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[0:00] Well, I'd like us to turn back together to John chapter 6, and we can read again at verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

[0:21] Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. As we said when we were picking up this reading, this discussion that Jesus has with the crowds comes immediately after two of his most famous miracles.

[0:42] The first part of John 6, you read about the feeding of the 5,000. That's followed by Jesus walking on the water. And these miracles, along with all of the other miracles recorded in the Gospels, are testifying to the identity of Jesus, helping us to see more of just who he is, that he's no ordinary person, and instead that in him, everything that God has promised in the Old Testament is being fulfilled.

[1:10] And the people around Jesus are starting to realize this more and more and more. As the disciples witness these miracles, they are one, on the one hand, they're amazed at what they see, and on the other hand, they're shaken, recognizing that this man that they are following is like no other.

[1:34] And so the identity of Jesus is being revealed more and more in the miracles that are recorded in John's Gospel. But alongside the miracles recorded by John, we also have some key statements of Jesus that tell us more about his identity.

[1:52] And chapter 6 onwards introduces seven great statements that are recorded in this Gospel. These are known as the I Am Sayings, and this is the first of them.

[2:03] I am the bread of life. Later, Jesus declares, I am the light of the world. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

[2:15] And I am the true vine. These great statements are helping us to see who Jesus is. They're helping us to see what he's come to do. And they're all drawing us to put our faith in him.

[2:29] And I want us tonight to look at the first of these, the great statement that Jesus makes in verse 35, I am the bread of life. And that's a very, very rich statement. And this whole passage is bursting with amazing theology.

[2:45] But it's also a passage that resonates with us because it's using a very everyday object. And it resonates a lot with me because I absolutely love bread. And I don't know if you're like me.

[2:56] I don't know if you ever go to a nice restaurant and they come with a basket of bread. There's all these lovely rolls. I would just take that for my dinner and forget everything else and just eat all the bread for my meal.

[3:08] The passage, in a way, is a bit like that. It's a whole meal for us to chew on, to think about, and to learn from together. But sometimes passages like this, and John's Gospel is perhaps a very clear example of this, sometimes that can make it hard.

[3:29] Because when you read through a passage like this, you see the dialogue between Jesus and the crowds. You see all the different things that are being said. You see the allusions to the Old Testament. And sometimes we can get lost.

[3:41] And sometimes we can be tied in knots. Passages like this are both wonderful and challenging. Wonderful because there's so much to take in.

[3:51] But also challenging. Because it's hard to take it all in. And I don't know about you, but I know that certainly for me, many times I've come to passages like John 6, recognizing that these are amazing words, but also struggling to think, I can't quite follow everything that's being said.

[4:11] I am not taking all of this in. I hope that we can untie some of these knots a little bit together tonight. And when we find ourselves in that situation, one of the best things that we can do is just to try and keep things as simple as possible.

[4:30] And this is something that we must remember with the great I am statements that Jesus has made. These are some of the richest theological statements that you find in the whole Bible.

[4:40] But they're also simple and clear statements. And Jesus is using simple everyday language to help us understand more about him.

[4:56] And so first and foremost, as we come to this great statement in John 6, 35, Jesus is telling us that if we want to understand more about who he is, then we need to think about bread.

[5:12] Bread is something that we need every day. And that was particularly through the New Testament times. It was just a basic staple diet for people's day-to-day survival.

[5:24] In other words, bread, food, it's just talking about the daily nutrition that we need every day in order to stay alive. Bread is also something that we have access to.

[5:37] So bread is not the food of the elite. It's not the fancy, rare, specialist food that you only get in certain places or only certain times of year or only if you've got loads of money.

[5:48] It's not fancy. It's not rare. And unless something is majorly wrong in a particular part of the world, bread is available. Bread is also something that, to benefit from, we actually have to eat it.

[6:03] So bread is not nourishing us if it's sitting in our cupboard. It's not giving us what we need unless we take it and receive it. And if we refuse bread, then we are being unwise and we're being unhealthy.

