What's on Your Bread Plate?

Okay, it's great to see everybody here. Okay, good. Well, hope everyone had a wonderful night to be much remembered or observed. If you remember where you were last night. And I hope you all had a wonderful Passover as well. Connie and I were blessed to go up to Frisco up in the mountains. Always have an enjoyable trip. Well, I shouldn't say always because sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate, but just a beautiful drive up there this week. And it is wonderful to be here with all of you here on this first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, one of God's sacred appointments with His people.

And today we begin the cycle, our annual cycle, of God's Holy Days that teach us, as we just heard during the special music here, of God's plan to offer salvation to all of mankind, starting with the Passover sacrifice of Jesus Christ and with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. There's a commercial that's been very popular lately where the announcer asks, what's in your wallet? And the point of the commercial is to let you know that if you're not carrying the right credit card in your wallet, you're just not with it.

You're missing out. Your spouse doesn't like you. Your kids don't like you. Your dog probably doesn't even like you. You're a world-class loser who is probably not even intelligent enough to turn on the TV to be able to watch this commercial. So if you don't want to be a total loser, you need to carry our credit card in your wallet. That's a little bit hyperbolic here, but I must admit it's a rather catchy question. And today I would like to rephrase the question in line with today and what this coming week represents.

And my question isn't what's in your wallet, but what's on your bread plate? What's on your bread plate? We pay a lot of attention to our bread plates this time of year, as we should. So what's on your bread plate? What will you be eating this week? For that matter, what will you be eating next week? For that matter, what will you be eating the rest of your life when it comes to bread?

What's on your bread plate this week and next week and the rest of your life? And the answer to what's on our bread plate this week should be pretty obvious because, after all, what's the name of this feast that we are here to observe? It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Feast of Unleavened Bread.

It is not the Feast of not eating lemon bread. It is not the Feast of no lemon bread. It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now, why do I mention that? Well, I mention that because, during this feast, there is great symbolism, great significance placed on two important symbols. One being leaven, which we are to avoid, and the other being unleavened bread, which we are commanded to eat.

Let's notice some of the biblical instruction regarding this feast. I won't read all of the verses. There are many of them, but I would like to read just a few representative verses here from God's instructions about this particular feast. First one, Exodus 12, and I'm going through these very quickly just to make a point.

Exodus 12, 17-20. So, you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, that evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month, that evening. You shall eat nothing leavened in all your dwellings. You shall eat unleavened bread. Exodus 13, 6-7. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord.

Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. Exodus 34, 18. The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. Leviticus 23, 6.

On the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord. Seven days, you must eat unleavened bread. And a final one, Numbers 28, verse 17. On the fifteenth day of this month is the Feast. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. Do you notice a pattern here? And what is the pattern? Well, it's pretty obvious. Notice the repeated command to eat unleavened bread. You shall eat unleavened bread. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. Is there a message here for us?

Is God trying to tell us something? Obviously so. And again, it's reflected in the name of this Feast. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, not the Feast of No-Leavened Bread. Not the Feast of Avoiding Leavened Bread. Why do I draw that distinction? Well, I draw that distinction because most of our focus during this time of year is on avoiding leavening. Avoiding leavening. And that's what we've mostly focused on over the years.

And there's nothing wrong with that because it's very clear from God's commands. We are to avoid leavening, that we are to understand the symbolism of leavening and what it represents, representing sin, and that we need to avoid that. So please don't get me wrong. We want to be very clear about that. My point, though, in emphasizing what I'm going through here is that maybe we're neglecting, to some extent, the other side of the picture.

And perhaps we haven't fully appreciated or understood, to the extent that we should, appreciated the symbolism of unleavened bread. And that we are to be partaking of that throughout this seven-day feast. And that brings us back to the title of this sermon. What's on your bread plate? What's on your bread plate?

As we see from the numerous commands that I read through there, there's considerably more emphasis on eating leavened bread than on avoiding unleavened bread. And in fact, all the verses that I read there, emphasizes, or they first mentioned, eating unleavened bread before they say anything about avoiding leavened bread. So why is that? Again, it's because God wants us to learn something from that. So is there a part of the picture that maybe we haven't fully appreciated to the extent that we should?

