Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] As I've mentioned a few times, John 20:31 is important. It says, but these signs are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name, believe in the Word made flesh.
[00:00:16] He is God and has put on flesh to make a way for salvation from the punishment toward sin. And John, the writer of this gospel, is helping us see who who Christ is by showing us first seven signs or miracles that Jesus performed. So what have we seen so far? First we saw he turned water into wine.
[00:00:40] Second, he healed the official's dying son. And third, he healed the lame man, making him able to walk.
[00:00:48] Now John 6:1 through 21 records the fourth and the fifth Son signs. Jesus feeds 5,000 men and others with loaves of bread and two fish.
[00:00:59] And Jesus walks also on the stormy water.
[00:01:03] The main idea of John 6:1 22 is Christ is the prophet king who abundantly provides for the needs and calmly settles the fears of his people.
[00:01:18] Christ is the prophet king who abundantly provides for the needs of and calmly settles the fears of his people. Let's read John 6:1 21.
[00:01:28] After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.
[00:01:39] Jesus went up on over the mountain and there he sat down with his disciples.
[00:01:45] Now the Passover, the Feast of the Jews, was at hand.
[00:01:48] Lifting up his eyes then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?
[00:01:57] He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
[00:02:02] Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.
[00:02:10] One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for so many?
[00:02:20] Jesus said, have the people sit down.
[00:02:23] Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number.
[00:02:29] Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish as much as they wanted.
[00:02:38] And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost.
[00:02:45] So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
[00:02:59] Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
[00:03:07] When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat and started across the sea to Capernaum.
[00:03:14] It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat. And they were frightened. But he said to them, it is I do not be afraid.
[00:03:33] Then they were glad to take him into the boat. And immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
[00:03:42] You guys know what's so great about a good mom?
[00:03:48] A good mom can handle anything going on with you.
[00:03:53] Do you need something like food or advice?
[00:03:56] Oftentimes you can go to mom to get. Do you fear something? Are you afraid? Especially as children, you go to mom. Moms can handle your needs and your fears alike. And in this way, a good mom is reflecting the kind of God that Jesus christ is.
[00:04:13] He's someone that provides and calms. Christ provides for your needs. And he does so far more abundantly than you could imagine.
[00:04:25] Christ can also calm your fears, actual fears and fabricated worries dissolve when we meditate on the power and love of Christ.
[00:04:34] And these are two true realities that John 6:1 21 show us about Jesus.
[00:04:40] Of course, we can also see how he is the mighty God, able to produce much food out of little, because he has made all food for. And we can see how he is the Creator and sustainer in that even a stormy sea cannot be seen as a hindrance to him getting where he was going to go.
[00:05:00] But we see these very characteristics in Him. A provider, a protector, a lover.
[00:05:08] And Christ, who draws near in the flesh to provide for our needs and to calm our fears, is also the mighty, transcendent prophet King.
[00:05:19] He fulfills the scriptures to be the promised prophet who speaks the word of God to His people, because he is the Word of God. And he will ultimately be crowned the King of the universe, because he already is that as the Creator which John has established in John 1.
[00:05:37] So Christ is the prophet King who abundantly provides for the needs of his people and calmly settles the fears of his people. So point number one, your needs are satisfied by the prophet King.
[00:05:51] Your needs are satisfied by the prophet King.
[00:05:57] So at the beginning of this passage, falling on the heels of what we were just reading, Jesus heads to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and he goes up a mountain.
[00:06:09] But I want us to notice again, we've beat this drum a lot. We want to notice again why so many people are following him. Look at verse two.
[00:06:18] Because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick again. Haven't we seen this again and again? They are interested in his miracles, not in his word. They're not interested in the real Jesus, not who he is, not the giver, but the gifts. They're obsessed with what they get, but not who gives them to them.
[00:06:44] And he goes up a mountain.
[00:06:46] Now, the gospel of John is full of theological insights and connections, even in seemingly innocuous details like this.
[00:06:54] This mountain moment, I believe, mirrors other important mountain moments in the Bible. Like other mountains you may have heard of, like Mount Zion, a picture of the New Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the mountains that prophetically the Messiah will return between figurally. But John, I think, is drawing us to a different mountain. He wants us to think of a specific place. I think he wants us to think of Mount Sinai, where God gave Israel through Moses the law.