[6:18] And bread is satisfying. It takes away our hunger. It gives us energy and nourishment. And a good, fresh loaf that's just come out of the oven is actually one of the nicest things you can eat.

[6:36] It's so good and so satisfying. All of these things are true of bread. All of these things are true of Jesus.

[6:46] And that's what I want us to see tonight. We're going to go through these four things together. The bread of life is needed. The bread of life is available.

[6:59] The bread of life has got to be received. The bread of life is so satisfying. So first of all, the bread of life is needed.

[7:11] The whole discussion in this passage begins with Jesus challenging the crowd in terms of their motivation for following him across the Sea of Galilee back to Capernaum.

[7:21] You see that in verse 26 and 27. He says, These are the people who've seen an amazing miracle.

[7:42] They've been well fed and they're thinking, This guy's amazing. Let's follow him. And let's just keep getting the provision that he can make for us.

[7:52] Jesus responds to that by majorly raising the stakes. And he's saying to them, Look, the thing that matters is not your next meal.

[8:04] The thing that matters is eternal life. Jesus is making them and us stop and think about eternity.

[8:19] About what matters more than anything else. And that prompts the crowd in verse 28 and 29 to say, What do we do? What should we do? What must we do to be doing the works of God?

[8:33] And Jesus responds with the wonderful words, This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. But the crowd are getting a bit sceptical and uncertain and they respond with the question that actually every one of us wants to ask.

[8:51] In verse 30, they say, Well, how do we know that you're the one we should believe? Verse 30, They say to him, Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you?

[9:02] What work do you perform? In other words, they're saying the question that everybody says that when we're confronted with the reality of who Jesus is and the claims that the gospel makes, we're like, Well, how do we know?

[9:15] How are you going to prove yourself to us that you are the one that we should trust? And because they're still thinking about food and about bread in the conversation, they look back to the Old Testament to the moment when God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness.

[9:36] Of course, this is referring back to Exodus chapter 16 when God's people had been taken out of Egypt. They were wandering in the wilderness and they were very quickly confronted by the fact that they had no food and they realized that they were going to starve.

[9:50] And God made a miraculous provision for them that every morning when they woke up, there was a bread-like substance lying on the ground that they were able to gather and to eat for sustenance and nourishment.

[10:03] And that provision was made by God every day until they went into the promised land. And so they're saying, well, look, that's what Moses did. What are you going to do? As though Jesus needs to prove himself.

[10:17] Jesus responds to this by giving them and us a crucial lesson in terms of how to understand the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus points out that everything in the Old Testament, including the manna, is just a shadow of the full provision that God is going to make.

[10:40] And it's really important to remember that when you look at anything in the Old Testament, whatever you see in the Old Testament is highlighting two things. It's pointing to a reality and it's revealing an inadequacy.

[10:53] So something in the Old Testament, it will point to a reality and it will reveal an inadequacy. So manna points to the reality that we are completely dependent on God to provide what we need for our survival.

[11:04] But it also highlights an inadequacy that the manna only lasted for 24 hours and then you needed more and then you needed more and then you needed more.

[11:15] And actually, as Jesus goes on to say, the people who ate manna still died. So it didn't actually keep them alive forever. It was never fully adequate and it was never meant to be.

[11:27] Because everything in the Old Testament points to a reality and reveals an inadequacy because the fullness of God's provision never comes in the Old Testament. It only comes in the new through the coming of the Lord Jesus.

[11:44] And that's what Jesus is revealing. He did the same thing with the temple. You see that earlier on in John's Gospel in chapter 2. The temple was this magnificent building highlighting a reality that we need access to God and we need atonement for our sins.

[12:00] But at the same time, the Old Testament temple was also revealing an inadequacy. It was never enough because it had been destroyed. They were in the process of rebuilding it and not long after, these days, only 40 years later, the temple would be destroyed again because it was never meant to be the answer.