And it all boils down to, I think there is a point to that, and it all boils down to understanding what the unleavened bread that we are commanded to eat during this seven-day feast pictures. Now, if I ask all of you to explain what leavening represents during the feast, we could all answer that quite readily.

You would probably say it represents sin, and you would be absolutely correct in that. But if I ask you what unleavened bread represents during the feast, what would be your answer? What would be your answer about that? You might say it represents leaving Egypt in haste, which is true. That's what it represented for the ancient Israelites. You might also think of 1 Corinthians 5 and verses 6-8. We heard about this during the sermonette here. Where Paul says, your glory is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. Since you truly are unleavened, for Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Again, we just heard about that. Sincerity, the importance of that. So here we see that unleavened bread does clearly represent sincerity. Genuineness, genuineness of intent and truth. Doing what is right and good and what God tells us to do, but how do we do that?

And does unleavened bread represent more than just sincerity and truth that are mentioned here? Is being sincere and being truthful all there is to living as a Christian? Surely there's a little bit more to living as a Christian than just sincerity and truth. We know there's much more involved to it than that. So is there more to the symbolism of unleavened bread than just sincerity and truth?

Let's think about something else here. Let's shift gears a little bit. We just read from the Gospel of John a lot, Passover evening, just two nights ago. But have you ever noticed that in the Gospel of John and talking about Christ's last Passover with the Apostles, John gives a lot of detail that the other Apostles don't, that the other Gospel writers don't talk about Matthew, Mark and Luke. And to me it's obvious when John wrote his Gospel, he had Matthew, Mark and Luke's Gospels there, and he deliberately chooses to avoid covering the same territory that they have covered.

So what does John talk about at that last Passover Christ with his disciples? He talks about the foot washing, which neither Matthew, Mark or Luke mention. Then John does what? He skips right over the bread and the wine and gets into very detailed instructions that Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles there on that last evening together. You can readily easily see that for yourself in John, chapters 13 through 17. But why does John skip over the bread and wine, something that is so important and doesn't explain them in his Gospel account?

Why does he do that? If you ever ask yourself that. Well, actually, again, in hindsight, he is deliberately choosing not to cover the same ground that Matthew, Mark and Luke covered, but also he doesn't need to explain the significance of the bread and the wine because he's already covered that elsewhere in his Gospel.

He's already talked about the meaning of bread and wine in much greater detail. He's covered that back in John, chapter 6. So if we want to understand the significance of the symbolism of the unleavened bread that we partake of during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we need to understand what Jesus Christ himself said about the significance of the bread back in John, chapter 6. So let's turn there and go through this.

We again read through some of these verses here at Passover. But let's go into this and do a bit of a deep dive into that today. John, chapter 6, verse 1, we'll begin reading there. After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Then a great multitude followed him because they saw his signs, or miracles, which he performed on those who were diseased. They've seen Jesus heal all kinds of illnesses and afflictions, blindness, lameness, leprosy, things like that.

And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. So notice the timing of that. John gives us this detail, that it is shortly before the Passover in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And this helps us also understand why there is this great multitude that is referred to several times here.

Because the people are gathering there, and they're going to make the pilgrimage feast down to Jerusalem to keep the Passover feast and the Days of Unleavened Bread in Jerusalem. So keep this timing in mind as we read through what happens in this account that John has recorded for us. Verse 5, then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward him, he said to Philip, Where shall we buy bread that these shall eat? May eat, rather. Why does Jesus ask Philip? One of his disciples? Well, because Philip is from the village of Betziah, which is very near where this takes place.

But this, Jesus said, detest Philip, for he himself knew what he would do. He knows what he's planning there, but he hasn't let the others in on it. And Philip answered Jesus, 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little. This is the size of this crowd. The amount of money that's talked about here is roughly about $40,000 in today's currency. So Philip says, in essence, $40,000 worth of bread isn't enough to feed this crowd.

So what are we going to do? So this gives us some idea of the size of the crowd. $40,000 worth of bread wouldn't feed the crowd there. Continuing, one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Jesus, There's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many people?

Then Jesus said, Make the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down and numbered about 5,000. So about 5,000 men not counting women and children, probably a crowd somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 to 15,000 people. Verse 11, And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down, and likewise, of the fish, as much as they wanted.

So when they were filled, he said to his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost. Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. So this is one of Jesus Christ's greatest miracles, where he multiplies five barley loaves, I think of something about yea big, and two small fish to feed five thousand men, plus women and children, thousands of people.

