And welcome back.
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We are studying glimpses of God
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in chapter 6 of
the Gospel of John.
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We are with Dr. Jon Paulien.
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And, Dr. Paulien, after
Jesus now feeds the 5,000
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He then gives a discourse
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or a sermon of
the bread of life.
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Tell us about that. Right.
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Have you been to Galilee? Yeah.
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I have actually. You have.
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So you have seen
the Sea of Galilee?
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I've seen it. Yeah.
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Well, if you picture in
your mind and maybe our viewers
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who haven't been
there, they can picture a lake
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that sort of tear drop shaped
and the wider part on the north,
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on the north-east side is
where the feeding took place.
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He fed the 5,000.
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Even today, there's not a
lot of people who live there.
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It's sort of open land.
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And then they took
the boat across the lake
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and its maybe 20
kilometers at the most.
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They took the boat across
the lake and landed in Capernaum
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which is on the
north-west side of the lake.
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And you've been to the
synagogue there, I suspect?
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I think so. I have.
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You know, which is pretty
cool to stand in the synagogue.
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And there I love to
read some of the stories
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here that happened
in that very place.
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So he gives a sermon
now in which he illustrates
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the parable of
feeding the 5,000.
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You see, it's a story all
the gospel writers have it,
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but in John it becomes
an acted parable of Jesus
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as the bread of life.
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The bread that they were feeding
on was to remind them of Jesus
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and who He really was and
what He could do for them.
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This is a rich, rich chapter.
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I wish we could
just read through it
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but let me give a
little bit of a foundation,
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so that people can
get a handle on it.
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It all goes back to Exodus 3:14
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because Jesus
uses this phrase I Am
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and in the Greek it's
very emphatic, Ego eimi.
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It's really pointing back to
Exodus 3:14, could you read it?
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"And God said to
Moses, I am who I am.
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And he said, thus you shall
say to the children of Israel,
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I Am has sent me to you."
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This is really the name of God.
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As close as you come to a
name of God, it's I Am who I Am.
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I Am has sent you.
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And in the Greek
this is emphasized,
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I Am could simply be "Eimi"
but here it's "Ego Eimi" I Am.
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And so the Greek phrase
here evokes more than just,
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well, I am coming
over to see you today.
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You know, that's I
am but it's very basic.
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In the Gospel of John,
Jesus uses I Am in several ways.
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Some of it is just
self identification.
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You know, disciples were in
the stormy boat and they say,
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"Who's that
coming on the water?"
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And He says,
"Don't worry, it's Me."
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You know, He says Ego
eimi. It's Me, don't worry.
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You know, I am not
scary. I am just a guy you know.
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So that's a human level.
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But then he can also
use it at a divine level.
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I Am the bread of life.
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I Am the
resurrection and the life
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and that points back
to the Old Testament.
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I wish we had time to
look at some of the texts
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but in the Old Testament
God speaks in those terms.
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I Am, you know,
water. I Am life to you.
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So that language of I Am is used
in relation to other things.
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And in the Gospel
of John, Jesus says,
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"I Am the bread, I Am the light,
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I Am the door, I
Am the good shepherd,
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I Am the
resurrection and the life,
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I Am the way, the truth
and the life, I Am the wine."
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You see, all
these different ways
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and the idea when you hear that
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it references back to
the Old Testament prophets
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where Yahweh, God uses I
Am with predicates, you see.
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These kinds of
things, these are expressions
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of what God was offering Israel.
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Now Jesus uses
these same expressions
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and it's not just a cliche,
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but it's to remind them of
the God of the Old Testament.
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Jesus is really
claiming He can do for them
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what God of the Old
Testament was designed to do.
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But beyond that Jesus even
uses--uses without predicate
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which is really
stunning and the most remarkable
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of these is John 8:58.
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It's one of those
Johanna and misunderstandings,
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where Jesus says something
and people don't get it.
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Let's go to verse 56.
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John 8:56, "Your
father Abraham rejoiced
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at the thought
of seeing my day."
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That's a translator.
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The Greek says, "He
rejoiced to see my day.
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He saw it and was
glad." What do they think?
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Oh, Jesus is
claiming to be what?
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Three thousand years old.
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"Because you are
not yet 50 years old,
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the Jews said to Him,
and you have seen Abraham?"
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Jesus says, "I
tell you the truth,
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before Abraham was, I Am."
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I mean, there He is
just nailing Exodus 3:14
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and they of
course understood Him.
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They took up stones to stone Him
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and on that
occasion He vanishes.
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So He's clearly
using this language
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to refer to His divinity.
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And so the I Am statements
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in the Gospel of John
point to who Jesus is.
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Now when reading
these I Am statements
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or expressions that Jesus,
you know, makes for example,
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I am the bread, I am
the light of the world,
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I am the door and so on,
the way, truth, life and wine.
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It almost is
difficult for the reader to say,
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well, what does
that mean, you know?
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Okay, so Jesus is the bread
but what does it mean to me?
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Jesus is the light,
for example in this room
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we have so much
light, right now that,
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you know, if Jesus
says, "I am the light."
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It would be difficult for me
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or for even anyone to
just grasp that meaning,
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that Jesus is the light.
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So help me
understand maybe today,
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how can I grasp
that spiritual meaning
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and say this is
what it means to me?