[12:19] Instead, it was a sign, a shadow pointing towards the fullness of God's plan being revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here you have the Jews talking about manna, talking about one of the most important miracles in the history of the Jews when God provided for a nation who otherwise were going to starve to death.

[12:42] And yet Jesus is telling them that that massive miracle is just a shadow. And as we said, that's highlighted later in the chapter, 48 to 50, 58.

[12:54] It says they ate the manna, but they still died. That provision did not stop their ancestors' death. It was never meant to. It was just a shadow.

[13:06] The true bread is Jesus. But there's a crucial difference and a massive difference that he does not come to provide sustenance so that you can survive for another day like the manna did.

[13:25] Jesus comes to give eternal life so that you can live forever. The Old Testament was never enough.

[13:36] It was never meant to be. It was only and always a shadow of the Savior that they really needed. Alongside that, though, all of this is telling us that Jesus, the bread of life, has come for a particular type of person.

[13:56] He's come for the hungry and the needy. And that's emphasized so much, so clearly in verse 35. Whoever comes to me will never hunger.

[14:08] Whoever believes in me will never thirst. The miracle of the manna in the Exodus came in the context of imminent starvation for the people. And in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 earlier in this chapter, it perhaps wasn't as urgent a situation as it was in the Exodus, but still, the people needed food.

[14:28] They were far from home. They were starving and they needed bread to survive. We need food if we are going to live. And the point that Jesus is making is that when it comes to eternal life, we desperately need the bread that will give us life.

[14:49] We desperately need him. And that tells you something so incredibly important about the gospel. It's telling you that the gospel is not for the people who've got it all.

[15:02] And it's not reserved for the spiritually elite because there's actually no such thing. The gospel is for those who desperately need it.

[15:15] In other words, the gospel is for the starving. Jesus has come for the hungry. And this is so important to recognize because no matter what stage you are in your journey of faith, whether you are a believer or whether you're not yet a believer, for many people, and maybe this is true of you, that in terms of your faith, all you can see is what you lack.

[15:42] And so you look at yourself and you think, I don't know enough. I don't feel good enough or settled enough in myself. I've made a ton of mistakes in my life.

[15:56] I'm struggling with doubts. I've got questions that I still feel unsettled by and unsure of. I know that I have left Jesus to one side in my life for too long.

[16:07] I know that I was maybe in a better place in the past and I'm not there. Today, I don't think that I pray enough. I don't read the Bible enough. I feel spiritually malnourished.

[16:18] And Jesus is saying, that's exactly who this bread is for. That's exactly who this bread is for.

[16:33] And so if you feel that your sin is awful, this bread is for you. And if you feel, I don't understand it all, this bread is for you.

[16:49] And if you think, I'm worried that I'm going to mess things up and let God down or let people around me down, this bread is for you. If you think, my life's a mess, I've made so many mistakes, this bread is for you.

[17:02] And if you're sitting here thinking, I am scared of what's going to happen when I die.

[17:14] This bread is for you. If you feel hungry for peace and security and joy and hope, if you feel hungry for that, then that is the need that Jesus has come to meet.

[17:38] And really, every one of us, everyone, everyone has got that hunger. Imagine, imagine, and maybe some of you don't even need to imagine this, maybe some of you did this today, maybe you've done it many times, but all of us think in your minds of standing at the graveside of your best friend or of your mother or your father, your husband, your wife, maybe even your child.

[18:11] As you imagine yourself standing there in that moment, are you satisfied to think, oh, well, they're gone, that's it? or are you hungry for hope?

[18:30] Hungry that there is hope for them and for you? Hungry for assurance that they are safe with Jesus and that one day you will see them again?

[18:46] That's the hunger that Jesus has come to satisfy. That's why Jesus raises the stakes to stop talking about the next meal of the crowd and instead to talk about their eternal destiny because this is what we need more than anything else.

[19:05] The bread of life is urgently and desperately needed. And you know, sometimes if you're wondering if God's working in your life, a great question to ask yourself is, are you hungry?