And skipping down to verse 22, so there's that miracle, now we come to the following day. On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea, the Sea of Galilee, saw that there was no other boat there except that one which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. However, other boats came from Tiberias, near the place where they ate bread, after the Lord had given thanks.

When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. So this crowd is being drawn to Jesus and looking for him, following him. And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus answered and said, Most assuredly I see to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, the miracles, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. So here we see that people are coming to Jesus for different reasons.

Some people are coming to be healed. Some people are coming to hear his teaching. They are sincere about that. But some are coming just for the physical benefits of following him around. In other words, they want a free meal. As it happened yesterday, they got their bellies filled with the bread and the fish. They got a free meal, free fish sandwich, you might say. They are all you can eat, special. And now we see something that happens quite often in Christ's ministry, that he uses the setting or the circumstances for a teaching opportunity to impart a vital spiritual lesson.

So notice what he says, verse 27, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. So what Jesus tells the crowd there is they need to get their priority straight.

They need to get their priority straight, that they should focus not on the food that is temporary, that they ate yesterday, that would hold them over until their next meal, but they need to focus on something much bigger and something much more important. That rather than focus on filling their stomachs with their next meal, they need to focus on filling the other vacuum. Not the vacuum in their stomachs, but the vacuum in their lives. The whole that exists in every human being that only God can fill.

That's what they really need to focus on, is what Jesus tells them. And here we see also, notice Jesus says, verse 27, top line here, Do not labor, he says, labor for the right things. What is labor? What does labor mean? Well, it means you have to work at it. It means you have to work on it, that it takes effort. Even though God's gift of salvation is a free gift, it takes effort.

It takes labor. It's something we are to pursue. We have to labor for that food that leads to eternal life. And his point is that eternal life is something we have to work for, that has to be pursued. That we have to strive for, that we have to put effort into if we are to receive that free gift. Yes, it's a free gift, but God just doesn't dump it out on anybody. We have to pursue it. We have to labor for it. Verse 28, Then they and the crowd said to Jesus, What shall we do that we may work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. Therefore they said to Him, What sign or miracle will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? So we see here again some of the motivations for people following Him or seeking after Him, these crowds.

Some of them want to see a sign here, a miracle from Him. And of course, He had just performed this great miracle the day before. Some of these people had been a part of that. Others had probably heard about it, and that increased the size of the crowd coming here. They had heard about this miracle of multiplying the loaves and the fishes there to feed thousands of people. And then they say, verse 31, Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now, why did they say this? Why did they throw this in now into the conversation about manna in the desert?

Well, because the previous day, what had they seen? They'd seen a very similar miracle, where Jesus had multiplied food out of five loaves and two fish to feed thousands of people. They'd seen a great multiplication of food. And what they seem to be hinting at here, the way I read this account, they seem to be strongly hinting that He repeat that miracle. In other words, to give them all a free meal again.

Or maybe, the way this word is a little ambiguous, maybe that if He really is the Messiah, then He ought to be able to repeat the miracle that God had done with Moses by giving Him the miracle. By giving Him manna to eat. So I think that's what's going on. If He really is the Messiah, repeat the miracle that God had done in giving the Israelites their ancestors manna to eat 1500 years earlier. 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.

So Jesus now plays off the fact that the Feast of Unleavened Bread is about to begin, and He plays off their statement about God having given the Israelites manna to eat for 40 years back in the wilderness 15 centuries earlier. So He comes back with a statement that challenges them. He first says that it wasn't Moses who gave them the manna that it was God who gave the manna. And further, He says that the manna was only symbolic of something much better, something much more important, which is the bread that comes down from heaven.

And then He says, verse 33, For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. What's He saying here? He's saying here that God is going to give something much better than physical manna, because they had the physical manna for 40 years. But He is going to give the bread of God that gives life to the world, not just to the Israelites, but to the entire world.

God is going to give this gift of the bread of God. And then they said to Him, verse 34, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. So Jesus speaks here with authority, claiming to be the true bread from heaven.

And notice the three different phrases that He uses here. Bread from heaven, the bread of God, the bread of life. And this bread from God that God would provide would do much more than satisfy just their physical hunger. Satisfy them for a few hours or a day or so until they get their next meal. This would be a bread, a gift from God, that would satisfy the much deeper spiritual hunger. The hole that exists in every human being that can only be filled by God.

