SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful that God gave us his word.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just so grateful that it's it's not just about him, it's the living word, it's full of life, it's it changes us, it speaks to us, it can be revisited every day of your life, and it's like it's new, it's fresh, it's full of glory.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to speak today um on this question that I feel like the Lord has for us, which is this do you have fresh bread?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have fresh bread?
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to turn first to Exodus 16, um, verse one, and this is really under it's key to understanding what Jesus talks about thousands of years later.
SPEAKER_00: And in Exodus, as you would know, the children of Israel have been led out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of um oppression, and they're now they've come through the Red Sea and they're now in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, and they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: And the children of Israel said to them, Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, and when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't know if you've ever been in moments like this, but I think all of us have been in similar moments.
SPEAKER_00: And it says that they're encamped between Elim and Sinai.
SPEAKER_00: Elim means palm trees.
SPEAKER_00: In the Middle East, palm trees meant oasis.
SPEAKER_00: It was a place of water, there was life, there was presumably some food around the palm trees, there was like potential there.
SPEAKER_00: But they've moved on from there, from this kind of place of hope, this place of salvation, this place that is represented by palm trees.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not yet at Sinai, which was obviously this place of encounter with the living God, this place where things became clear, there was structure, the Lord gave all these instructions for how to live, how they were going to proceed, how to do life together as a nation.
SPEAKER_00: But they're in this wilderness between the two called the wilderness of sin, which is not sin as in our word for sin.
SPEAKER_00: The word in Hebrew for sin means thorns or clay.
SPEAKER_00: So it's presumably this kind of clay desert, and the only thing that's there is thorns.
SPEAKER_00: And I like to say we all do this journey.
SPEAKER_00: We all do this journey at different times on multiple different issues, where we've kind of God's got us out of something, out of something that was holding us bound, some way of life, some way of thinking, some issue, whatever it is, some situation.
SPEAKER_00: And we've kind of landed in this place of hope, and we're not quite at that place where it becomes clear the way forward, and it just feels like this wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: And it's between hope and revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's this it's this vulnerable place, and if you think about it, thorns you can't see them from afar off.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an army coming, it's not marauding lions, it's not anything dramatic.
SPEAKER_00: Thorns do damage when you try and walk forward, they get stuck, they get infected, they hurt, then every step is painful.
SPEAKER_00: And clay is obviously what you make things from.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is all significant, that this place where we're kind of in that vulnerable place between what God has rescued us from and what it's going to look like moving forward.
SPEAKER_00: It's like we're being formed, but there's thorns on the ground, and the thorns are doubt, the thorns are confusion, the thorns are the lies of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't really trust God, look at you now.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what they were facing.
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that when you're in that wilderness, your memory becomes suddenly completely distorted.
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, you know, the Israelites were like, Oh, I wish we were back in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: We had so much to eat there.
SPEAKER_00: That is not true.
SPEAKER_00: You read Exodus, it says they were crying out to the Lord, they were beaten, they were starved by the Egyptians, they reduced their food and made them work harder than all the other slaves.
SPEAKER_00: They were not fed all of this food, they weren't just sitting around in luxury, it was misery.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, suddenly, when they're facing this uncertainty, it's like, oh, that was so good.
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to do that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: God gets us out of some situation or some way of thinking that's unhelpful.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, when we're in that vulnerable place of not quite sure of what it's going to look like yet, it's easy to go, that was better.
SPEAKER_01: When they were in Egypt, their male children were murdered.
SPEAKER_01: That was the instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Their food was withheld, they groaned before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But in the wilderness, it's so easy to forget what God has rescued you from.
SPEAKER_00: So easy to forget what a torment that insecurity or that performance spirit or that, you know, never good enough, or that, you know, obsession with things of the world, or whatever it was that God gets us out of.
SPEAKER_00: We forget how much that was soul destroying to us.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is that what these um what the children of Israel faced was hunger.