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Well, using the
analogy you just brought up,
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I would say God can get
our attention in two ways.
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He can turn up the light
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or He can turn up
the darkness, you see.
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Now we are
surrounded by bright lights.
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At home, we are surrounded
by internet, television,
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all kinds of
stuff, distractions,
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you know, life
is busy, the office,
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everything is
going on at the office.
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The only way God can get
through us at such a time
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would be to turn up the light
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and make His
presence really dramatic
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or He can turn up the darkness.
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And the way I think of it
here, I am the bread of life.
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To understand
what that really means
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it might be helpful for somebody
not to eat for three days.
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Let's say for whatever reason
you couldn't eat for three days
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and you come to a friend's house
and there's bread in the oven
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and the bread is just finishing
as you walk in the door.
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They are opening the door
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and they are
pulling out this fresh bread
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and the aroma at that
point, they cut a slice off,
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they put a little butter on
it, hot right into your hand.
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You haven't eaten in three days
you take a bite of that bread,
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that's what Jesus is all about.
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That's what I mean by
turning up the darkness.
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In other words, if you did not
experience food for three days,
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you know, they say hunger
is the best sauce, you see.
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So when we come to realize
how deficient our daily life is.
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When God helps
us to focus on that,
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when
circumstances cause us to say,
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"Life is really tough."
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It's at moments like that when
Jesus becomes precious to us
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or at other times like I
said He turns up the light
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and turns up, you know,
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the bread comes in such a
form that we can't miss it.
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So those hardship moments,
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those moments of darkness
in our lives where we sense,
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we realize our
need of that light,
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that hunger that we have.
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We realize because without--
let's say we are filled
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or we have everything
then we really don't sense
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or understand what
it is to have the light.
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We trust in ourselves.
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We feel like we've
got to fix our problems.
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And sometimes our
ideas have to shipwreck
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before we are willing to
actually take a good look
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of what God has to
offer, in Jesus Christ.
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And so the spiritual
gospel is telling us,
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you got to take your eyes
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away from the
distractions of this world,
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this desire to
solve your own problems,
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to fix your own issues
and look a little deeper.
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And so when God turns up
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that darkness as you
say it is for our advantage.
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That's right.
It is for our good.
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And God doesn't
even have to turn it up,
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life will do that for us
but God can use that darkness
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when it comes to
really get our attention
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for who Jesus really
is the bread of life,
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the door, the good shepherd,
the water, the wine, etcetera.
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We need to learn to see Jesus
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in the ordinary
things of everyday
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and that's what
John is calling us to do.
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So in the synagogue of Capernaum
Jesus is giving this sermon,
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I am the bread of life
to show that the light,
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you know, in those
days of course bread
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was the primary thing to eat,
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so it meant everything
that food meant to them
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but here's the
interesting thing,
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when Jesus is
done with the sermon,
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look at verse 60, I think it is.
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And we are back in chapter 6.
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Chapter 6. Yeah.
John Chapter 6:60.
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"Therefore many of his
disciples when they heard it,
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they said, 'This is a hard
saying who can understand it?'"
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And that's what I am saying,
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you know, earlier today,
how can I understand such,
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you know, I Am the
bread and the light and so on.
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They were looking for a messiah
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that would help
them politically,
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would help them economically,
would help them militarily.
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They were looking for a
messiah rooted in this world.
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John is saying, the
true life, the abundant life.
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The ultimate life is
not grounded in this world.
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It is grounded beyond.
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And that's where the
spiritual gospel comes in.
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The interesting thing
is at the end of the sermon
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everybody leaves Him.
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We think people are spiritual
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because they have
lots of followers,
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because their
ministry is big and powerful.
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We think
spiritual work must be good
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if it has big
numbers, big donations.
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When Jesus really got
down to it, everybody left.
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And at the end of this chapter,
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you know, He
comes to the disciples
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and says, "Will you leave too?"
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And they said, "Well,
we were thinking about it
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but where would we go?
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We don't know
where else we would go."
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So it's almost like
the disciples stayed
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because they couldn't come
up with another option, you see.
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Which in a sense
is where we are to,
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when we realize that
there is no other option
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then we will turn to
Jesus with all our hearts,
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but we love to
hang on to our stuff.
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We love to hang on
to our options, you see.
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And because of that we
don't connect with Jesus
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in a powerful way that
John would encourage us to do.
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It's almost like
saying we are having you
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Jesus is better than
having no one at all.
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Well, having
Jesus makes you realize
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that every other option
was no one at all, you see.
00:12:07.93\00:12:11.39
And that's why we
talked about weddings
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and bringing
Jesus into the wedding
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because if we put
our spouse ahead of Jesus
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they could be gone tomorrow
for a variety of reasons.
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But when Jesus
is in that marriage
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it raises it to another level.
00:12:26.20\00:12:28.88
And, Dr. Paulien, I believe
that Jesus is searching today
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for people who are in darkness
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and He wants to shed
that light into their heart,
00:12:35.67\00:12:38.92
so that they can eventually
give their lives to Christ
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and see that
indeed they always needed
00:12:42.27\00:12:45.18
that light and that bread.
00:12:45.21\00:12:46.71
Friends, till
next time God bless.
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