That spiritual vacuum that exists in every human being. And we need to understand these words in their original context, what they meant to those who heard them then and there, if we're to properly understand their significance for us today. So what did bread mean for the average person there at that time? First of all, bread was a staple of their diet. Probably the most common staple of their diet because it was cheap, it was readily available. It came from grain, from barley or wheat there. And bread was eaten at virtually every meal.

That would have been a main part of every meal. It was so common that we see this euphemism used in the New Testament a number of times about breaking bread. That was a synonym for eating a meal because bread is the meal, essentially there.

And the words bread and food are synonymous. We see that a number of times in the New Testament as well. Also, eating utensils, among the Jews, actually outside the Romans, eating utensils hadn't really come into common use at that time. So how did you eat your meals? Typically you would take the bread, you would break off a piece of it, and you would scoop it into the dish and eat it.

And that was kind of a scoop, kind of a spoon type thing. You ate with your bread. You didn't have knife, fork and spoon. It didn't become common until centuries later there, outside of the Romans there. So also if you went on a journey, if you're traveling all day to the next town or village, what would you take with you? Well, you'd have a little bag and in it you put a loaf of bread, you'd put maybe some cheese, maybe some dates, something like that. So that was your lunch. That was what you could carry with you and eat along the way.

So that was very common as well. And among the women at that time, a large part of their day was preparing bread, grinding the grains in a millstone, which is referred to a number of times in the Gospels as well. Grinding the grain into flour so that you could bake bread. That was, again, their most common food source. So that was a major part of every woman's work, workload every day, was making bread for their family. So bread was a key part of life throughout their day and it meant literally everything to the people of that day.

Bread was the biggest part of their diet. It was what sustained their lives. Bread, they would understand when Jesus talks about bread being life because if you didn't have bread, you starved to death. That was the biggest part of your diet. People rarely ate meat. They're in first century Judea. Basically the only times they would get meat to eat is part of the sacrifices.

The fellowship offering, when they would go to the temple to offer a fellowship offering here. That is why a couple of common phrases we see in the Gospels, give us this day our daily bread, part of the Lord's Prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. We eat bread daily. Give us that.

So we don't starve. That's also why Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Again, bread is so common. There is part of their diet there. Bread is mentioned more than 60 times in the Gospels. So it's very, very common. They also had a special prayer that they offered before every meal. And it went like this, Baruch atah adonai alchhinon, melecha alam, hamotze lehem menharretz.

In English, that is, blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives us bread from the earth. The bread that would grow up. It's a miracle every day that grain grows. God gives bread out of dirt. Gives what would sustain them. So this was a prayer that they offered before every meal to thank God for giving them bread from the earth. So this prayer was said before every meal, but it was also said at a very special time during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Because the Feast of Unleavened Bread marked the beginning of what? Marked the beginning of the barley harvest. Three harvests in the land of Israel. The first one is the barley harvest. It's the first grain that ripens. Pentecost is when the wheat harvest ripens. And then Feast of Tabernacles is when the fruits ripen. The grapes, the dates, apricots, things like that. So this was very important. They could not harvest the barley crop until after a particular ceremony. The wave sheath offering, which we understand represents Jesus Christ's resurrection. But when did the wave sheath offering take place?

It took place on Saturday evening, the Sabbath that fell during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So in Israel tonight, some Jews, after sundown, after the sun is set, after the weekly Sabbath of the Days of Unleavened Bread, will be doing the wave sheath offering.

They will go out, they will take a sickle, they will cut some barley harvest, and they will offer that to God. There. So in Israel, this will be taking place this evening. It's already happened by now. But in the first century, as the Jews cut the barley to be offered in the wave sheath offering, they offered this same prayer. Baruch atah aranai elohinu melech ha'olam ha'mozie lehem min ha'retz. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who gives us bread from the earth.

They would offer that, and thanks for the beginning of the barley harvest, the grain that would keep them alive through the coming year. Let's back off and think about the timing of this. When was Jesus placed in the tomb, in the earth? Just before the beginning of the first day of Unleavened Bread.

