishment we get when we eat bread find its true significance when we submit to and rely upon Jesus. Finding true satisfaction and eternal life. If we can grab hold of that, that can sink in, that is powerful. Well, let's look at John 6, but just to set up the passage. Jesus has just performed the miracle. We're not going to read the whole account. Jesus performed the miracle in the wilderness. He was up on a mountain, a vast crowd of people, about 5,000 men, just counting the men, who were listening to his teaching. And they're up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Interesting. Up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. And out of five barley loaves and two fish, everyone gets enough food to eat. Specifically, everybody gets enough bread, and they specifically collect the bread, and what do they end up with? Twelve basketfuls of leftover bread. The twelve tribes of Israel have been abundantly provided for. It's a little bit off topic, but we know there's another feeding of 4,000 where they collected seven basketfuls. Seven being more reminiscent of what? The earth, perhaps? It's a little aside, a little parenthesis. Couldn't help myself. But the pictures are just, these pictures are all over the scriptures. So as we enter into, we Westerners, we don't generally like learning from pictures this way. Like, if I want to know what a cheeseburger is, I want to see a picture of a cheeseburger. But in Hebrew, they probably wouldn't show you a cheeseburger. They, you know, they talk about a cheeseburger and they give you a word picture about it. We don't like that. We just want it to be what it is. Come on, just call it rigmarole. But God in His providence gave His people these pictures for us to understand who He is and what He's like. So Jesus here, back to John chapter 6, has performed this miracle. Multiplied the bread. Miraculous feeding in the wilderness on a mountain. If you look at John 6, verse 3, you're going to check that He was on a mountain. He was. He was on a mountain. And the people there rightly Make the connection. You remember Moses in Deuteronomy 18 verse 15. I don't have that in my notes. Oh, I do have it in parentheses, but I didn't have it printed out. In verse 15 and verse 18, Moses promises that a prophet like me will be sent to you. You need to listen to that. So when Jesus on a mountain provides bread, they make the connection. They get it. Listen to John 6 verse 13. So they gathered them up and filled twelve basketfuls of fragments from the five barlows left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet. What prophet? The prophet like Moses, of course. The prophet who is to come into the world. So they get it. On one level, they totally get it. But on the other hand, this bread miracle, and for that matter, every other bread sign, they call them signs consistently, they just say miracles, they say signs. What's the significance of a sign? It's what it points to. This is a bread sign, the bread in the tabernacle was a bread sign, the manna in the wilderness was a bread sign, and they were all pointing at something. And Jesus points out to them that they are missing the point. Even Moses when he said, and they start talking about a prophet, listen to him. The prophet that was to come. So accordingly our Lord rebukes them. He does so in verse 25. When they found him on the other side, and I love to gap out what happened, Jesus withdrew because he knew that they were going to try to by force make him king. And he withdrew and then they crossed. He actually walked in water. crossed the sea. And then they track him down, they find him. So we pick it up here, verse 25. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Where was your boat, sir? Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs. You're not seeing the sign at all. You're missing the sign. When he says sign, they think, wondrous feeding, miraculous, powerful act. He's thinking pointer. You didn't see signs, no, but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on Him God the Father has set His seal. That means God has marked Jesus out, shown Him to be His authoritative representative. How has He marked Him out? These signs Jesus is doing. Among other things, the feeding in the wilderness. He's been marked out as someone sent from God to tell them something. You're not listening. Jesus tells them not to work for food that's perishing, but they're still not getting it, so they gravitate to that idea of work. Well, we're not supposed to work for perishing food, so Jesus tells us how do we work for this eternal life food. As you pick it up in verse 28. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? That's what they're grabbing onto. All right, don't work for that, so then what exactly should we do? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. Now on the one hand this work that Jesus proposes isn't work at all. He's telling them to believe in the work that he's doing. Trust and rely upon his work and quit trying to work. But if you've lived the Christian life for any length of time and tried to do such a thing, you do find that there is a sense in which that is actually work. Not that you're earning anything, he does all the earning. But the effort of moving from a self-reliance stance to a Jesus-reliance stance, we find very difficult. That's exactly where the intense battle lies for the Christian. We constantly slip back into trying to do it ourselves. I mean, routinely I find myself trying to deserve the bread. And when I'm doing pretty well at deserving the bread, so I think, I'm feeling okay, yeah. I'm being a pretty good pastor this week. I was very kind to that person. Feeling okay. I'm not guilt ridden today. And then those weeks when I'm blowing it, I did that same old sin again. I'm a worm. I'm a... I'm not a man, I'm a worm. I don't deserve to be a pastor or anything else. As if I deserved it last week. You see how we are? We are oriented towards our own works. We just... that's the... the crucial part of the battle. And it takes effort to change from the self-reliance to the God-reliance. And it doesn't take just working ourselves up into it. You need to be on your knees. You need to ask for God's help. You need divine assistance to make the switch, to move, to cross over from death to life. So the work you're to do is to believe, Jesus says. Believe in what I've done. Believe in who I am and what I've done. Count on that. Submit to that. Quit trying to be good enough yourself. And there's a sense in which that is worth. And he teaches them and rebukes them to not, again, work for food that perishes, but for the enduring food. And what exactly is that enduring food? We pick it up in verse 25 again. No, no, no, no. Apologize. Pick it up in verse 30. Pick it up in verse 30. Then they say, what signs do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Now, when I read this as a child, and even until recently, I read that and I'm like, well, didn't they just have a miraculous feeding in the wilderness? But then it occurred to me, they're equating Jesus with Moses, and there's a valid connection there. But the feeding Moses gave, sort of, Jesus is going to correct him on that point too, but the feeding that he received through Moses was a feeding every day for 40 years. So, you read between the lines here, they're not just saying, you know, can you do a miracle, but are you going to do this same sort of miracle? Are we going to keep being fed? Are we going to keep getting... Do you mean bread in eternal life? That we don't have to work anymore? You're just going to keep giving us our bread? Are we just following you around and we don't have to do anything? Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? So what sign are you going to give us? Hint, hint. Hint, hint. Give us a little more bread. And they give it away, verse 31, our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. They're equating this feeding with the wilderness feeding. So, where's the next helping? Where's the next meal? But when Jesus is trying to rebuke them, it's as if they're saying, we want the miracle side of the sign, don't bother us with the actual point of the sign. Just give us the bread. And Jesus responds, truly, truly, I say to you, verse 32, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. Isn't that why the bread is in heaven in the tabernacle? To show where it comes from? Who's actually giving the bread? Where does the bread come from? It comes from God. Moses didn't give you the bread, my father gave you the bread. Verse 33, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, sir, give us this bread always. Again, I'm ready for my next helping, right? Give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I'm the bread! I'm the bread of life, he says. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe." This is our problem. We get what he's saying, we just don't believe it. They get what he's saying, but they're still connected to physical bread and a physical meal of bread. And so they can't get it. They're like, what, are we supposed to chew on you? Are we supposed to cut you up? Is this gross? What are you talking about? We're so slow to comprehend this. The joy and satisfaction of eating bread was always meant to point us to Jesus. Wrap your mind around that. God created bread the way he did, or like in bread stands representative for food. The reason we love food It's God here sort of exegeting food, and the word exegete means to draw out the meaning of. That's what I try to do in the text. I try to go into the text and try to draw out the meaning for you. Well, God is doing that for us, and His people, drawing out the meaning of food. What is food about? Why do they make food so tasty? Why is it so delicious? Why is it so satisfying when you eat a great meal? Why is it so wonderful when you get the really good bread? Why is it great? Why does that make you smile? Now we're all thinking of lunch, aren't we? Why does it make us smile when we think about lunch? God intended that to teach us about the real bread found in heaven. Of which this meal that we just had that was so satisfying is just a shadow. It's just a dim copy. Wrap your mind around that. And don't misunderstand. It doesn't mean that when we get to heaven, I'm talking about the great meals we'll enjoy there. I mean, Jesus, the resurrected Jesus had a meal with his disciples. I don't doubt we'll actually eat real food in heaven. I think we will. I mean, I don't know that for sure, but I think we will. But that's missing the point. I'm not just saying that there can be even better, tastier bread in heaven. I'm saying God is in heaven. He's the bread. Jesus is in heaven. Jesus is the bread. He is what makes it all work. When we enjoy the satisfaction of a piece of bread, we should think, God's like that. You ever wonder what God's like? He's sort of like the satisfaction when you eat a good meal. You want to know what it's going to be like to be with God? One of the ways, and this is just one of the ways, but one of the ways it's like eating good meal. But