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Spiritual Warfare

The title of this message is Spiritual Warfare. It’s kind of spiritual warfare Jesus style. It’s going to be a little different than you think. And I’m going to say the word spirit or spiritual a lot in this message. For some of you it’s like,“Oh, that’s not me,” Or “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.” I understand where you’re coming from because I feel a lot t of that as well. However, you need to understand or realize that you are primarily a spiritual being.

Series: John
John 6
David Stockton - August 16, 2020

(starting at 4:10)

When God made us, he breathed into our mortal bodies, when he breathed into Adam and that spirit part of you is actually the most real part of you. It’s the part of you that will continue on after your body, your soul, mind and emotions cease to exist. Your spirit lives on. Not only are we primarily spiritual so we need to get accustomed to that and realize that, but God, the God of the bible, the God that made us is spiritual. He is spirit.

Jesus was talking to the woman at the well and he said, “Look, you’re getting all these things wrong because you’re focusing on the practical.” He was saying, “But really what God is looking for, is, God who is spirit, is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth.”

John really is all about that. When we see his take on Jesus, his understanding of Jesus is, Jesus is not just a man, but Jesus was God in the flesh. He was a deity. He was the living God, the creator God, he was with God in the beginning, he was God.

So we really need to kind of try and get rid of those feelings and don’t put the walls up and start to think, “Oh, this is getting weird because he’s saying the word spiritual a whole bunch.” Because that’s really who God is. He is Spirit. He’s created us to be spirit and that’s how we’re supposed to connect with him.

As you see Jesus, the spirituality of Jesus does not make him no good earthly. It actually makes him very beneficial and helpful and all of those things.

Just kind of work on that as we’re going through this. Today we’re going to get one of Jesus’ hard sayings. John, as he’s writing the gospel of John, he’s really trying to help us see Jesus as God, not just man. He’s really trying to help us understand God’s politic. We’ve talked about that. God’s logos, God’s word. The universal guiding principle of the cosmos—that’s what Jesus is.

And he gives us seven I am statements of Jesus. The powerful, “This is who I am.” Jesus declaring who he is. And he also gives us seven miraculous signs, miraculous proofs that Jesus really is who he says he is.

But also in John we have these hard sayings, these things that can only be interpreted with a spiritual mind. For instance, what he says to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” And Nicodemus is like, “How am I supposed to go into my mom’s womb again?” And Jesus said, “You’re not getting it. You need spiritual eyes to understand this.”

And then he talks about when his disciples came back and were trying to give him some food and he said, “I have food you know not of.” And they were kind of like, “What’s going on? Did someone sneak him some food? He got Uber or whatever.”

Really, what Jesus was talking about is, “You’ve got to understand. There is a spiritual food that is more valuable to me than any physical food I can experience.”

And then today, we have the wonderful, happy phrase when Jesus says over and over again, “You have to eat my body and drink my blood if you really want to live.”

So that’s what we’re going to be getting into today. It’s going to take some effort. If you need to stretch it out a little bit, if you need to shake your head a little, get some water , that’s fine. But let’s get into this and really allow God to speak deep into our hearts and allow all of this that we’re doing in the natural to really impact the spiritual reality of who we are.

John 6:25

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

So, for context, if you go back to last week, John the Baptist is beheaded by Herod. It’s an extremely outrageous moment, where people are so angry, so upset. And Jesus, when he hears that John the Baptist, who was his cousin, was beheaded, he withdrew to a quiet place. Because he didn’t want to hear what the popular opinions were saying. He wanted to hear from his Father. So he withdrew to this quiet place.

But the people that had known of Jesus and experienced some of his miracles and teaching, they gathered together. It says that five thousand men went out to the wilderness to find out where Jesus was. Basically they were saying, “All right Jesus, let’s do this. Let’s go march on these people. Let’s go tear this temple down. Let’s go do whatever we can to throw off this Roman oppression, to get rid of this horrible ruler named Herod.” They were just ready to do whatever. They were sick and tired of it all.

It says that Jesus met them in that moment and instead of turning them away, he fed them. He found five loaves and two fish from a little boy, and he ended up multiplying it and fed every one of those men.