[00:07:25] Here's why I think that, well, Jesus has already been identified as the prophet, like Moses who had come.
[00:07:32] Remember, Deuteronomy 18:15 talked of a prophet like Moses who had come from among their brothers among the Israelites. And even Moses will be mentioned in this chapter. I think we're to think of a similar event as that magnificent event where Moses went up a mountain, spoke to God face to face and came down with his word.
[00:07:52] And Jesus now is standing on a mountain to deliver his word to people.
[00:07:57] And not to mention, excuse me, the timing, verse four says, now the Passover was at hand.
[00:08:06] You may have heard of the Passover. Maybe you do know what it is. The Passover was celebrated to remember how God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt with Moses as their leader.
[00:08:18] The Passover is mentioned three times in this gospel.
[00:08:22] The first time, Jesus cleanses the temple, declaring that he is the temple that would be destroyed and rebuilt in his crucifixion and resurrection. Second time is right here, where Jesus will identify himself as the bread of life. And the third time is at the time of his crucifixion.
[00:08:39] I point this out because this is an important event.
[00:08:43] The mentioning of the Passover is intentional. John can't mention every detail. He mentions this one.
[00:08:50] And another reason that this first miracle specifically should bring our attention is it's the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.
[00:09:00] It has crucial importance for us.
[00:09:03] So because of the time of day and the Passover.
[00:09:07] They needed to feed these people.
[00:09:10] And Jesus, he had a plan, we read, but he wanted to test his disciples. We see this, verses five and six, and like I would do probably Philip failed the test.
[00:09:23] He was thinking about the seemingly impossible logistics of feeding really a total of 10 to 15,000 people.
[00:09:32] Philip probably was asked, he was from this area and so he's trying to be helpful and yet he's looking through, he's not quite grasping still fully who Jesus is and what he can do.
[00:09:45] And I think it's easy for us to react the same way to the Lord. It's so easy to have blinders on to the plans of God when we're consumed with logistics, practical needs, our day to day life, our schedules, our routines.
[00:10:00] You know, I need to study for my test so I don't have time to read the Word. I need to play my sport to get a scholarship to college. I'll just have to not go to church for most of this year.
[00:10:13] My encouragement is don't let the logistics of life blind you from God's will, what he wants for you.
[00:10:22] Andrew Simon, Peter's brother, he maybe is trying to help.
[00:10:28] Maybe they're just really desperate, I don't know. He says he finds this boy with five loaves of bread and two fish.
[00:10:35] And he doesn't think that's very helpful, but he mentions it.
[00:10:39] And just for historical clarity, I mean, these loaves of bread were likely much smaller than you're picturing. Much smaller. This isn't a bag of Wonder Bread or Sara Lee. This is not like a big loaf of bread.
[00:10:55] A child is carrying this for lunch. Like why would he have five huge loaves of bread? These are probably small loaves of bread. And the fish were probably something like sardines.
[00:11:04] Very small fish, not substantial. It's a boy's lunch.
[00:11:09] How is this going to feed 10 to 15,000 people?
[00:11:13] Obviously there's no way for it to do that, barring a miracle.
[00:11:18] And in a way similar to if you remember how Jesus directed the servants at the wedding in Cana to fill the big jars of water. Jesus just kind of, he hears the information and he just kind of turns and makes a command. He says, have them all sit down, everyone sit down on the ground. And he prepares to work. So verse 11, he took the loaves, gave thanks to God and distributed them to everyone, and did the same with the fish.
[00:11:45] And verse 12 said, they did this until they had eaten their fill.
[00:11:51] All these people ate and they ate until they were full.
[00:11:55] Oh, and verse 13, they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments.
[00:12:02] So Jesus provides all that his people need, but he also provides abundantly, all that his people need, far more abundantly than we need. He has a limitless supply of. Of exactly what you need to live and be satisfied.
[00:12:21] Our God is a God who provides abundantly.
[00:12:25] And this is not a promise of financial prosperity in your life.