SPEAKER_00: And in the natural, hunger is a very strong drive, as all of us know.
SPEAKER_00: Like when you're really hungry, I don't mean you're just like looking for comfort food.
SPEAKER_00: I mean when you are hungry.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole physiology that kicks in that releases stress hormones, it releases adrenaline, it gives you capacity to run and seek for food and hunt and do all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It starts getting released through your body to flood it with energy to go and get food.
SPEAKER_00: And that same hormone will make you very irritable if you are not on the hunt for food.
SPEAKER_00: All of us know what it is to be hangry.
SPEAKER_00: When we're actually hungry, but we're snapping and irritated and cross.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, what our body wants is food or to move to get food.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I think everyone would know that when you're in that state, it's very easy to blame anyone that's in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Like, why isn't this ready?
SPEAKER_00: Why did I get held up at work?
SPEAKER_00: Why does this person want this?
SPEAKER_00: Why is there traffic on the road?
SPEAKER_00: And what it is is we're actually just wanting food.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is a whole nation, this is several million people hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if they had any food since they left Egypt, but it's now day 40.
SPEAKER_00: So they are really hungry, and they're in the middle of the wilderness with no capacity to fix that problem.
SPEAKER_00: And so they do what we all do, which is blame whoever's in front of them, and now it's God and Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.
SPEAKER_00: And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.
SPEAKER_00: Verse thirteen.
SPEAKER_00: So it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp, and when the layer of dew lifted there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it?
SPEAKER_00: For they did not know what it was, and Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is the thing which the Lord has commanded.
SPEAKER_00: Let every man gather it according to each one's needs, one Omar for each person, according to the number of persons, let every man take for those who are in his tent.
SPEAKER_00: Verse nineteen And Moses said, let no one leave any of it till morning.
SPEAKER_00: Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them.
SPEAKER_00: So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need, and when the sun became hot it melted.
SPEAKER_00: Verse thirty one and the house of Israel called its name manna, what is it?
SPEAKER_00: And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Lord did this for forty years until there were different lessons to be learned.
SPEAKER_00: For forty years, six days a week, this would appear.
SPEAKER_00: But he did it as a picture of the provision of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He did it as a picture of Jesus being the bread that came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So it's really important that we understand the principles around manner because it's just a shadow of what is coming in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing was they had no control on the manor.
SPEAKER_00: There was absolutely nothing they could do to make it come earlier, come at a different time, come in a greater measure, do anything.
SPEAKER_00: They could not control the bread.
SPEAKER_00: But what they were expected to do was to eagerly wait for it.
SPEAKER_00: Eagerly expect, morning after morning, this provision from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it had to be gathered every day.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like they could go, we can be a bit efficient about this.
SPEAKER_00: A few days a week, we'll get double, we'll make more bread.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: It was this constant process of day after day gathering it, and it couldn't be stored up.
SPEAKER_00: It just went rancid.
SPEAKER_00: It got wrecked, except on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: It was released each morning just before dawn.
SPEAKER_01: And the thing I like was that had bread in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't look like that.
SPEAKER_01: It looked different.
SPEAKER_01: It was this fine white, says it was like coriander seed, just covering the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was so fine, it wasn't something you could see from afar.
SPEAKER_00: Or the other tribes and people roaming around the desert, they would have tried to get some.
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't there, you didn't see it.
SPEAKER_01: If you weren't looking, you didn't see it.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone was to gather according to one's needs.
SPEAKER_00: One omar for each person.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know an omar is like ten cups?
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about tiny seeds on the ground, collecting ten cups of that every single morning is some effort.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just grab the loaf of bread and start eating.
SPEAKER_00: Bending down on the ground, picking up these tiny grains like seeds, ten cups for every person.
SPEAKER_00: And they had to collect that every day.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you had more people to feed, you needed to collect more.
SPEAKER_00: Was one omer per person in the house.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you were responsible to feed more people, you better collect more.