And in some ways you can almost see like a mom, when you come home all angry and upset and your mom says, “Hey just sit down, child. Let me give you some milk. Let me give you some cereal. Let me calm you down a little bit.”

And that’s kind of what Jesus did. So now they’re not only outraged and totally frustrated about what happened in the city, but now they’re also just mesmerized and blown away by Jesus being able to feed all these people. It says that, after it got dark that day, Jesus withdrew again.

They want to make him king by force and kind of have him lead the revolution that they wanted. But instead he withdrew to a mountainside. And he sent his disciple sin a boat across the lake. Right in the middle of morning, it was about 3:00 am, Jesus walks on the water to meet his disciples who are stuck in a storm in the middle of the lake. As soon as he gets in the boat, the storm is gone, they reach the other side.

They’re on the other side of the lake now from where he fed the five thousand, in a place called Capernaum. When the people realize that Jesus is not around and the boat’s gone, they decide, “Let’s get over.” So they get in boats and they go around the lake. They get to the other sid and they find Jesus there. And he sits down and he begins to teach them. That’s where we‘re picking up here, where they say they found him on the other side.

They’re looking for him and they’re still kind of chomping at the bit, saying, “Jesus, let’s do this thing. You’ve got miraculous power. We’ve got a horrible dictator ruler here. Let’s go do something about this.”

And Jesus says, “Hey, you need to understand something. You’re coming to me because you saw a miraculous sign. Because you ate some food.” But he says, “I need you to realize that I’m not here necessarily for the practical realities of life. I’m here because of what needs to be done for your eternal life, your everlasting life.” And he’s kind of trying to help them move from, “Man, Jesus can feed us. Jesus can lead a revolution. Jesus can bring all these social reforms.”

And he’s saying, “That’s not my primary thing.”

And the first thing we need to realize is that most people prioritize their immediate physical needs. But the Jesus way prioritizes the everlasting spiritual needs.

Now this is really important. I’m going to read it again. Please hear this. And the first thing we need to realize is that most people prioritize their immediate physical needs. But the Jesus way prioritizes the everlasting spiritual needs.

It does not mean Jesus doesn’t care about practical needs. You can see that throughout his entire life. He met people’s practical needs. But all of that was so that they would understand that he has the power to meet the much deeper needs of their spirit, of their everlasting life.

He tells them, “Don’t work for food that spoils. Work for the food that endures to eternal life. He wants them to understand how to gauge in the spiritual life, in the spiritual battles. He’s not here to just help them solve their physical, natural, temporary battles. Again, he does care about those things, but not in comparison to the spiritual realities of life.

This is a hard thing. Because oftentimes Jesus becomes a big disappointment for us. If we don’t understand this reality, if we don’t understand that God is spirit and what he is really interested in is what happens in this life and in the next, in the spirit reality of who we are. We pray, pray and pray that God will meet a physical need, give you a physical healing for you or someone you love and you don’t see it. Sometimes it can leave you in a place where you say, “That’s it. Either Jesus doesn’t have power or he doesn’t care.”

And I totally understand that. I’ve been in that situation. But what we have to understand is, and what Jesus is trying to help these people understand is that the priority of God is not to make you physically okay. The priority of God is to make you spiritually okay. And sometimes the physical things that he allows into our lives that are hard will help us in the spiritual. And I don’t like it at all, but that is a reality that we have to understand and trust him in. That’s a hard thing to do. But that is one thing he was wanting them to see.

So then they respond to him in verse 28:

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

So they’re kind of asking the question, “Okay, if revolution and the feeding of the bread and all of those miraculous signs, if that’s not the work of God, what are you saying? What are we supposed to be about?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

So in this passage, they’re asking the right question. But when Jesus says, “You’ve got to believe in the one God has sent” speaking of himself, they’re like, “Well, okay, what are you going to do to prove it? What sign will you give us?”

He just fed the five thousand. He’s done lots of other things that were recorded in John and in other places. And they’re saying, “So what sign are you going to give us so that we’ll believe? We hear you saying that we’re supposed to believe and follow you, but what sign…”

And this is the second things we need to realize. Most people want Jesus to do something miraculous and then they will follow him. But the Jesus way is, as we follow him, we begin to uncover the evidence. We begin to see his power at work. This is again something that can cause a lot of disappointment. You always hear people say, “God, if you get me out of this thing, I’ll follow you forever.”