When was He resurrected to life? Three days and three nights later, when He's in the tomb. He's placed within the heart of the earth, shortly before sundown, before that first holy day, three days and three nights later, He's resurrected to life. Shortly before sundown. Shortly before the ending of that Sabbath that fell during the days of Unleavened Bread. What did the Jews say shortly after sundown, when they began the barley harvest?

They say, blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives us bread from the earth. What bread of life had sprung from the earth shortly before they said that prayer? The bread of life. The true bread of life, Jesus the Messiah, who had just been resurrected to life from the heart of the earth. Just perhaps a few hours earlier. After having been in the tomb three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So the Israelites of that day thanked God for bread from the earth, as God the Father gave to all mankind the true bread of life.

Jesus Christ now resurrected from the grave. God gave them bread from the earth that was far, far more valuable than any firstfruits of the barley harvest. And of course, again, the way sheaf offering represented Jesus Christ's ascension to God the Father. Notice again the terms Jesus uses to refer to himself, bread from heaven. The bread of God and bread of life. What he's saying here is that just his physical bread is essential for physical life.

He was the bread of God and the bread from heaven and the bread of life that is essential for our spiritual and eternal life. He is so essential that without him we do not have and cannot have eternal life. That's what those terms mean. Skipping down in John 6 down to verse 47, we'll continue here. It continues this thing, most assuredly I say to you that he who believes in me has everlasting life. Now in that first century culture, believing and acting on what you believed are inseparable.

Because if you believe something, you are absolutely obligated to live according to that belief. You have to act on that belief and live accordingly. If you believe that God exists and he is real, that wasn't just a nice thought you kept in your mind that didn't affect how you lived your life. No. If you believe that God existed, you had to obey God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Because that's what his Word told you to do. This is why the Apostle James writes faith without works is dead. And he writes, even the demons believe and tremble. You've got to live according to what your belief and your works have to demonstrate what you believe. Because believing in something requires that you live according to that faith and that belief. They require action. They require commitment. They require that you live out that faith and belief in every aspect of your life.

So if you believe, as Jesus is here, who believes in me? If you believe Jesus is Messiah, if you believe he is the Son of God, if you believe he is your rabbi and teach your sin from God, that means you have to do everything in your power to become like him in every way.

Just like him, as I've talked about before with the disciple and rabbi relationship, the point of being a disciple wasn't just to learn what the rabbi knew. It was to become like your rabbi in every way. In every way possible. You didn't just want to know what he taught, but to become like him. That was the whole point. And that is what Jesus Christ means when he says, Here, he who believes in me has everlasting life. Because if you believe he is the Messiah, if you believe he is the Son of God, then obviously you are going to live your life that way.

Otherwise, you're a hypocrite. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite. And it is only in living that way, Jesus says, that we can have everlasting life. Continuing in verse 48, I am the bread of life. So when he talks about life here, what does he mean? Well, he's talking obviously about eternal life. He's talking about salvation. And we all know that all of God's holy days, God's festivals, are about God's plan for salvation. That's why we're here, to act out God's plan of salvation that begins with what? With the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God to pay the penalty for our sins, which we commemorated at Passover. It begins with this, and then what's the next step? The next step is getting rid of the leaven, getting rid of the sin in our lives.

But how do we remove leaven from our lives? Well, the way we do it is by putting unleavened bread into our lives. It's like this cup here, this glass here. If you want to get air out of a glass, what's the easiest way to get the air out?

You sit there and suck on it all day, and it's not going to work. No, pour something else in, and all the air is moved out of the glass. You have to replace what is there that shouldn't be there, the leavening of sin and unrighteousness, and replace it with the true unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ, the bread of life. Continuing, verse 49, Your fathers, he's talking again to the Jewish crowd there, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.

So, in other words, a lot of good that did them. They ate the manna for 40 years, and what happened? They all died in the wilderness because they lacked faith. They didn't believe God. They didn't trust God. They didn't obey God. They didn't believe, and they died out. And the thousands of people who are gathered there in the multitude hearing Jesus now, the thousands who had eaten the day before, the miraculously provided barley loaves and fish, would also die just like their forefathers did in the wilderness unless they learned the spiritual lesson of the true bread of life.

And continuing, he expands on this theme, verse 50, This is the bread of life which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die, in contrast to the Israelites who ate the manna and did die for their lack of faith. He says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at that last day. He is clearly talking about eternal life, not just physical life. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.