SPEAKER_01: And there was always enough.
SPEAKER_00: And the last detail was that it tasted like wafers with honey.
SPEAKER_00: It was sweet to the taste.
SPEAKER_00: Because his word is sweet to us.
SPEAKER_00: The presence of Jesus is sweet to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things are representative of God's word and the present of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We have to eagerly wait for it every day.
SPEAKER_00: It takes effort.
SPEAKER_00: It takes effort to press in and wait on him.
SPEAKER_00: It takes effort to seek his face.
SPEAKER_00: It takes effort to read the word and hunger for it.
SPEAKER_00: Hunger for truth out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Hunger for meaning for it from it.
SPEAKER_00: Wrestle with things you don't understand in it.
SPEAKER_00: It's an effort to meditate on it, gather it, study it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this manner was released early in the day and it melted away in the heat of the day.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not saying there's some rule about when to read the word, read it all day.
SPEAKER_00: Read it as often as you eat or more.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is that it was something that was to be collected before the heat of the day.
SPEAKER_00: And we are to feed of the word, receive the word, take in the word, search out the word before the pressure of the day gets in.
SPEAKER_00: Because once the pressure of life, the pressures of the day, the busyness of the day, whatever it is, that starts accumulating, I'm telling you, it melts away those moments with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It also, everyone had to gather it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened here.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone went out to get manna.
SPEAKER_00: All of us need to go out into the word, receive the word, pursue it, pursue the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And you get to get more if you're responsible for more people.
SPEAKER_00: So you take on loving people, ministering to people, praying for people in your life, eagerly wanting to share a word with someone, give this, do that, be part of this, minister in this way.
SPEAKER_00: You get to gather more.
SPEAKER_01: It's just the rules.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing sweeter than the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing more satisfying than the word.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me to Matthew 4.
SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna look at what this bread does.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit's quite happy to lead us into places of pressure.
SPEAKER_00: He leads us beside still waters, he also leads us into the valley of the shadow of death, because both are critical for what he's forming within us.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights afterwards, he was hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
SPEAKER_00: But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_00: I spoke last week on restraint and meekness, and this is such a beautiful picture of the meekness of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He could have turned those stones into bread, could have done anything.
SPEAKER_01: Restraint.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had fasted a long time.
SPEAKER_01: He's alone, he's hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's tempted.
SPEAKER_00: Because temptation is not when you're feeling strong and you're surrounded by people championing you.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is at your weakest moment.
SPEAKER_01: Temptation is when you feel most vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: And the question is if you're the son of God, it's always who are you?
SPEAKER_01: Who is God?
SPEAKER_01: If you're this, then why is this happening?
SPEAKER_00: If God loves you, or if God's trustworthy, why is this happening?
SPEAKER_00: It's always questioning our identity or the nature of God, and whether we're going to use power to try and fix our situation, or whether we're going to choose surrender and trust.
SPEAKER_00: And the temptation is to make these stones become bread.
SPEAKER_00: And the temptation matters.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I have a friend who lives in Israel, and she goes, I actually went to that place.
SPEAKER_00: And the stones there actually do look like bread.
SPEAKER_00: They actually look like bread.
SPEAKER_00: There's this whole place in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: And the way the form the stones are and lie and cluster together, it looks like loaves of bread.
SPEAKER_00: But the temptation is to take stones, those things that are used for barriers, for walls, for grinding, for crushing, and try and nourish it yourself with it.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's patterns of fear that you've kind of built walls around yourself, whether it's self-security, whether it's what you busy yourself with, whatever it is, can be useful things.
SPEAKER_00: Stones are useful things.
SPEAKER_00: But stones have a purpose, and that the purpose is not to nourish yourself.
SPEAKER_00: They can't feed you, they can't fulfill you, they can't satisfy you.
SPEAKER_01: Only bread can.
SPEAKER_00: Because he pointed to the true bread, what truly nourishes us.