[00:12:29] If you just want Jesus for worldly comforts, for health, or for wealth, then you came to the wrong place. This is not what Jesus is telling. He doesn't promise those things. What he does promise, Spirit specifically, is food that endures to eternal life.
[00:12:47] That's what he supplies abundantly, and that's really what you actually need. You need food that lasts for eternal life.
[00:12:56] And he provides that abundantly to anyone who seeks him with a true heart.
[00:13:03] For John 6:37, which we'll cover next week, says, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
[00:13:15] He will not run out of bread.
[00:13:18] He is completely sufficient. He is the bread of life.
[00:13:23] Food is temporary. Your life right now is temporary. But Jesus offers eternal life to all who seek him. Eternal life.
[00:13:32] If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
[00:13:39] You will have eternal life. You will have the endless supply of bread, that is to say, in a figural way. You will have endless satisfaction and life in Him.
[00:13:51] Jesus does not turn anyone away when they truly seek him either.
[00:13:55] This means, unlike this crowd, to seek him for the right reasons for who he is, not just because He's a miracle worker or because He's a good teacher, which were true.
[00:14:10] Something else needs to guide us, and it needs to be who he is.
[00:14:16] Now, another aspect of this first part that I really don't want to miss is in verse 12 we read, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments.
[00:14:29] So Jesus, he had his disciples help distribute and gather up the food.
[00:14:35] I think there's a key takeaway here.
[00:14:38] So look at the role of the disciples and the role of Jesus in this account.
[00:14:44] As one theologian says, he says, I think very well, we see the apostles receiving the bread from our Lord's hand after he had blessed it and distributing it to the multitude.
[00:14:56] It was not their hands that made it increase and multiply, but their masters.
[00:15:01] It was his almighty power that provided an unfailing supply.
[00:15:06] Now here is a lively emblem of the work which a true minister of the gospel is meant to do.
[00:15:14] He is not a mediator between God and man. He has no power to put away sin or impart or give grace.
[00:15:22] His whole business is to receive the bread of life which his Master provides and to distribute it among the souls among whom he labors.
[00:15:31] He's speaking to ministers and pastors. This is true of the believer.
[00:15:37] We do not create the life giving gospel. We don't make the bread increase and multiply into an abundant eternal supply.
[00:15:46] But if you've received it through faith, then you can distribute it. If you've received the bread of life from Christ, then go and distribute it to others and you will never run out.
[00:15:58] You can't run out. There's no sense in hoarding it and saving it. There's more than anyone needs.
[00:16:07] And this means whatever needs you have.
[00:16:11] Christ also is the answer.
[00:16:15] He satisfies every need. So what he's showing us in this do you need happiness?
[00:16:22] Do you need purpose?
[00:16:24] Do you need a peaceful home? Do you need something to give you value and meaning?
[00:16:30] I think the answer to all these should be yes.
[00:16:33] Christ can provide far more than you need for those things just in himself.
[00:16:40] Love Jesus and you have found the eternal answer to all of those problems.
[00:16:50] And then the reaction to his sign also reveals a lot. In verses 14 and 15, we see these reactions. The people see that he must be the prophet prophesied by Moses again in Deuteronomy 18:15. And what do they do? What do they want to do?
[00:17:08] They don't say this, but Jesus perceives it. They want to make him king, but they're still more motivated by other factors.
[00:17:19] They don't yet understand what kind of king he is. They certainly would be disappointed as they were later on, nor what kind of kingdom he will rule.
[00:17:31] That's not what they're picturing. They want this king now. Rescue them from their oppressors, now in this life. And he's promising something so much grander, something eternal, something out of this world. Literally.
[00:17:45] His purpose at this time was to die and rise. Like he said when he had cleansed the temple in John 2, his kingly reign was not for that moment.
[00:17:59] So he withdrew. Knowing the right timing, I think we can skip over this, but this is hugely significant.
[00:18:05] You can imagine, okay, God sends his son to save his people. You would think becoming king would be a big deal. And yet it's not the right time, it's not the right move.
[00:18:15] But the message is clear. This prophet King, Prophet king is the only one who can satisfy their deepest needs. He's the Only one that can satisfy your deepest needs. You need Him. These people are right to want him, to need Him.