And let's talk about this phrase here, feeds on me for just a little bit here. That's talking about something much more than just that little piece of unleavened bread that we take at the Passover service, or the relatively small amount of unleavened bread that we'll eat during this coming week.

Jesus says, You need to feed on me. We have to feed on him all the time because he is our daily bread. He is our daily bread of life. We have to seek him. We have to hunger and thirst for him. And if we don't do that, what does he say? He says, You have no life in you. You have no life in you. Verse 58, referring to himself again, This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead, he who eats this bread will live forever. So what Jesus says here freaks out a lot of people there.

A few verses later, John tells us that the people who had been, many of the people who had been following him up to this point, turn away. And they don't follow him anymore because this is a hard saying. No question about that. They didn't, but they didn't understand that Jesus is speaking symbolically to teach them a greater spiritual truth. And in the same way, when he talks about drinking his blood, they also freak out because they know that drinking blood is forbidden. Let's notice a few verses, Genesis 9, verse 4. You shall not eat flesh with its life that is its blood.

Deuteronomy 12, 23. Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life. Leviticus 17, 14. You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Notice the reason that is given in all three of these verses, why you're not to eat flesh with blood in it. Because the life is in the blood. And to the audience that Jesus is speaking to, blood represents life. They saw it in that day all too often.

They would see somebody who has an accident, maybe a compound fracture of the leg or something, and the blood is pouring out of an open wound, or perhaps had seen men in battle and seen men wounded and injured, and the blood gushing out, or they had all gone to the temple and seen the sacrifices. And seen the animals throat slashed, and the blood gushing out. And they knew firsthand that life resides in the blood. And when the blood gushes out and empties out, the life of that person or that creature or that sacrifice is ended too.

They know the life is in the blood. Because when the blood is gone, the life is gone. And they understand that Scripture clearly because it's spelled out here in Scripture. That the life is in the blood, and they are not to eat blood, so it is abhorrent to them that Jesus tells them they need to drink his blood.

But what did he mean? He obviously wasn't talking about literally drinking his blood. We know he is speaking figuratively and symbolically. So what does it mean, figuratively and symbolically, when Jesus says we must drink his blood? Well, one meaning we covered two nights ago at Passover. The wine represents his blood that was poured out as a sacrifice to cover our sins, to reconcile us to God. We took that tiny cup of wine that symbolizes his blood to cover the penalty for our sins, that we might receive God's forgiveness and be reconciled. But think also about these Scriptures we just saw here, telling us that the life is in the blood. Is there another layer of meaning in what Jesus Christ said here in John 6 that maybe we're missing? Well, I think there is. Let's look at it again, verse 53.

Jesus says, Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. There's no equivocating here by Jesus Christ. He says, unless we eat his flesh, unless we drink his blood, we have no life. But if we do that, we do have eternal life, and he will raise us up the last day in the resurrection of the righteous at his return. And then he says, verse 55, For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides or lives or dwells in me, and I in him. This word abide means to remain or to live in or to dwell in. So what this is telling us, what Jesus is telling us, is that if we eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood, we remain, we live in and dwell in him, and he remains or lives in or dwells in us. So if blood is equated with life, which we saw from those three passages, and the one who became Jesus Christ is the one who inspired these passages to be written for us, are we seeing another layer of meaning here? Yes, I believe we are. What Jesus is telling here is we have to take his life, symbolized by his blood, shed for us, into the very heart and core and center of our being.

And he says that when that we must drink his blood as represented by the wine at Passover, what he's saying is we must take his life again into the very heart and core and center of our minds and our being. That our life and his life become essentially one and the same. That's what it means when he says he abides in us and we abide in him, that our lives become intertwined. One and the same. We live in him and he lives in us. As he says right here. Continuing, verse 57, As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. And feeds on me again doesn't mean just taking that one little piece of unleavened bread that we take at Passover every year, or the small amount of unleavened bread that we'll eat during this coming week. No, we have to feed on Christ continually. All the time. We have to seek him. We have to hunger and thirst after him every day.

How long is a feast of unleavened bread? Seven days. What does a number seven symbolize in the Bible? It symbolizes perfection, completeness, completion. We eat seven, we eat unleavened bread for seven days to symbolize that we are taking Christ life into our lives all the time.