SPEAKER_01: Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_01: Every word from God.
SPEAKER_00: Every word.
SPEAKER_00: How much do I want every word?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus wanted every word proceeding from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just happy, well, I heard something from God last week, so I'm kind of on a roll now.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I want every word.
SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, Father, give us that heart that we see the need for every word you have for us.
SPEAKER_00: Every word.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to miss one.
SPEAKER_00: We had to nourish ourselves on it, feast on it.
SPEAKER_00: It search for it, collect it, work with it, and let it become us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we all know that saying, we are what we eat, and there is no point hoping to starve yourself of the word and become strong.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna happen in the natural.
SPEAKER_00: You starve yourself, you won't be able to run, you won't be able to be strong, you won't be able to accomplish what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it's so easy to think that we can do that in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If we want to be strong, if we want to be able to accomplish things, if we want to be able to run our race, nutrition matters and the word matters.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus here had a genuine need.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't go, I'm not hungry.
SPEAKER_00: He was hungry.
SPEAKER_00: He just refused to be satisfied with the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_00: And we have genuine needs, all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We have genuine needs.
SPEAKER_00: Needs for connection, needs for breakthroughs, needs for wholeness in different areas, needs for um meaningful things to do, all of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's just we need to not try and make stone's bread.
SPEAKER_01: We need to not be satisfied by the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_01: Live by the words proceeding from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_01: I've thought about this and I thought there's two things about bread in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: One is it wasn't like our loaves of bread nicely sliced.
SPEAKER_00: Bread in the Bible was only ever as thick as your thumb.
SPEAKER_00: It was only like this.
SPEAKER_01: Even risen bread was like pizza dough kind of thickness.
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't something that you sliced.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't have these nice slices of bread.
SPEAKER_00: Bread was ripped in that culture.
SPEAKER_00: Bread was broken, bread was torn apart to consume, to share.
SPEAKER_00: It was a picture of Christ broken, ripped apart for us.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't nicely sliced.
SPEAKER_00: And when we come to the word of God and what he's saying to us and the presence of Jesus, we are to like pull and consume.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be sliced up nicely on a plate for you.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what is presented.
SPEAKER_00: Bread was presented that had to be torn and pulled apart and consumed.
SPEAKER_00: And bread in the Bible, I couldn't find a single reference.
SPEAKER_00: I may be wrong, but I could not find a single reference in the Bible where you could just where someone just went and bought bread.
SPEAKER_01: They either made it or received it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there was a capacity to buy bread, because when the crowds in the wilderness with Jesus, the disciples go, we even if we had all this money, we couldn't go and buy bread.
SPEAKER_00: But there's never an example I can find where someone bought bread.
SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot buy the word, you cannot buy engagement with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You're given it and you work with it.
SPEAKER_00: John six verse twenty-five.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
SPEAKER_00: Do not labor for the food which perishes, but the food which endures to an endure everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him.
SPEAKER_00: Then they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the words of God?
SPEAKER_00: It's like just give us something to do.
SPEAKER_00: Give us just give us a box to tick.
SPEAKER_00: Just give us these few rules, we'll tick that we'll feel good, we're done.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he sent.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't like that.
SPEAKER_00: So they said, Therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you?
SPEAKER_00: What work will you do?
SPEAKER_00: Our fathers ate the manor in the desert, as it was written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus explicitly describes himself as the bread that came down from heaven, the word proceeding out of the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Don't labor, don't toil for food or money, success, power, temporary things, because they perish.
SPEAKER_01: They're staying on the planet.
SPEAKER_01: Labor for that which endures to eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: The word labor means this: what you are committed to as priority, and what you will put effort and energy and strength into.
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God has called us to many arenas of society to serve him.
SPEAKER_00: That requires huge amounts of effort, huge amounts of diligence, training, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: All of that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But it's never to be prioritized over the hunger for his word, to toil for that which is part of everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: To know Jesus, to feed on him, to be strengthened by his word.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: And that word life is superlative.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, I get you through the day.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, I'll just give you a bit of energy, you can keep running a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what life means.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says, I'm the bread of life, this is what that Greek word means.