And again, I think God does sometimes do that. He shows up. He did feed these guys who were so upset, so enraged. He fed them miraculously to just kind of show his compassion, to show how much he loves them, to show that he can do something about it. But he was drawing them away from it, saying, “But I need you to understand that this is what’s most important. The spiritual reality.”

So he asked them to believe. They are saying, “Well give us a sign and then we’ll believe.” And Jesus is saying, “No, I want you to believe. And as you believe, and as you follow me, and as you come and see who I am and what I do, you’ll begin to understand what really is important. And you’ll begin to see the full gospel, the good news of God and his love for you worked out.”

That’s a tricky thing. John basically said that this whole book that he’s written, this whole letter that he’s written is really to help people believe. He’s probably writing it to more Greco-Roman audience than Jews, which is different from the other writers. But he’s writing to help believe and understand.

So we really need to understand faith. We did this in the first couple of weeks, really trying to unpack faith. I want to remind you, because you’re great bible students here, of some of those things that we said. Faith, according to John, is trust over time.

And you can see that John, who was known as the Son of Thunder—I mean, he was this emotional, kind of radical guy. And we read in the book of John that as he walked with Jesus, he became the one that Jesus loves. He became the one that leaned against the breast of Jesus, became the one that Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to.John had this great change going on in his life.

As Jesus began to do the miracle of the wedding at Cana, as John saw his zeal as he went to the temple with the whip and cleansed all of that; as John saw him caring for the Samaritan woman; and then also caring for the royal official, and the way that he was interacting with Nicodemus; it was like Jesus was breaking all of whatever seemed to be barriers between people and reconciling the whole world to himself—whether rich, poor, different ethnicities, socio-economic class—Jesus was just kind of meeting everybody, reconciling everybody to himself; as John saw all of these things he just began to put more and more trust in Jesus. He was actually able to make the leap from “This is not just some guy who’s a good rabbi teacher, but this guy is the actual creator God in the flesh.” I mean, that is just wild to think about being with somebody in the flesh but realizing they are so much more than that.

But that was what happened with John. He began to trust more and more over time. That’s a big part of faith. As we described here. We want God to just give us what we want and then we’ll believe. But God says as you continue to put your trust in him, as you step out into those uncomfortable places and find his faithfulness, that’s when you begin to have your faith built.” It’s trust over time.

I remember some friends and I, right after college, just had this idea that I just wanted to see what God can do and I had read some stories in the Old Testament about “Let’s just go for it and see what God can do.” So I talked some friends into going to Ireland with me. We bought a three-month ticket. We were just going to go to Ireland for three months and just say “Okay God, lead us, guide us and see what you can do.”

Some of you have heard me tell the story. God met us, God provided for us, I mean, just so many wonderful, wonderful things took place. For a young man it was really something that made me think I can put my trust in God. It wasn’t that God gave me something then I did, but it was something that I stepped out, being led of God and saying, “Okay, I’m going to go do this thing whether or not it works out. I don’t know.” But then the Lord showed up. So I would encourage you to take those steps. Trust over time.

Another way that the Bible explains faith is pledging allegiance. And we talked about that in one of the early messages. Actually it was on the Fourth of July weekend. We didn’t plan that. But it was pledging our allegiance to God. We’ve got to be careful that we don’t pledge allegiance to things that are not of God. We’ve got to make sure God is first and foremost.

Then the last thing, Hebrews tell us that faith is substance and evidence. If you’ve been to one of our Explore classes, which is kind of like our “new to the church” classes, you get to hear me unpack that. It’s been really meaningful for me. We’re going to be doing an Explore class pretty soon. If you’re someone who’s been checking out the church online and you’re ready to take that next step and really kind of make this your family, we’re going to be doing that pretty soon. So stay tuned for that.