Completely to completion. That's the picture of the seven days of this feast.

Continuing, verse 58, This is the bread which came down from heaven, again, speaking of himself. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. He keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. He doesn't mince words. If you want to live forever, you have to partake of the true bread of life, the bread of God, the bread that came down from heaven, which is me. You have to make me a key part of your life. You have to pursue it. You have to feed on me all the time. If you want God's gift of eternal life, what does that mean?

What does it mean? We've probably all heard the term about internalizing something. Think about it this way. We all have a Bible probably there on your lap. It contains many, many examples teaching instruction written down for us to learn from. But if we don't read from this book, if your Bible looks like this, how much good is it doing here? How much good is it doing to you? If you don't read it and you don't study it, it's just a paperweight. It's just a paperweight sitting there on your desk or bookshelf, reading it on red, gathering dust. It doesn't do anybody any good. It doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do anybody else any good. It's just so useless. But if you take that book and you read that book and you study that book and you ask God to help you to learn from that book and everything that He has recorded in there for you and you make it a part of your life and you internalize it and it affects your thinking every minute of every day, then you are internalizing the Bible. You remember the stories. You remember the examples. You remember Bible verses. You remember instructions. You remember commands. You feed your heart and your mind and your soul on Scripture by reading and studying it regularly. And you're feeding on it, as Christ said. And you're internalizing it. It's becoming a part of you, a very part of your mind and your thinking. But it takes time. It takes pursuing it. It takes effort. It takes work. It doesn't happen miraculously. That's why Jesus says, you have to feed on me. You have to labor for the true bread. It takes work. It takes effort. It's something... It doesn't happen miraculously. Yes, it is a miracle that God opens our mind and helps us to understand these things. But you have to read and study it first. Because God won't help us to recall and to understand what we've never read or never studied in the first place. We read the promise from John's Gospel the other night at Passover. Christ's promise of the Holy Spirit, it will bring to mind all things. If we're not reading God's Word, how does God's Spirit have anything to bring to mind? Because it's not there. It's never been put in our minds.

So how does that apply to feeding on or eating the unleavened bread? That is Jesus Christ. Well, it means we have to take Him into our lives.

Again, to use the analogy of the rabbi in the Talmadiim in the first century, what was the goal of the Talmadiim, the disciples? They wanted to become just like their rabbi, just like their rabbi in every way. Not just to know what the rabbi knew, but to become just like Him. And that's why they live with Him 24-7. That's why they eat their meals with Him. That's why they camp out at night with Him. Why they travel with Him. Why they walk with Him. Why they do everything with Him.

How does that apply to us? How does that apply to us? How badly do you want to walk with Jesus Christ 24-7? How badly do you want to live like Him and be like Him in every way?

The days of Unleavened Bread aren't just a matter of what we eat for the seven days, or what we don't eat for the seven days. They're supposed to change us. They're supposed to change us from a life of the leaven of sin and unrighteousness, to an unleavened life filled with the bread of life. A life filled with the life of Jesus Christ. Of allowing Him to be the final authority in our lives. The Apostle Paul summed this up very well in Galatians 2 and verse 20. It's my favorite Bible verse. Paul writes, I have been crucified with Christ. I died with Him. I died with Him. And as a result of that, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. What did we read earlier about Jesus Christ? We have to take Him into our lives. We have to eat the bread of life. We have to drink His blood, symbolic of His life. Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. And this is incredibly profound. It's talking about internalizing Him and making Him a part of our lives in everything that we do. It's allowing Jesus Christ to live again within us, through God's Holy Spirit, to work and to shape you to become like Him in every way. Becoming the new man that Paul talks about here. It's not I who live anymore. It's Jesus Christ living in me. And that's what we're to become after baptism, a new man, a new creation, a new woman. Jesus Christ, the bread of life, isn't some distant figure who lived and died 2,000 years ago, but He's somebody very real, very immediate, very accessible who wants to be our friend, who wants to live with us. That's why He died for us so that He could have that place in our lives. That's why He's our High Priest, why He's our intercessor now, because He wants us to be in His kingdom. That's why He's returning to earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, so He can transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorified, heavenly body, and to be a part of the family of God forever. That's why we have to partake of Him as the bread of heaven, the bread from God, the true bread of life. So, how do we partake of that true bread of life? I want to leave you with several takeaways. Here in this last few minutes here, how do we partake of the true bread of life? How do we put this into action? How do we make it work? First of all, realize that just as you need physical bread or food to sustain your physical life, you need the unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ, to nourish you spiritually.