SPEAKER_00: You will be possessed of vitality, the absolute fullness of life.
SPEAKER_00: Life, real and genuine, active, vigorous, blessed, and devoted.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that word means.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's available when we consume the word.
SPEAKER_00: When we consume Jesus, not in neat little portions, torn apart, consumed.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, He who comes to me will never hunger, never be empty, never lacking, never weak.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on, verse forty seven.
SPEAKER_00: Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.
SPEAKER_00: This is the bread that comes down from heaven, that one may eat and not die.
SPEAKER_00: I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I will shall give for the life of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, there's no one who has vast access to resources that just stockpiles bread.
SPEAKER_01: No one, you know, like we don't read of Elon Musk like he stored up mansions full of bread.
SPEAKER_01: The only value of bread is to eat it or to give it to someone.
SPEAKER_01: There is no point in bread unless you eat it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a decoration.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, it can't be stored.
SPEAKER_00: It's of no value except to consume it.
SPEAKER_00: And so his word, his life, it's not designed to sit on a bookshelf.
SPEAKER_00: It's not designed to have read it once.
SPEAKER_00: It's not designed to just now and then pull it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's to be fed upon.
SPEAKER_00: His life becoming ours.
SPEAKER_00: We consuming it, and it's somehow like the bread you eat, it becomes who you are.
SPEAKER_00: You can never separate it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the word does.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes part of who you are, and it can never be removed from the very essence of who you are as a person.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said he gives it, he gives himself as the bread for the life of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say I've given myself as life, and it's just to be kept to the believers.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am I am that bread, and I am giving my body and my life for life to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And we need to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to read it because of time, but in you can read it in Exodus 40 and Numbers 4, it's talking about the construction of the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: And part of the tabernacle that represented our lives.
SPEAKER_01: The outer court, inner court, and then the holy of holies.
SPEAKER_01: And there was a table in the inner court or the holy place called the table of showbread.
SPEAKER_01: And it was constructed the same height as the ark.
SPEAKER_00: Because communion with Christ is of equal value as that ark that carried the presence of God, the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: They were designed exactly the same.
SPEAKER_00: And the table was carved of wood and was overlaid with gold, because it was a picture of Christ, man and God, wood and gold.
SPEAKER_00: And on that table were two crowns.
SPEAKER_00: And why were there two crowns?
SPEAKER_00: Because it represented that he is king in heaven and king on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He's crowned with authority in both realms.
SPEAKER_00: And that table of showbread carried twelve loaves in two rows.
SPEAKER_01: It was precise, it was exact.
SPEAKER_01: It represented the twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_00: And even though those tribes in the natural different sizes, some were really big tribes, some were small tribes, different tribes had different callings.
SPEAKER_00: Some were worshippers, some were priests, some were farmers, some were this, some were that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but the bread, those loaves were exactly the same size.
SPEAKER_01: Because the weakest and the strongest are all carrying Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have public ministry, some of us have private, some of us have you know wider influence, some have less.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is carrying the same measure of Christ, our bread.
SPEAKER_00: And it had to be made again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know when the priests made those loaves of bread and had to knead it by hand?
SPEAKER_00: There was 254 cups of flour that they needed.
SPEAKER_00: Like Zachie makes pizza like once a week, usually.
SPEAKER_00: And that's like four cups, maybe five cups of flour.
SPEAKER_00: And even that you wouldn't want to need by hand.
SPEAKER_00: And they had to need 254 cups of flour week after week after week.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was this picture of what it is to have Christ worked within us, worked within our community, worked within our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's a process that takes effort.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6, 11, part of the prayer was, give us today our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: He's already said, when you pray, don't be like the Gentiles just rabbiting off needs.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think he's talking about, can you give us our groceries this week?