[19:18] are you hungry for security, for peace, for answers? Are you hungry to never have to be afraid of death again?

[19:33] If that hunger is in your heart, the Lord is drawing you. That's the hunger that Jesus has come to meet.

[19:46] The bread of life is needed. Secondly, the bread of life is available. As you read through this passage, you see that one of the things that Jesus emphasizes again and again is that he has come down from heaven.

[19:57] You see it if you look at verse 32 to 33, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of heaven is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

[20:11] The same thing is repeated. If you look at verse 38, you can see it there. You can see it in 45 to 46. You can see it in verse 50 to 51. In fact, this is the thing that offends the Jews.

[20:26] There's a kind of irony in what they're saying because they're saying to Jesus, prove yourself and he's saying, well, I'll tell you where I've come from and then he tells them and they don't like it and they're offended by what he's saying.

[20:39] All of it is emphasizing the fact that because Jesus has come, eternal life is available.

[20:50] And so the bread of life is not being kept secret. It's not reserved for the elite. The bread of life is available and it's brought out beautifully in verse 32 to 33 that we just read there.

[21:06] These verses contain some of the big theological concepts that explain what God is doing in order to make eternal life available.

[21:17] And these are big concepts that we want to learn and that we want to understand and John's gospel is so, so good for just leading us towards these big theological concepts that lie at the heart of the gospel.

[21:28] So Jesus speaks, first of all, of the Father giving the true bread from heaven. The Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

[21:39] And that's pointing us to the great theological concept of divine initiative. The fact that the salvation that's offered in the gospel is always initiated by God.

[21:50] That's one of the most important truths in the gospel. Sin has ruined our relationship with God. Sin's left humanity alienated from God. Our relationship with God is broken and we did that.

[22:02] It's humanity that caused that. the situation is our fault because we've rejected God. We've sinned against him. And yet when it comes to fixing that, it's God who acts first.

[22:17] It's God who takes the initiative. We have long forgotten about God. He has never forgotten about you. And so the whole gospel starts with him.

[22:31] And that divine initiative prompts what theologians have often called a voluntary condescension. And I think that is such a cool phrase.

[22:42] A voluntary condescension. You find it in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a very important document for our church because we believe that the Westminster Confession of Faith is an accurate summary of what the Bible teaches.

[22:55] And so it was written about 400 years ago. Very short, but it's got some really helpful summaries of what we believe the Bible says. And I'm going to read you the paragraph where you discover this cool phrase, voluntary condescension.

[23:08] It says in Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 7, paragraph 1, the distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, God, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he has been pleased to express by way of covenant.

[23:40] In other words, what that's saying is that the distance between God and us is huge, it's enormous, it's so great, and in every way you could say, well, look, we're the ones who fell, we're the ones who owe him obedience, we're the ones who should work our way back up to God, sin has left us in a state where we cannot do that, and so if we try to work our way up to him, we're never going to get any blessing of knowing him, and so the only way that things can be put right is not if we make our way back up to him, but if he voluntarily condescends to us.

[24:16] In other words, if he chooses to come down to save us. And the reason he does that is to establish a relationship with us, a beautiful covenant relationship where he is our God and we are his people.

[24:38] But for that to be possible, our sin has to be dealt with, and as we think about that, we recognize that we need a saviour who's going to make atonement for our sins, and that needs to be one who can represent us, so he needs to be one of us, but it needs to be one who can fulfill everything that God requires, which is only something that God can do.

[25:05] So the mediator between God and man has to be God and man, and the big theological concept we talk about there is the incarnation, where God himself has come down to be one of us, and this is what John's gospel is revealing to us more and more and more, that this is who Jesus is.

[25:24] He is God the Son, and he has been made flesh, he's taken on our humanity, and so when we say incarnation, the carn bit of that word is the Latin word for flesh, so enfleshment, he's just become human, like us, that's how far God's come, not to appear above us, not to draw near to us, not even to touch us, but actually to be one of us.