Let’s continue on. Verse 32 is where we’re at now:

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

So this is really a big deal. This is the gospel. Jesus is saying, ”If you come to me, I will keep you, I will cleanse you and I will raise you up in the last day.” This is what Jesus wants to do for you, no matter what you’ve done. No matter whether you think you fit or not. Whether you’re Jew or Gentile. Whether you know the Scriptures or not. This is what Jesus is saying to you, that if you will come to him and you will follow him and you will learn of him and you will receive him and you will let him rule your life, then he will raise you up in the last day to everlasting life. It’s just beautiful. It’s the best deal there ever is. And that’s what Jesus did.

He hadn’t gone to the cross and died at this point. But the proof that he actually can do what he’s saying right here came when he died on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead victorious over sin and death. And that’s the message for each one of us.

In this passage I want us to realize that the third thing is, most people want Jesus to save them from whatever is bothering them right now. For these people it was the political turmoil they were going through. But the Jesus way wants to save you from everlasting separation from God, which we call hell.

Most people want God to just kind of help them in this life. But really, what Jesus came to do primarily, what God wants to do primarily in your life is save you from everlasting separation from God, which your sin brings about. He doesn’t want you to go to hell. He basically says, “If you want to go to hell, if you want to be separated from me, you’ll have to do it over my dead body my son’s dead body.”

Literally. Jesus was crucified. The only way you can get to hell is to basically walk over and say, “I don’t care about that. I don’t want anything to do with Jesus. I reject Jesus completely.” If that’s what you’re doing both with your words and your actions, then you’re going to be separated from God.

But if you say, “No, I want Jesus. I want life. I want to care about these things. And even though I want God to meet me in my physical stress right now, I really do care more about that and I want Jesus to meet me when I die.” Then that’s something that Jesus is saying is for you. That’s what God cares about way more than anything else we’re experiencing.

Let’s keep going. 41 through 59:

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.

The disciples are like, “Oh man. This is just killing this movement right now.”

57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

So he’s actually in the synagogue. He’s unpacking this concept, trying to get people to move from their physical, fleshly eyes to their spiritual everlasting eyes. And then he starts dropping these bombs about, “Look, if you really want to know what I’m saying, you have to eat my body and drink my blood if you want any part of me and at the kingdom that I have. If you want God to raise you up on the last day, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.”

This is not sounding very good. Then he says it again and again and again. Just in case nobody was weirded out, he wanted to make sure everyone in the room was totally weirded out. Then verse 60:

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

The disciples are so awesome.

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling…

So, first of all, the Jews that were coming to have him lead this revolution, they were grumbling, “He’s talking about he came from heaven. We know where he came from. Talking about eating his flesh. How can that happen?”

And now his disciples are grumbling too.

Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

So right there in verse 66, From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. We know that five thousand men came out because they wanted to kind of go to this revolution. They wanted to make him king. And he fed them, but then he left them. When they woke up and couldn’t find him, I don’t know if all five thousand or just some of them came, but they came to the other side of the lake. And there they found Jesus and began to teach them in a synagogue.

As he was doing this, I don’t know how many were there exactly, but it was a lot more than twelve, in one place we actually do see in another gospel there were about 120 followers of Jesus and then seventy followers—he sends out seventy disciples at one point.

But as they continued to follow him, and then he says this saying, this was kind of a moment of truth for these disciples, “You’ve got to eat my flesh and drink my blood,” it says that most of them went away. They were disappointed in Jesus. He was not going to lead the revolution they wanted. For those of you who are bible scholars, you’ll love this. Basically, when these Jews are saying to him, “Moses gave bread to the people in Exodus as they were set free from that oppression of Egyptian slavery,” what they were saying was, “Jesus we’ve seen you do miracles and wonders like Moses did. We’re experiencing severe oppression under the Romans like the Egyptians did to the Israelites before and now we’re seeing you multiply food out in the wilderness, are you going to deliver us? This is making up for a great exodus. Can you lead a deliverance right here in our time, in our place? We’re praying for it. We’re crying out to God.

And basically Jesus said, “No. I’m not here to bring about a natural revolution, or a practical or a fleshly even revolution. I’m here to do a work that is actually everlasting. A work that is in the Spirit. A work that will set you free from an oppression not of Roman order or whatever it might be…but the oppression of sin and death, which are mankind’s greatest enemies.” Sin and death is the oppression we’ve been living under ever since Adam and Eve decided to go their way instead of God’s way.