better. Much better. John Piper articulates this quite well in the quote I have in my notes there from one of his sermons. One of the reasons God created bread, or created the grain and the water and the yeast and fire and human intelligence to make it, and I mean the really good kind, that's not mainly air, is so that when Jesus Christ came into the world, he would be able to use the enjoyment of bread and the nourishment of bread as an illustration of what it means to believe on him and be satisfied with him. I believe that with all my heart. Bread exists to help us know what it is like to be satisfied in Jesus. This is true water, John 4.14, and light, John 4.6, and every other good thing that God has made. Nothing exists for itself. All things were created through Him and for Him, Colossians 1.16. Every honorable pleasure that we have in the created world is designed by God to give us a faint taste of heaven and make us hunger for Christ. Every partial satisfaction in this life points to the perfect satisfaction in Jesus who made the world. No matter how good the meal in heaven is, when we're in heaven, we'll get it. And we'll eat the meal and say, yes, God is like that, but better. We'll immediately get it. The veil will be off. We'll see God's glory and that everything points to it. Returning to the words of the psalmists, now we maybe have a better understanding of them. Psalm 1611, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So the next time you're eating a really good piece of bread, remember, trusting Jesus, relying upon Jesus, submitting to Jesus, is like that. The joy of His presence is like that. This is the crucial point that the people that follow, the crowd that follow Jesus, were missing. They were missing that. We just, we want you because you give us bread. They're after the bread, not the one to which the sign is pointing. The sign of Moracta's bread is pointing at the miracle that comes through union with Christ. And you're missing it. You've got the real bread in front of you, and all you can think of is the bread that's perishing. That was always speaking of me. And you want to use me to get that, instead of using that to lead you to me. I mean, this leads to all sorts of practical problems. I'm convinced this is where gluttony comes from, is that we take this partial satisfaction and we try to make it total satisfaction. And it's never enough. We take something good that God did, and this is true for any of God's good gifts, we can very easily take God's good gift and make it into an idol, which means we worship it falsely. We try to take something that's a partial satisfaction, a good gift, that will lead us to God, to Jesus in particular, to lead us back to our Savior, to rejoice in the goodness that He is, the satisfaction that He is, the joy that He is, the light that He is, the fullness of light that He is, and we try to find fullness of light in a piece of bread. Or in sex. Or in neat inventions like technological gadgets that we've created, or cars, or a nice home. We take these good things and we make them ultimate. And so they become obscene. And we're never satisfied. None of those things can bear our worship. They just can't bear the load of it. There's only one who can, the true God. And the one He sent to reveal Himself, Jesus our Lord. So, this becomes very practical. When we remember that our satisfaction, our true satisfaction, is only found in Christ, then that undermines our false worship in these other things. It's the antidote to these other obsessions. When I get obsessed with something simple, like I find myself watching too much TV, I repent. I say, Lord, I'm trying to get more out of this TV viewing than is right. Forgive me. Find me. My love for you is growing cold. When my love for him heats up, I don't have any trouble watching too much TV. I don't have... I don't have to... I have what we call a sweet tooth, which is a fancy name for an idol after sweets, right? I get obsessed about it, but I don't. when my eyes are uncrossed. But that's where the battle rages, you remember. That's exactly where, am I going to be truly God-reliant? Am I going to learn that experientially through this life? By God's grace, I pray that we do. I pray that by God's grace, we move from a reliance upon the good gifts that God's given us and trying to use them. We even pray like that. Lord, give me this, give me this. I just have this one thing, this one thing. Oh, Lord, why don't you give me this one thing? It's not a big thing, it's a little thing. It's just this one little thing. I'm like my kids to God. Don't ask me for the gazillionth time. I said no already. Because I want you to find out, Jesus says to us. I'm what you really need. Me. I'm the bread. The key idea again, the satisfaction and nourishment we get when we eat bread finds its true significance when we submit to and rely upon Jesus. Finding true satisfaction and eternal life. Through Jesus we enter into joy. We enter into true satisfaction. We enter the life-giving fullness of God's very own presence. Don't settle for anything less. And surely don't try to manipulate God into feeding your idols. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you that you are the bread. And we do thank you for giving us such a sign that it's so easy for us to connect to. Who doesn't identify with food? Lord, help us remember not to get stuck there, but to follow the sign, to look to Jesus. Pour out your Spirit among us that we would all see. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.