[25:49] the eternal Son of God has become human, he's come to stand with us, to stand for us. So you've got divine initiative, voluntary condescension, culminating in the incarnation of God the Son, and because of that, he can be the mediator between God and humanity, and that work of mediation involves him standing in our place, which ultimately involved him dying in our place, which is what Jesus goes on to speak about at the end of the chapter, where he says that the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

[26:32] And so Jesus here is unfolding the great theological truths that lie at the heart of the gospel, that from God's initiative, there's a voluntary condescension of God the Son becoming flesh, so that he can be our mediator, and in order to be our mediator, he needs to die for us, and in doing all that, God is giving life to the world, that takes us back to verse 33, the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world, and that salvation is a gift available to all, and that's all because of God's grace, and so that's what makes the bread of life available, that's what makes salvation possible, so our heading is the bread of life is available, behind that heading lies all the massive concepts of our theology, the gospel is never about us working our way up to

[27:32] God, it's about God coming down to us, and this is where we see something so beautiful and so amazing in the gospel, because in terms of how the gospel works out, on God's side, the availability of eternal life is captured by these great theological concepts that we've listed, divine initiative, voluntary condescension, incarnation, mediator, grace, these are amazing, big theological words, that's what God had to do, that summarizes everything from God's side in terms of the gospel, but from our side, the availability of the bread of life is summed up in just one word, and you see it in verse 35, whoever, and that is such an incredible word, whoever comes to

[28:34] Jesus, whoever believes in Jesus, whoever, and every single person in here tonight is a whoever, doesn't matter what your background is, and it does not matter what baggage you come with, and it doesn't matter if you look around this room tonight and you think everybody else is different from me, everybody else is better than me, and nobody else has done what I have done, nobody else doubts the way I doubt, nobody else has the questions that I have, nobody else's heart is as cold as my heart, all of those thoughts are just blown away by the word whoever.

[29:17] you could have a million reasons that makes you think you're not worthy of Jesus, whoever trumps them all.

[29:32] And it does not matter who is coming, the only thing that matters is who you are coming to.

[29:47] you come to Jesus, the bread of life. And so the bread of life is available. That takes us to our third point, we're running out of time.

[29:59] The bread of life has got to be received, so the bread of life is needed, we need it more than anything else, the bread of life is available, Jesus has actually come, but we have got to respond, we have to receive what he's offering us.

[30:13] And you can see that the crowd want this in verse 34, they say to Jesus, give us this bread always, they want what he's offering, and in verse 35, Jesus tells them what to do, I'm the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

[30:33] And there's two key verbs in that verse that tell us exactly what we have to do, we have to come, and we have to believe.

[30:44] come is such a beautiful word, it's an invitation, and it tells you that God wants you close to him, that God is calling you, commanding you, urging you to come to him.

[30:57] The voluntary condescension of God, the incarnation of the son of God, the mediation of the Christ, and every other massive theological concept that we have in the gospel is all because God actually wants you.

[31:13] And whether you have been a Christian for years, or whether you are not yet a Christian, or not sure if you're a Christian, you've got to write these words on your heart, that God actually wants you, because it is so easy to feel unwantable before God.

[31:29] It's so easy to feel unlovable, and it's so easy to feel like we are just so far from what we wish we were, and Jesus is saying, the whole reason I have come is because I want you.

[31:47] And so Jesus wants you to come to him. He wants to hear your voice praying. He wants to hear your voice tonight, whether that is the first time that he'll have heard your voice praying in decades, he wants to hear that tonight.

[32:09] And whether you've prayed every day for as long as you can remember, he wants to hear your voice again. And he wants your ears to listen to what he's saying in his word, and he wants your hearts to rest in him for every moment of your life.

[32:30] He wants you to come. and he wants you to believe. That's the language of trust. And so as we come to Jesus, we come placing our reliance on him.

[32:44] In other words, we just come and lean on him. We come and receive and rest upon him for our salvation. And that's just such a beautiful, beautiful picture that it's like Jesus wants us to come and he wants us to lean on him.