[00:18:32] They're just wrong in their motivations. Love Jesus for who he is and understand that you do need him. Even if you're perfectly content, satisfied in your life, you're happy, things are going well if you are in sin, if you're not in Christ, you do need him. You do need life, because your life will end without him.
[00:18:55] So your needs are satisfied by the prophet King.
[00:19:01] Point number two. Your fears are calmed by the prophet King. Your fears are calmed by the prophet King.
[00:19:12] So John portrays this as happening in the same day, in the evening time. The disciples decided to sail across the sea to Capernaum.
[00:19:23] But rough winds cause the sea to be really rough, choppy, difficult. Now, this is not the time. Sometimes, you know, you might read this and you are expecting one story. Jesus is in the midst of a storm a couple of times in his life. So this is not the time when he calms a storm.
[00:19:40] The rough sea in this particular moment helps paint the picture for us.
[00:19:47] So, so you can think of this. There's a strong wind, crashing waves. The disciples are probably working very hard to navigate the sea in their boat. They're not making very much progress. And what do they see? They're somewhere in the middle of this sea.
[00:20:02] I'm not even sure they can see the coast. They are far out into the sea. And what do they then see?
[00:20:09] Jesus was walking calmly through the stormy waters.
[00:20:17] I once had a T shirt, I don't know why I had this, which depicted Jesus surfing without a surfboard. I think inspired by this story, you know, because he can walk on water, so he doesn't need a surfboard. And it said, the devil don't surf, but Jesus surfs.
[00:20:35] I just want to tell you guys about that.
[00:20:38] This is the fifth sign he walks on water. He. He doesn't need something to keep him afloat. He is the God over the seas. He can walk right through it.
[00:20:48] Now, why are the disciples afraid?
[00:20:50] If you're struggling, seeing a guy that you know and loves you, that just fed you and a bunch of people with, you know, very little provisions, you see him walking towards you, somehow you might think, oh, thank goodness, he's going to help us. Like he's walking. He's probably just going to, you know, drag us through the rest of the sea if he can do this.
[00:21:09] So why are they afraid? John doesn't tell us.
[00:21:12] Now we know why. Mark 6:49 tells us they were afraid because they thought they were seeing a ghost.
[00:21:18] But John doesn't include that. And there's a reason. It's not that it's not important or untrue, but as one scholar says, he is less interested in dissecting their fear than in portraying its alleviation. So John just has a different focus than Mark as he tells this story.
[00:21:37] So what's he telling? He's saying there is fear. And how is it calmed?
[00:21:41] How is it calmed?
[00:21:43] Not what are they afraid of, but how is the fear going to be dealt with?
[00:21:48] Verse 20 tells us he said to them, it is, I do not be afraid.
[00:21:55] It's remarkable in how simple that is, right? It is I, I am, I'm here. It's me. Behold, don't be afraid.
[00:22:06] He calms their fears simply by identifying himself.
[00:22:15] For Christ to identify himself in such a strong way definitely has to make us think of times where the Lord Yahweh I am, has revealed himself to his people.
[00:22:27] He calms their fears by identifying themselves.
[00:22:32] This made me think of a time that I haven't thought about in a while. In college, while I was a pledge of my fraternity, my pledge class was the guys that kind of join at the same time as you and I. We decided to do something called a sneak.
[00:22:46] A sneak where we just disappear without telling anyone. It makes everybody else mad. They try to find us and whatnot.
[00:22:54] They have no idea where we are. It's unannounced. We plan this big, integral, intricate thing. And we, we were going to a lake. So we were driving from Stillwater to Lake Eufaula for a couple of days.
[00:23:06] I had one of the vehicles. We had this big escape plan, you know, because they knew where we were, they knew our schedules and everything. In my vehicle, we, we decided to drive through Edmond a little bit out of the way so one of my friends could grab some stuff from his house. We all went in while he was getting in, all five of us. And I've never been to this house.
[00:23:24] I don't know his family.
[00:23:26] I met him and became friends in college.
[00:23:29] And I was leaning on the back of the living room couch just kind of directly in front of the front door. Front door was open, they had a glass door.
[00:23:37] And I look up and I see kind of a middle aged man with a very serious scowl walking towards the door.
[00:23:46] You know, I'm assuming this is his dad, right? You don't have to be a genius to think about that.
[00:23:50] And he just goes like this and he pulls a pistol and points it directly at my chest.
[00:23:59] What do you think I did?
[00:24:01] I didn't run. I started shouting. I started shouting my friend's name, calling Karsten Carsten, hoping he would come back. Or maybe he'll hear me saying his son's name.
[00:24:11] Or, you know, if he's just some other guy, like, I guess I'll just die. I mean, I don't really have any other plan. I didn't have anything on me.
[00:24:18] Maybe if he knows I'm his son's friend, he won't shoot me. And, you know, that worked. By identifying myself, I calmed his fears that he was not being burglarized. I calmed his fears. I didn't calm my fears. I think I was shaking for like an hour. I've never stared down the barrel of a gun before.
[00:24:38] Now, these men were fearful, kind of. More like me. I know I was on the other end of it, more like me. But they were fearful for what they saw.
[00:24:47] And they didn't seem to recognize him or just thought it was unbelievable that he would be walking on the stormy sea. They did not expect to see him.
[00:24:57] But once his disciples heard his voice and that it was their Lord's voice, they were calmed and they welcomed him into the boat.
[00:25:10] It just took hearing who he is to totally change their disposition and for them to welcome in.
[00:25:19] Well, why might you be afraid?
[00:25:21] Why might you be afraid?
[00:25:24] The category of fear is common in the Bible.
[00:25:27] How does that frequently look today? You know, we could be afraid in a storm or in a stressful situation like the one I just described.
[00:25:38] I think every. Probably the most common category of fear, which many of you maybe deal with frequently, is an anxiety.
[00:25:48] I think that's a category of fear.
[00:25:50] When you're worried and anxious about the future, about social interactions, or even just nothing at all, just generally anxious and fearful, what is the remedy? What's the alleviation? How can this be calmed, especially when it feels chronic and insurmountable?
[00:26:10] You know, I don't know nearly enough medically to say that there's no biological realities to contribute to this. I'm sure there are. But I just want to caution us against thinking that it's always something to be blamed on the brain.
[00:26:23] It's not always something to be blamed on the brain.
[00:26:26] The Bible speaks of anxiety as an issue of the heart, and our hearts are sick with sin.
[00:26:34] And it can sometimes be sin when your sinful flesh is trying to control and make itself comfortable. Instead of relying on Christ and His spirit, he should be what keeps us calm and steady.
[00:26:50] And he can, if we rely on Him.
[00:26:53] Again, this is at least often why people experience anxiety at different times.
[00:26:59] So the remedy then is simple. It's to look to Christ to know who he is, to know why whatever you're worrying about pales in comparison to his power. Why ultimately, everything will be okay eternally. If you are in Christ, that's what's most important. That's actually the hope we have in the future.
[00:27:20] And if we hope in Christ, then even those biological, physical things that can contribute to that will be healed as well. He is ultimately the hope. He is the thing you need most when you're anxious. You need faith in Christ most of all.
[00:27:37] The remedy is to look to him, know who he is, listen to his voice through the Word, and take comfort.
[00:27:45] The stormy sea in your life, in your mind, is very real. I'm not saying it's not real.
[00:27:53] And it can draw your attention away from Him. I'm sure you know it often does.
[00:27:59] Yet Christ can calmly walk through the stormy sea to meet you, to calm your fears, to identify Himself.
[00:28:10] So turn your attention to Him, Be not afraid.
[00:28:14] Listen to his soothing voice in your worst days and welcome him into the boat.
[00:28:20] Live life abiding in Christ, in His Word, in prayer.
[00:28:25] Let Christ into your life. Pray to him, cry out to him, complain to him, but then also look into His Word and see what he reveals about Himself and how even in his character, his attributes, who he is, can calm your fears.
[00:28:42] The pages of Scripture are full of material that that shows us a mighty sovereign God who rules and upholds all things.
[00:28:54] Now see the conclusion in verse 21.
[00:28:58] Immediately, the boat was at the land to which they were going.
[00:29:02] Now, this is an important detail. This is the completion of His Sign. They get to where they're going. And I think there are two lessons we can draw from this.
[00:29:11] First, God allows us to go through stormy trials to test us.
[00:29:15] We shouldn't be surprised to see the theme of testing. We see even in the sign before that he was testing Philip by asking him how they were to feed all these people. So I think he sends us into trials to test us. A test can remind you, often painfully so, that your inclination is to turn inward to yourself, to turn to fear, and not to turn to the Lord again.
[00:29:44] In my young adult days in my college years, I remember I experienced enormous peer pressure to live a life I did not want to live.
[00:29:54] I was struggling with a couple particular classes. I was living in sin. I tore up my knee and lost my athletic identity. That was a big part of who I thought I was.
[00:30:08] And Then my beloved grandmother died, kind of all in a short period of time. And I remember I looked to myself to get over it, to kind of just bear it, get through it, move on, but also at the same time, let myself wallow in pity to find other ways to numb my sadness.
[00:30:27] I was trying everything.
[00:30:29] But over that summer, I realized the remedy was to put my focus on Christ and just trust him to stop worrying about all these things. How am I going to fix it? A lot of these things you can't fix. You know, you lose a loved one, you can't fix that.
[00:30:43] But if you trust in Christ, he walks with you, he can direct your paths. When the toughest battles of my life hit me, I did not turn to Christ.
[00:30:54] I didn't.
[00:30:56] And through that test, he put me then on a trajectory that really has directly brought me here today.
[00:31:06] So my encouragement is don't turn inward, turn to Christ. But if you fail like I did, just learn, turn to him, repent now and follow him and love him, remembering that he allows us to go through these trials to test us for our good.
[00:31:26] The second lesson we can draw is that if we welcome Christ in and trust him, he will get us where we are going.
[00:31:34] He does this not just to soothe us, but because it is for his ultimate glory to get us where we ought to go.
[00:31:42] So their arrival, the disciples arrival, was part of his plan.
[00:31:48] It was also for their good. And once they had him with them, they didn't even need to worry about the travel.
[00:31:55] Once he was with them, they were where they needed to be.
[00:31:59] I think that's an important thing. Once he was with them, they were where he wanted them to be.
[00:32:06] That's where he wants you to be with him in the journey of life.
[00:32:11] Learn from this. The more you look to Christ, the further down the road to glory. You travel in a similar way if you focus on blinking.
[00:32:25] Blinking, as I've just brought up, you are now manually, consciously blinking.
[00:32:32] Because I just mentioned blinking, right? Are you guys all thinking about how you're going to blink? Maybe you're trying to not to blink, but once you focus on the important things, once this is over, you're in your groups. You're going to just be focused on the normal rhythm of life. You're going to go back to auto, auto blinking mode. You're not going to be thinking about it anymore. It's going to go away until you talk about it in your small group, maybe, but you will be blinking without needing to think about it.
[00:32:57] I think this is helpful because if we're focused on Christ.
[00:33:01] The labor of obeying him will actually come naturally.
[00:33:05] It'll be like auto obedience.
[00:33:09] He will guide your life. If you are focused on him, he wants to get you where you ought to go. If you rely on him and follow him, he will do it. So students, look to Christ, who alone can satisfy your every need and calm your every fear.
[00:33:27] Now, in an ultimate sense, these signs are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.
[00:33:36] But these signs show us also his utter glory as the Son who is one with the Father, and the One who will die and rise for his people.
[00:33:45] These show us again that he is the promised prophet to come, like Moses, but better.
[00:33:51] And they show us that he will be and is now the King of the universe.
[00:33:56] And we can trust that Christ, the prophet King will abundantly provide for the needs of his people and calmly settle our fears as well. Let's pray.
[00:34:07] O Lord, we praise you that you are the prophet of God and the King of the Universe. We thank you that you are a provider. We ask that through faith you would give us all that we need.
[00:34:18] God, for those who are hungry, who are yearning for eternity, we pray that you would guide them to yourself tonight, that they may eat eternally and be filled.
[00:34:29] Lord, for those struggling with various fears, we pray that your spirit will comfort them as they trust in Christ. We pray they are also filled with the hope of his coming again.
[00:34:39] We pray this in his name. Amen.