SPEAKER_00: I'm fine to pray that.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's God, give us today your word.
SPEAKER_00: Give us today the revelation of you that we need for ourselves and for those around us.
SPEAKER_00: And I, for one, just want that to be part of my prayer, part of my thinking day after day.
SPEAKER_00: God, give me your word for today.
SPEAKER_00: Give me your word to go and feed people with.
SPEAKER_00: The people at work, the people at the cash register, just give me your word.
SPEAKER_01: Because the word does something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna read it just now.
SPEAKER_00: You can read it later.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Judges 7, verse 12 to 14.
SPEAKER_00: But Gideon has got a massive army on his hands, and it's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: And he's scared, he's afraid.
SPEAKER_00: He knows the Lord has said, I'm gonna bring deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: These people were just destroying the whole nation, invading them, taking all their crops.
SPEAKER_00: Something had to be done.
SPEAKER_00: And then Gideon sneaks down into the opposite army's camp, and he hears this guy saying he's had a dream.
SPEAKER_00: And in the dream, he sees these loaf of bread tumbling down into the enemy army camp.
SPEAKER_00: So this is one of the Midianites, and they're like telling this dream, and in the dream, the bread came and hit the Midianite army, and one of the other Midianites goes, Oh, I know what that is.
SPEAKER_01: That's Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: And God uses it to show Gideon, I am going to bring freedom from this oppression.
SPEAKER_00: And he does.
SPEAKER_00: They all get confused, run away, and their Israel is left in peace.
SPEAKER_00: But it is a picture that Christ comes and strikes what the enemy is trying to do in our life.
SPEAKER_00: It tumbles down and strikes those lies that we believe, those situations that are against us.
SPEAKER_00: The bread tumbled down.
SPEAKER_00: The dream was not Gideon came and had this really crazy plan that worked.
SPEAKER_00: The plan was the bread came down.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes and brings freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us the breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot fight in our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: We overcome with his word, striking the situation.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 15, 21 to 27, there's a woman of Canaan, and her daughter is under oppression.
SPEAKER_00: She needs deliverance and healing.
SPEAKER_00: And she's begging Jesus, who says, You're not a Jew right now.
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm called to the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: But she won't stop.
SPEAKER_00: And she won't stop, and she won't stop.
SPEAKER_00: And she pushes him.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, It's not good to give the children's bread to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: The children's bread was healing.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Yeah, but I'll take the crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take the crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: Such faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is what the word is.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just deliverance, it's healing.
SPEAKER_01: It's healing for whoever will take it.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to end with these few things.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew 15, verse 32, Jesus has been teaching and the crowds are hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus called his disciples to himself and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with me three days with nothing to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: People so hungry to hear the word of the Lord that they just stay there day after day after day without food.
SPEAKER_00: Because they just so want to hear what Jesus is speaking.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I do not want to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way.
SPEAKER_00: Then his disciples said to him, But where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to feed such a great multitude?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, How many loaves do you have?
SPEAKER_01: You know the story.
SPEAKER_01: But the question remains, how many loaves do you have?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you have, Jesus will work with.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to the disciples, you give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_01: You, you give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_01: There's crowds waiting.
SPEAKER_01: Fifty thousand people in this city.
SPEAKER_01: How many loaves have you got?
SPEAKER_01: There's people needing healing.
SPEAKER_01: There's people needing deliverance for themselves or their loved ones.
SPEAKER_00: There's things that the enemy has encamped around people's lives that needs to be dismantled with the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know what turned the prodigal son?
SPEAKER_00: Says in Luke 15, 17, he said, How many of my father's servants have bread to spare?
SPEAKER_01: And he came back.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be known as a people who have bread to spare.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be known as a people that have plenty of crumbs, plenty of food to hand out.
SPEAKER_01: In Luke 11, verse 5, I'm just going to read this and end with this.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus' teaching on prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He's just taught them the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the next sentence.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a different discussion, it's not a different day.