[32:59] Not to come and be impressed not to come for a job interview where you have to be at your best, but actually just to come and fall into his arms. That's the response that God is looking for.

[33:12] That we are to believe in Jesus. That's how the gospel works. We're saved by faith. That doesn't mean knowing everything. And in so many ways, faith is an expression of the fact that we don't know everything, but we know that Jesus is trustworthy.

[33:29] And we will lean on him. And believing in Jesus doesn't mean never doubting. All of us doubt. All of us stumble. But the whole point is that when we doubt, when we stumble, all of these are expressions of our hunger, which is just a reason to go straight to Jesus and to fall into his arms again.

[33:48] And believing in Jesus does not mean feeling strong or confident. confident, it's actually just recognizing how weak we are. And the thing that's strong in terms of our faith is not the person doing the believing, it's the person that we believe in.

[34:12] He's the one who's strong. It means knowing that you can't stand on your own. It means knowing that I have to rely on what Jesus has done for me on the cross. And it means realizing that we need him more than we need anything else.

[34:29] It doesn't mean knowing it all. And, you know, that's definitely how I could express my own conversion. I became a Christian when I was about 14 and honestly, I think I knew pretty much nothing except one thing.

[34:48] I knew that I needed Jesus. And that's what we need to know. That will drive us to Christ.

[35:00] And the amazing thing is that his promise is that as we fall into his arms, he will carry us all the way. Jesus is the bread of life.

[35:16] And the bread of life has got to be received. believed. And sometimes, you know, this is a key, this is I think a really important thing for us to recognize because sometimes like the people in this crowd, we kind of want proof about Jesus and we want to be able to sort of think, well, how do we know for certain?

[35:39] And we want to sort of test Jesus, test evidence, test arguments, test the Bible against other viewpoints, whatever it might be. And we kind of think, I just want that proof that this is true. And sometimes we also think, well, I also just want that proof that I really am converted, that there has to be that sign, that clarity, that event, that something that is going to make it clear.

[36:00] And we want that proof. But again, think about bread. There's a piece of bread in front of you and you think, I want proof that that's bread. And you could do some scientific experiments on it or you could take out a whole pile of books and you could compare the bread in front of you with some photos or you could listen to some bread expert who might be able to say, well, there's a little bit here that says it's bread or not.

[36:23] You could do all of that. It's not really going to work. How are you going to know that that's bread? Stick it in your mouth and eat it. Just take it.

[36:36] If you want proof that Jesus is real, that he's your saviour, then just trust him and follow him. that bread is to be received.

[36:52] And so the bread of life is needed. The bread of life is available. The bread of life has got to be received. Last of all, the bread of life is so, so satisfying.

[37:09] And that's because Jesus gives us what we long for. This is one of the biggest mistakes that people can make.

[37:20] They can think that becoming a Christian means giving up the things that we really like. That's one of the devil's biggest lies.

[37:34] Because putting your faith in Jesus means that you actually finally find everything that you have really longed for. And in fact, you find that it reorders your life so that all the other things actually become way better.

[37:52] And that enjoyment increases so much once Jesus takes his rightful place as the Lord that we are following. Jesus gives us what we long for.

[38:06] He satisfies our hunger for identity and purpose in our lives. We all want to have purpose.

[38:16] We all want to be special. None of us want to be a waste of space or a failure. We all want a part to play. Jesus gives us that like nothing else. Jesus satisfies our hunger for hope.

[38:30] Nobody, nobody can live without hope. hope is like the I don't know how to describe this. Hope is like the sniper rifle for the atheist.

[38:46] Because the atheist, a terrible illustration, but anyway, might as well go with it. The atheist goes along and they're like, I'm a consistent atheist, I'm not believing in anything, I'm not believing in anything, I'm not believing in anything, da da da da da da da da.

[38:57] Someone they love dies, I hope I'll see them again. And the sniper of hope has just shot their atheism to pieces. Because they're desperate for hope.

[39:12] We're all desperate for hope, Jesus gives it to us. Jesus satisfies our hunger for security. And we long for that, don't we?

[39:24] Life changes and sometimes things happen that we dread. And maybe right now some of you have received a diagnosis or news about a family member or a friend that is your worst nightmare and you feel so vulnerable and yet you are never, ever, ever outside the arms of Jesus if you're following him.

[39:52] That satisfies our hunger for security. And Jesus satisfies our hunger for love. Because in Jesus we find perfect love, eternal love, immeasurable love, love that will never grow cold, love that will never let us go.

[40:19] The bread of life is so satisfying. and this is seen, this is captured so beautifully in verse 35 but in order to see that we have to actually go back to the Greek of verse 35.

[40:39] The New Testament was written in Greek and we are always working with a translation and our translations are brilliant, the ESV is a brilliant translation, but sometimes there's things that just are hard to get across in English.

[40:56] Now Greek is a little bit different from English in terms of saying no about something. So if we say I am not, not going to the fellowship afterwards, what have I just said in English?

[41:14] So I've said I'm going because the not, not cancels each other out. So if I said I'm not, not going to the fellowship, it means I am going to the fellowship. Not, not in English, the two cancel each other out.

[41:24] That's not how it works in Greek. In Greek, not, not is an intensification. So it's like absolutely not. So we would say that if we said no, no, that's like an intensification.

[41:39] Not, not in Greek is the same. And when it says at the end there that whoever believes in me shall never thirst, thirst, literally what that actually says is whoever believes in me shall not, not thirst, shall absolutely not thirst ever.

[42:02] You will never thirst again. And that is because Jesus, the bread of life, is so, so satisfying.

[42:14] And that is something that I want, if anybody's here who's not yet a Christian or thinking about becoming a Christian or thinking about just taking that next step, that is the thing I want to press into your heart more than anything else.

[42:25] I can't promise you that it will always be easy and I can't promise you that things will always go well and sometimes you will have rubbish days because we all have rubbish days, but I can tell you this, that if you follow Jesus, you will absolutely never thirst again, ever.

[42:46] Surely, you want that. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you so much that you are the bread of life.

[43:08] And we pray that we would all come to you and believe in you and experience the wonder of never hungering and never thirsting again.

[43:23] Please bless your word to us all. Please press it into our hearts and please may your spirit bring forth fruit to your glory. amen.

[43:34] Amen. We're going to close in the Sing Psalms version of Psalm 63 on page 80.

[43:54] Sing Psalms 63 on page 80. O God, you are my God alone. I seek your face with eagerness. My soul and body thirst for you in this dry weary wilderness.

[44:08] Singing to the end of verse 8. And if you are at that point where you know you want to put your faith in Jesus, then just make verse 7 and 8 your prayer.

[44:21] because you're my help alone. In shadow of your wings I'll sing. You hold me up with your right hand. To you, O God, my soul will cling. That's a prayer of conversion.

[44:34] And we can all make it our prayer as we stand and sing together. O God, you are my God alone.

[44:50] I seek your face with weakness. My soul and body urge for you and bless my living wilderness.

[45:16] I sing you praise. When your holy place, your heart and glory held my gains, our better is your love and life, and so my lips will sing your praise.

[45:49] I I'll bless you, Lord, throughout my life, and raise my heart to you in place.

[46:06] My joyful lips will sing praise. My soul is fed with riches!

[46:22] fail. Upon bed I lie awake and in my thoughts remember you.

[46:39] I meditate throughout the night and keep your constant love in view because you are my help alone in of your and you are my help alone in shadow of your wings I'll sing you hold me up with your bright hand to you O God my soul will play Just to say I forgot at the beginning fellowship hall next which everybody is will hear a little bit more from

[47:47] Thomas and about their and so you're all not going do come through if able to thank you for your thank you the fellowship that we're able to share we pray that that be that our hearts and will rest upon all we week week our to your Amen to the to to may may may Thank you.