Sin and death is the shadow that hangs over all of society, that creates all the pain and agony we experience. Sin and death are the things that are so deep inside our souls that we can’t even live unrestrained. We can’t even live free without doing something ugly or horrible or hurtful to somebody else.

The sin and death that permeates our souls so intensely makes, as the Bible says, that even our righteousness is like filthy rags. So me trying to do the right thing often can actually hurt somebody else and not be good for somebody else. We have this sin and death so thick and heavy over all of creation, so intrinsic and permeating all of creation, that creation, the Bible says, is groaning, longing for redemption. Longing for Jesus to return and set us free from the oppression of sin and death.

And what Jesus is saying to us here is that that’s what he’s ultimately here to do. He’s come to show us the way of God, to show us the way of the Father, to die on a cross, to pay the price and penalty for our sins, and then to rise, to conquer death once and for all. And then we know that he’s seated at the right hand of the Father until the day that he comes back and he makes all things new. Basically, he undoes all of the sadness that death and sin has come.

And we’re in this in-between time. We’re in this waiting time, waiting for his return. We have the power and love of Christ. His Spirit is with us so that we can taste heaven right now. We can experience it. We can walk in that kingdom power right now. But at the same time, we still live in these bodies of death. We still live in a world filled with death.

So here’s so what I think how we go about both things: being born again in a spiritual way, and how we go about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in a spiritual way. Obviously Jesus wasn’t a cannibal.He’s not telling us to be cannibals. We need to see it with spiritual eyes.

And this is my best way to unpack it. How do we do this? Well there’s this phrase that I came across from a friend of mine, John Mark Comer who’s a pastor up in crazy town Portland. I want to pop it up and have you guys read this. Then I’ll unpack it a little bit.

“For Jesus, the devil’s primary strategy to ruin the soul and society isn’t what most of us expect. It’s lies. More specifically, it’s deceptive ideas that play to disordered desires that are normalized in a sinful society. In this teaching, we explore how we are transformed by Spirit and truth, and deformed by isolation and lies. And we look to Jesus’ example of spiritual disciplines as spiritual warfare.”

We’ve been talking about this in our Sunday morning gatherings that we have been having where we pray and intercede and engage in spiritual warfare. We feel like that’s exactly what the Church is supposed to be doing right now. You, as a Christian, you should be doing spiritual warfare.

“I’m not that spiritual.”

Well then you’re not that Christian. This is a time where we really need to take seriously these things of God. The battle is going on in our society more so than it was in prior years. Recently. Obviously there have been battles before. But the Church is called to battle in the Spirit right now. And if you’re not, you’re probably losing ground for you and your household. So this is a very serious thing.

The Spiritual warfare that Jesus shows us, his way, basically, I think it can be unpacked like this. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge there are deceptive ideas in our society. And they play to our disordered desires and they’re normalized in our sinful defiant society. This is hard for people to realize. I think all of us now are aware that are a lot of deceitful ideas being spread around by media, but social media, by left, by right, by you, by me. We’re perpetrators of these ideas that are not good. They are not true. They’re not right. They’re not helpful. We have to be aware of that.

But we also have to realize that, according to the fall, we were born with disordered desires. Inside you and I, we long for things that are not good and not right. And what our society is trying to do is make those things okay and right. I might long for somebody else’s house or property. I might long for somebody else’s paycheck or whatever. That is something I need to resist. That is something I need to work against in my own life. To find contentment. But in our society we say, “That ambition. That’s work. That’s all of those things.” And we try to normalize coveting, or envy, or jealousy. And it’s not right.

For some we say, Oh, well, you know you have these desires sexually. Whether it be for a woman that’s not your wife. Or for a man that’s not your husband. Or for someone of the same sex. Whatever it might be. For someone that’s really young. I mean all of these crazy things that people have. And it’s not “You’re a bad person and you’re horrible and God hates you because you have that.”

Please hear me. Please hear me. Please listen to what I’m saying. As a part of the fall we are all created with disordered desires, desires that are not in line with God’s will, which therefore do not bring about human flourishing. We’ve got to trust that he knows the order. He knows the design. He can give us the strength if we’ll eat his body and drink his blood daily in the Spirit. He will strengthen us and sustain us to overcome those disordered desires, and see where society’s just trying to normalize those things that will ultimately end up in our ruin as a society and as an individual.

I know it’s hard. I’m not saying it’s not. We all have to resist. Welcome to the resistance. And we need each other. We need the blood of Jesus. We need the body of Jesus to strengthen us and sustain us. We also need the body of Christ.

This gets us to number 2. So first we have to acknowledge that.

Secondly we need to read the scriptures. We need to process life with other believers, both past and present.

So the believers that wrote this book, the Bible, the believers that have written about the challenges we’re facing. There’s a lot we can learn. But we also need to do it in the fellowship together. That’s where life groups come in. That’s why gatherings are so important. We need to be in each other’s lives, supporting each other in these battles.

And we need to pray so that we’ll not be fooled and led astray.

This is simple stuff. And this right here doesn’t feel like spiritual warfare. It seems very practical. But this is spiritual warfare as well when we can do these things. The scriptures are powerful for bringing down strongholds. Other believers will help sustain you and you can link arms so that you stay strong. Prayer is where we get to hear God’s ideas instead of just the rhetoric or propaganda going around.

And the last thing is

We need to understand that we have disordered desires as a part of the fall of mankind from innocence and be strengthened by the life and love of Christ to overcome those desires.

If you are someone that has homosexual desires, I want you to understand that God has room for you, that God does not condemn you for that. I think you do have to swallow a hard pill and understand that the Bible and God would teach that those are not right desires. Those desires will not lead to human flourishing for you and for our society. And I know that’s very difficult.

But you’re not the only one. Those who have desires for people who are not their wives, those who have desires for money that’s not theirs, those who are greedy, those who are hateful, those who have experienced pain in a lot of other ways and they want to act out, this is all part of our challenge. That’s why we need each other. That’s why we have to come together and not villainize or victimize each other.

God has promised that, if you will come to Christ and you will daily take in his body and his blood, not in a real practical way, but in a spiritual way, you will feed on the life of Christ, you’ll feed on the love of Christ, you will be strengthened to overcome whatever sin or whatever disordered desire you might be dealing with and struggling with. And we all do. We all do. The church is full of people with disordered desires who are trying to rely on Christ to overcome those things for themselves, for their households, for their families, and for society as a whole. And that’s the good news of Jesus, that he didn’t just say these things, but then, at the end of his life, he practically allowed his body to be broken and his blood to flow so that we could spiritually receive the forgiveness and strength that we need.

We’re going to do that now. We’re going to put up a slide and have a little time of communion for you and your household. I really want you to take this time seriously. If you need to go over those last points that fine. But just take this time and spiritually feed on the love and the life of Christ, the body and blood of Jesus that was given for you. And find the strength that is there as we continue to do battle in our society. God bless you guys.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Guest User 8/9/20 Guest User 8/9/20

The Social Justice of the Social Jesus

We’re going to go to John chapter 6 and I want to read it to us, get in our minds, and then we’re actually going to read another passage that tells the same story. John 6, we’re going to start in verse 1:

Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

Series: John
John 6
David Stockton - August 9, 2020

(Starting at 4:38)

Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

You’ve got the personalities coming out. Philip was more of the business mind, where he’s like, “We can’t do this. What are you talking about?” He’s planning all the logistics, figuring out, “This does not compute.”

Then you’ve got Andrew who’s just kind of going, “Well, we’ve got this, we’ve got this, but I don’t know, you know.”

I like the personalities you get in the Bible.

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).

Now, whether it was just men or if it was families, its kind of hard to know. But here John is making note that there were five thousand men there. And we’re going to come back to that.

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

So this is John’s account of this story, which is in all four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is one of the only things that is in all four of those accounts, because it’s so fascinating, so powerful, so amazing, that Jesus revealed the supernatural, intervening power of God in this moment by supplying food for all of these people from such a small source. How it went about, what took place, what it looked like when all of a sudden the basket just kept getting filled, I have no idea how it all went down. But it must have been so wonderful, so amazing. And all these people, just the physical hunger was met in this moment.