SPEAKER_00: It's one conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves.
SPEAKER_00: For a friend of mine has come to me on his long journey, and I have nothing to set before him.
SPEAKER_00: And he will answer from within and say, Don't trouble me, the door is now shut, my children are in bed with me, I cannot rise and give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: I say to you, though, he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him bread.
SPEAKER_00: As many
SPEAKER_01: Loaves as he needs.
SPEAKER_01: We've all got friends on long journeys.
SPEAKER_00: We know some of them and we don't know some of them.
SPEAKER_00: But they're coming.
SPEAKER_00: They're coming into our lives and they need bread.
SPEAKER_00: And this teaching in prayer is you go, you go and you ask until you have bread to feed the people that are coming on their journey.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe we don't have enough now.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel like I don't have anything to offer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to share Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to share the word with people.
SPEAKER_00: Then ask.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: This is his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Come in and persevere and ask and ask and ask until you have bread to share with your friends, with your colleagues, with your neighbors, with strangers, until you have bread to go and say, here, come on in.
SPEAKER_00: You've been on a long journey, and I have food for you.
SPEAKER_01: He has been given to us.
SPEAKER_00: And we're to consume him daily.
SPEAKER_00: But we're to more than just consume what we need for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We have legal right to go and get enough to feed everyone in the house.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone that you influence.
SPEAKER_00: And you might go, I don't, I don't really influence too many people.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I read a study yesterday, sociology study, I think it was Erkman or something, it was some leadership study.
SPEAKER_00: They said even the most introverted individual, when they've studied it, influences about 10,000 people in their life.
SPEAKER_00: The most introverted person.
SPEAKER_00: The person who thinks they don't really have any friends, works alone, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: 10,000 people that person will influence.
SPEAKER_00: Just conversation at the shop.
SPEAKER_01: How you treat people day to day, how you interact.
SPEAKER_01: 10,000 people are coming to your house.
SPEAKER_00: And for most people, it's way more than that.
SPEAKER_00: We just underestimate the influence we have in doing life.
SPEAKER_00: How we speak to people, how we love people, how we pray for them, how we interact, how we connect.
SPEAKER_01: And there's many people who've been on a long journey.
SPEAKER_01: And they're hungry.
SPEAKER_01: And when they're hungry, their behavior isn't always pleasant.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't always lovely.
SPEAKER_00: But what they need is bread.
SPEAKER_01: What they need is the word.
SPEAKER_01: What they need is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to be a people with lots of loaves.
SPEAKER_01: So let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we just thank you for your presence and your word that we treasure.
SPEAKER_00: We treasure.
SPEAKER_00: But God, we want to be a people that are out every morning gaining your word, gleaning your word, feeding on your word, preparing bread for others with your word.
SPEAKER_01: With your presence, God, we ask.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that you would give us a heart to feed people and feed ourselves with true life, true vitality.
SPEAKER_00: Because you said you are the bread of heaven that has come down to give life to the world.
SPEAKER_00: So we get to give you to the world.
SPEAKER_00: We get to provide the world with you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I ask that you'd give us eyes to see God, the people around us, the conversations, the possibilities.
SPEAKER_00: I ask that we wouldn't just walk along unaware, but we would be like your son that wanted every word proceeding from your mouth, Father.
SPEAKER_00: Every word that you have for the people around us, every word that you are in yourself, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: God, I ask that you would open up our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Jesus and knowing him, how he comes in to set people free, comes in to dismantle the works of darkness, comes in to bring healing, comes in to bring nourishment and truth and wholeness.
SPEAKER_00: God, I ask that we would be a people that just labor for your word, for eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, that we would be well fed in this house, nourished with good food of your word.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, I also ask that we would be feeding many with our lives, with our testimonies, with our love, with your healing, with your grace, with your power, with your truth, God.
SPEAKER_01: We love you, Lord.
unknown: Amen.