I'll repeat that. Realize that just as you need physical bread or food to sustain your physical life, you need the unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ, to nourish you spiritually.

The bread of life is learn about Him. Learn about Him. It's one of the purposes of the detailed studies of the Gospels we'll be getting back into hopefully next month to learn more about Jesus Christ. God gave us the four Gospels, four books that are biographies of the life, of the bread of life, to teach us what He's like, what He did under various circumstances. How can we become like Him if we don't know much about Him? And again, His disciples lived with Him 24-7 to learn what their rabbi would do under every circumstance of life. That was the point of that. So they could become just like Him. Question for us, how much time do we spend with Him? Kind of like how much unleavened bread do we eat? You know, a cracker every day during the days of unleavened bread. How much time do we spend with the bread of life? An hour or two a week? An hour or two a month? A few hours a year? Are you a follower or a pretender?

How much do you want to take in the bread of life? Along with the second point, study His teachings. This is how we partake of the true bread of life. Study His teachings. Study His teachings, again, is another purpose of our studies on the Gospels. What did He teach? What did He say? What did He do? Well, He's spending a lot of time going through that. And it's not just the Gospels because the whole word of God is part of His revelation for us. A very familiar passage quoted it earlier, Matthew 4-4 and Luke 4-4, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

You know, they ate their daily bread. Do we view studying God's Word as part of our daily bread? It is our spiritual life. It is our spiritual nourishment to partake of that bread daily.

We've talked a lot about bread today and how there's more to life than just pursuing where your next meal is going to come from. Like the multitudes who follow Jesus, it's far more important to fill ourselves with the Word of God than with physical bread, leavened or unleavened.

And it's even more important to fill ourselves with the true unleavened bread of God, Jesus Christ.

A fourth takeaway, how do we partake of the true bread of life? Make His priorities your priorities. Make His priorities your priorities. Two passages here, John 4 and verse 34, Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work. In other words, that's why He lived. My food, what I live on, what I strive for, is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work. And John 6.38, For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. It's a very simple task. We can prove what is most important in our life. It proves how well our priorities align with His. The simple test is, you know, what your priorities are by how you spend your time. You know what your priorities are by how you spend your time. Because you will make time for what is most important to you. It's one of the truisms of life. Is it more important to spend time with God learning about the true bread of life or anything else, whatever it may be. And the last point about taking partaking of the true bread of life is lay down your life for others as He laid down His life for us. John 15 verse 13 verse we read the other night at Passover, greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends.

And 1 John 3 and verse 16 very similar by this we know love here is what love is.

Because He laid down His life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So what is our purpose in this life? What are we called to do in this life? God created us to become like Him. And we do that by becoming like His Son and our Savior Jesus Christ. He was the greatest servant of all and what are we called to? We're called to a life of service. That will be our job in the kingdom of God, not to lord it over others, but to serve, to teach them God's ways. I'm going to close with Colossians 1 and verse 27.

Colossians 1, 27. To them, referring to the saints, the saints of God, God's people, all of us, God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Paul says here that one of God's great miracles, one of God's great mysteries is Christ in you, Christ life in your life intertwined Him abiding in us, dwelling in us, living in us, in us, living and abiding and dwelling in Him. Two lives intertwined is one.

And that's why we eat the unleavened bread that we do during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Yes, we remove leaven, we remove the sin of unrighteousness, but we do that by partaking of the true unleavened bread of life, the bread that comes down from heaven, the bread of God, the bread of life, Jesus Christ. And when we partake of that unleavened bread, when we make His life a part of our lives, the end result is what we see here, the hope of glory, the hope of glory, a glorious transformation to become like Jesus Christ in every way, ultimately glorified as He is glorified, as the Son of God, which we will be, His sons, His daughters, and a part of His God's kingdom forever. So the Feast of Unleavened Bread is really all about salvation. It was originally about Israel's salvation, about their deliverance from slavery to sin in Egypt there. But we know today it's a much greater deliverance, a much greater salvation, a much greater freedom, and deliverance through partaking of the true bread, the true unleavened bread, from God, the true unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ.