Soul Food
John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
John 6:36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
No I’m going to start off this morning talking about food. I think that is a relevant subject for most of us.
I really like to eat for those who know me well can cosign for that. I remember one of my high point of college was when I realized that the dorm cafeteria was all you can eat every meal. Oh I said to my roommate, It can’t get any better that this.
Needless to say that I was told that I had to stop these intimate dinners for four unless I invited three more people.
I was reading on the internet that a scientist has computed that the average human eats 16 times their weight in a year, in comparison a horse only eats 8 times their weight in the same time. So I guess it stands to reason that if we want to lose weight we might want to consider eating like a horse.
But as much as we eat and God has blessed us with so much food, there is a tragedy among us. We have been starving ourselves. There are multitudes of starving sheep that wont reach out to our spiritual Shepard for something to eat.
We are becoming so skinny that our spiritual ribs are showing. Now how many have had some good southern soul food. Now I’m talking about some soul food that haves you so full that your breathing is labored and movement is not existent. Food that will put some meat on your bones.
But this morning I want not to talk about soul food but the food that feeds the soul your spiritual soul food. Now in John 6 verse 32 Jesus says “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst.” That is powerful. Lets explore this this morning.
Now imagine that, bread that would not only fill your hunger but would cause you never to hunger again. Now I’m not speaking of bread that promises longer life or that is simply good for you. No I’m talking about the bread that promises eternal life, eat this bread and you will live forever in God’s kingdom. Eat this bread and though you die one day and your body is buried in the ground, the life in this bread will raise you from the grave. Imagine the lines of people that would form just to get a morsel of this bread. Think of how rich the baker of this bread would become as demand for this bread exceeded his supply. Think of how everyone would be rushing off to tell their friends, family and neighbors about this bread and where to get it.
· Resturant
Think of the media attention such a bread would bring. It may even bump élan Gonzales off the front page.
Then again, maybe not, it did not happen this morning, I did not see anything about this bread on the front page, this eternal soul food. When I arrived here this morning, I did not find any cameras, there was no satellite trucks parked on the lot, no helicopters overhead, no people camped on the front lawn as if they were trying to get concert tickets.
But here right here (2) at Southern Mission for all to partake, such a bread is being given out. Here, the Lord feeds His flock in a green pastures. Here he fills the hungry with good things, the Bread of life that is Himself, an even greater bread than the bread or manna in Exodus chapter 16:15 that God rained down on Israel for forty years, greater than the angels bread that took Elijah across the desert wilderness for forty days and nights.
Jesus is that bread, I said Jesus is that bread, our eternal soul food. He is both the Bread of life and the Living Bread. Baked in Bethlehem, broken on Calvary, raised from the dead and ascended into glory Halleluiah.
Sadly, only a few hunger for the true bread, there are many sheep who have become spiritually weak and diseased by sin, they feel that they cannot eat the bread of life, that they are not worthy of the bread of life.
None of us are worthy of this bread but halleluiah, I am so glad that God loves us so much that he gave us this bread. But we won’t eat it. But we rather eat from the table of appeasement, the table of flesh pleasing and self centeredness and listening to ear tickling teachings of televangelist.
Our spiritual appetites have become jaded as a result of eating too much junk food. Now when you were young, your mother would say don’t eat that junk food it will spoil your dinner. And this is what we have here. We are feeding on Junk Food and it is spoiling our spiritual dinner.
Now Jesus comes to us in the plain ordinary way of bread and is so easily overlooked and taken for granted. When people go on diets they tend to leave out the bread. Amen. Similarly when our lives get hectic or even when our lives are not hectic, we may choose to leave the Bread of Life out of our diet.
Well you know We’ve been so busy lately and you know Sunday is my only time to relax. The game is coming on and I have to get ready for it, it don’t come on till three. Church is boring and I don’t get anything out of it, I don’t have anything to wear. Or the ever so popular, I going back to church as soon as I Get myself together. I thank God right now that I didn’t have to get myself together before, I came to Jesus.
Think about this for a moment, if I’m living in sin, how can sin wash away sin. Let me make it plain. If you have dirt on your suit, youre not goingto use dirt to Clean it.
Only the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus can wash you and purge you of your sin, so don’t think that you can or have to get your self together before you come to Jesus. Matthew Chapter 11:28 Jesus says come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. The Lord said just come, he will meet you where you are and bring you along to where He needs to be. The Lord wants you in the condition you are in right now. You might say,
· I don’t pray very well, Jesus says come
· I’ve never read the bible, Jesus said come
· But I’ve done a lot of Bad things in the world, Jesus said, so did everybody else that has come to me(2).
· For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.
Now back to our spiritual hunger strike. I think it is caused by unbelief. Unbelief is our inherited eating disorder, a refusal to eat the bread of life and our preference for the delicacies of sin.
Christ is the food that undoes our disordered eating, a bread that takes our death and through His death works life. We feel the hunger pangs of our soul, that gnawing emptiness that cannot be filled with the various breads of the flesh.
These spiritual hunger pangs are the pains that no drug legal or illegal can numb. There is this empty, nagging hunger that nothing in this world can fill. But we try to fill it with something. We try to fill it with work, hoping that achievement and success will make the hunger go away. But the harder we work, the hungrier we get. We fill it with play, seeking fulfillment in fun, sports, travel etc. But the hunger gets stronger.
We try to fill it with relationships, hoping to find in another what we are missing in ourselves. But nothing seems to work.
There is no food that fills, no drug that takes away the nagging hunger for something more, something real, something permanent. Because this hunger is not for anything that we can get our hands on, but for the Bread of life, the missing piece of our diet. God sent us Jesus. Jesus, our eternal soul food. God sent us Jesus whose food is to do the will of His Father, and to be our Bread of Life by giving his life on the cross. Then He draws us to this bread by bringing us to the water of baptism, to the preaching of His Word and to the Holy Supper.
There, He continually, richly and daily feeds us with Christ urging is, bidding us, inviting us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Nothing delights the Father more than we should use Jesus as our Daily Bread, that we should be hungry, even greedy, for the forgiveness that comes through Jesus’death and resurrection.
There is nothing sadder that a Christian with the ribs of his soul sticking out. Christ died and rose so that we can live in boldness and confidence that his death and resurrection are ours. Claim the victory, it is yours.
Now God isn’t stingy with us, it is we who choose pick and nibble at the Bread of Life as if we are afraid of becoming too fat on the forgiveness of sin (2). Have you ever been told, man your soul is to fat, you need to loose some of it. Being Overweight is the baggage of this perishing life, not eternal life (2). Eat all the bread of life you want. Eat more than you want, eat all you need, eat all that the Lord gives you.
To often we wait until we are desperate, or too weak and exhausted to eat this food.
Oh you cant walk and now you want to eat, disease has struck your body and you want to eat now, I just lost my job, does anyone have a fork, I don’t have the activity of my limbs anymore, somebody push me up to the table. As if we are labeling Christ as the Bread of Despair stamped with a sign “ for emergency use only”
God wants you to eat His bread in the good times, when you are strong and have the activity of your limbs, in your right mind able to labor for the Lord, being a fisherman of men, being a doer of the word and not a hearer only.
Note that Jesus calls himself the bread that “comes down from heaven.” We do not go up to heaven to eat this Bread of Life. He descends to us. He bends down to meet is in our humanity, where we are, where we eat, where we sin, here and now. He is the living bread that hung on the cross and died for us. Now Jesus does not promise a quick and easy solution to the pains and problems of this life. Those who eat the Bread of Life are not necessarily spared the troubles of this life. There is no magic wonder bread, but Gods Living bread will see you through life and death to the resurrection of the Last Day. This bread will give you the strength to live life boldly and confidently and even though you are hard pressed on every side, and it seems that things are closing in.
This soul food will be your bridge over trouble water, your way out of no way, the silver lining in your cloud of despair.
Now lets talk about earthly bread for a moment. Now earthly bread is meant to be eaten, it does you no good if you just simply know that this bread is good for you. It does you no good to see a loaf of bread, look at it and smell it. No, You have to eat it, you have to take it in and swallow it and digest it. Only then can it nourish and strengthen you.
So it is with Christ, the bread of life, only now in a spiritual sense. You must not just simply know that Jesus is the Living Bread, you just can’t have the gospel in front of you and say how good it looks and how sweet it smells to your spiritual sight and taste. You must eat. You must accept Christ into your heart and soul. You must take him in and digest him as the very food for your soul. Without giving your life to Jesus, the bread of Life will do you no good. You will die in your sin.
Now listen carefully feasting on the bread of life involves study. You must study the word of God. Listen, WE speak to God through prayer, and God speaks to us through His word. If you are not studying his word, then you are going to miss your blessings. Your going to say Lord I been praying to you for XYZ. And God says its right there in my word if you would just look. The answers you desire is right in my word for you to receive. Eat the soul food that has been prepared for you.
As I close, I want us to use our minds and think about this story I’m about to tell. I want you to imagine that you are hungry and I’m talking its Sunday and I have not eaten since Friday hungry. And you are walking down the street and you see a sign that says soul food cafeteria, and its address just happens to be 8171 Wesley. And you see that it is a buffet so you go in. You get your tray and start through the buffet selection. And you say to the server:
· I need some guidance and your server gives you some Psalms 32:8
· You move down the line and you say I need some patience and you receive some Hebrews 10:36
· You then start to talk about how you worry and you get a double portion of Matthew 6:19-34
· And for when your trust is weak take some of these Proverbs 3:5-6
· You think about your back slidded state, and you then find some 1 John 4-9 on your tray
· You think about the love one that you have been grievingand the server then slides you some Matthew chapter 5.
· You know how I am with temptation, well then you need some first Psalm, some 139 Psalm, some matthew 26, with a side of some James 4.
· And you then shout out Lord, I’m afraid, and see a whole plate full of yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.
· And you begin to proceed to check out. Your tray is sagging in the middle, you have soul food spilling all over and you reach in your pocket to pay for your food and the attendant says no charge, no charge, your tab has been paid if full. Your money is no good here You say but why, because it was the blood of Jesus that paid it all(2). And what’s best of all you is that you can come back and eat as much of this soul food as you want. For the table of the Lord is all you can eat. And again I say No charge, The Lord’s table is never short on food. Eat,gorge yourself put some meat on those spiritual ribs. Come to the Lord’s cafeteria and Eat some soul food.
· Are you enjoying you food this morning
· Are you filled this morning, then say Halleluiah, say thank you Jesus
· You ought to Tell the Lord, say Lord my hunger strike is over, Never again will I miss a meal, for this is the soul food that I have needed
§ To Sustain me, to comfort and protect me,
§ to Love me. To save me
You then tell your server, I just don’t understand how all of this food was paid for. Then let me tell you about your bread. The bread of Life, your eternal soul food.
· They kicked your bread, they spirt on your bread, they beat your bread
· They hung your bread on a cross with a crown of thorns about his head. They pierced Him in the side
· And Jesus said Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. The torturers claimed the victory
· They put your bread in a borrowed tomb and he stayed there Friday night, all day and night Sat, but it was early I said early Sunday morning The bread of life bead to Rise, and he got up, he got up with all power.
Paid in full, paid if full, no charge It was the blood of Jesus tah paid it all.
So come to the Lord’s soul food kitchen, right here at southern mission. You don’t need a reservation, every seat is the best seat in the house. SO tell everyone you know about the Bread of Life Your eternal soul food for that is the Will of God.
Cedric A. Portis
Email: cedque8@cs.com