I want to go back to Matthew chapter 14 if you’ll turn there. We’ll get a little bit of detail that John doesn’t give us about what brought about this moment. John just basically says, “And then after this…” and then he goes into the story.

In Matthew 14, let’s get a little background on what was taking place in Israel, in Jesus’ life right before this moment. It says:

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet.

So John was a righteous man. This is John the Baptist. This is Jesus’ cousin. He was doing great things for the people of God. He was calling them out of their wickedness, calling them out of their selfishness, out of their pride. And calling them to repent and get right with God. One of the things he did was he was speaking out against Herod and his family, the leaders of that day, the kind of Jewish aristocracy that were put in power by Rome.

Rome was dominating the whole world, but they would put local leaders in charge. So Herod was kind of a sell-out, what the Jews thought. He was kind of in bed with Rome and with the Jews and it was not a good situation. He was not loved by the people.

So John the Baptist saw some of the things that they were doing and he was saying, “It’s not right for you to be taking other people’s wives. It’s not right to be taking extra wives. This is not right. This is not Jewish. This is not Judaism. This is not of God.”

He was speaking out against those leaders and it ended up getting him arrested and put in prison. And there he was in prison. Then it says in verse 6:

On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

So the grief of this moment, the outrage, the horror, the injustice. It must have just been absolutely brutal when this took place for the people of Israel. They’re oppressed, they’re struggling, they’re poor. The Roman domination has completely broken their backs. Now here, their ruler, Herod, does this completely disgusting act for a completely disgusting reason. And they’re left with this feeling.

And it says John’s disciples, the ones that were hanging out with John and helping with John’s ministry, they went and got his body and they buried him and they went and told Jesus. Now again, Jesus is not just someone who was a fan of John the Baptist. Jesus was John the Baptist’s cousin. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist to fulfill all righteousness. John the Baptist had already been proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah, he was the Lamb of God that was going to take away the sin of the whole world. And yet, now in this moment, John’s disciples come and tell Jesus the news of what took place.

I titled this message “The Social Justice of the Social Jesus.” In our day today there is a lot of zeal. There’s a lot of unrest. There’s a lot of outrage about a number of things. I don’t think it’s too wrong or too challenging to call this Jesus’ George Floyd moment. I mean, obviously the comparisons break down in a number of ways. But this really was an intense political, intense societal moment that was taking place in Jesus’ life.

I think it’s very important for us to look at what Jesus does. Because we’re all right now kind of stirred up. We’ve got the election challenges. Conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican. We’ve got the racial unrest, black, white, privilege, no privilege, systemic—we’ve got all these words that are kind of firing us all up. And there’s anger and guilt swirling around. And then we also have this COVID thing, which has a lot of confusion. Sometimes they say this, sometimes they say this. Sometimes you think this, sometimes you think that, about how to walk forward. What’s the best practices to do.

Our nation is so pitted against each other. And what I’m seeing is that it’s starting to seep into the church a little bit, too, where it just has no place. We’re called to be one. We’re one body. We have one head and that’s Jesus Christ. So we need to figure out how to be unified above all of our secondary ideas, our nonessential concepts. So it’s good for us to look at Jesus and what he did in his moment of real political unrest and turmoil.

So that’s what we have. This setup for this story of feeding the five thousand. Let’s continue in Matthew in verse 13, in these couple of verses before we go on.

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.

That was Jesus’ initial response.

Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

And Matthew goes on to talk about what we’ve got in John. How Jesus separated them all into groups, had his disciples get them all sat down and then he goes and feeds the five thousand.

There are a couple of things I want us to notice here. When we put these two stories together, what we really have is an extremely outrageous, horrific political event or something that happened in society, an injustice, that causes this crowd to go and find Jesus. Now Jesus, when he heard it, he withdrew so the crowds came to find him.

The reason there were five thousand men, the reason there was this large crowd was not just because they were wanting to hang out with Jesus. It was a combo. They had seen the power of God revealed through Jesus. They had heard the teachings of Christ that seemed to cut through all the confusion that was going on in that day. And so, in this moment when they wanted to look to someone to lead, when they wanted to bring about some sort of social change, when they wanted to overthrow Herod, when they wanted to do something because they were so angry, they came the Jesus, which is a great thing to do.

But what they found, I think, surprised them. Because they came to Jesus to really say, “All right, Jesus, lead the movement. Lead the march. Let’s go tear this place down. Let’s go to the palace and let’s get rid of Herod. Let’s do all these things.”

But instead, Jesus withdrew to a quiet place. Jesus sat everyone down. Jesus healed the sick among them. Jesus fed them, meeting a practical need. And then, as we go back to the book of John chapter 6, it says, then after this—they were so blown away—Jesus was able to feed all of them. They’re going, “This really is the guy! This is it! Let’s do this thing.”

It says that Jesus, knowing they were going to try to make him king, he again withdrew to a quiet place. And then the very next story we have, he’s there in a quiet place praying because his heart is broken because his cousin was beheaded. His heart is broken because of the oppression and the injustice. But he goes to prayer. He withdraws to a quiet place and prays.

And then that night, he sends the disciples out and he keeps praying, but then he walks to them on water—which is an awesome story—walks to them on water, reassuring them that he is in control over all of this stuff. And then he departs to another quiet place with his disciples

I just think this is interesting because, you know, right now, what I’ve felt when I heard about George Floyd and some of the other cases, and I’ve heard the cry of the black community as they are just so frustrated about a lot of their situation and all of that. I immediately was like, “Okay, I want to hear.” I’ve told you guys a little bit of the story. Fifteen of us white pastors met with fifteen African American pastors. We just went to try and start the conversation, “Hey, tell us what’s going on. Tell us where we’re at. Tell us what we can do.”

It didn’t go very well. There was a lot of distance between us when we got there. And when we left there was still a lot of distance. It kind of broke my heart. I was like, “Okay, Lord, what do I do?”

So I’ve been diving in to try to learn. To research I’ve been reaching out to African American pastors or Christians that I can just say, “Hey, can I just have more one on one conversation to see if that helps.” I’ve been getting to know a lot of people. It’s been really neat and really fascinating. I’ve learned so much and been so encouraged by some of these men that are really trying to sort out what to do and really trying to do the Jesus way as they go through.

Then there was another meeting of those same pastors down at the capital where there was going to be a lot of confessions and a lot of commitment going forward. I watched it on Facebook and was like, “Yeah. These words are good. This is heading in the right direction.”

Then we actually flew in a guy from St. Louis who was a professor but right now he’s teaching math at a school right next to Ferguson. He was there all that time and he has a very researched mind and a lot of papers he wrote about that time and what should be done and what shouldn’t be done. He came out and shared with our staff. I got to be with him and really just discover a lot of different things that I didn’t know.

So I’ve just been trying to dive into this thing. Really, what I feel like God has told me is, a lot of times we’re supposed to practice what we preach. But I felt that what the Lord was telling me is that we need to practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice…before we preach. What I’ve seen a lot of Christians do is, they’re preaching without really digging in and trying to catch God’s heart.

And that’s the first thing we see Jesus do. Immediately when this happened, and he was Jesus, he knew what to do. But still, he withdrew to a quiet place to pray. And I just think, for Christians, we’ve got to be there. That’s our call right now. We’ve got to seek God’s heart. We’ve got to seek his presence. We’ve got to seek his power. Because without his power, all we’ve got is just more humanistic, secular ideas and strength. It’s not going to do anything at all for anyone.

There’s a story in the Old Testament that I’ve been chewing ever since all of this took place. It’s a really fun story. It’s about Joshua and the children of Israel, where they’re going to be heading into the Promised Land and they’re going to be having some battles between the Israelites and the Canaanites. One of the first places they went to was Jericho with those mighty walls. You’ve probably heard the story about the walls of Jericho.

The night before they were going into battle, Joshua, who was probably overwhelmed because of the intensity of the moment. They’re about to go into battle and he’s just a brand new leader. The Israelites are not warriors by any chance. Moses is gone now. He’s just kind of overwhelmed. So it says he went away to be by himself, away from the camp. And while he was there, I imagine he was praying, but all of a sudden it says that he saw a warrior standing next to him with his sword drawn. Joshua was startled. The question that he asked in Joshua chapter 4 is, “Are you for us or are you for our enemies?”

Then it says that the warrior answered, “Neither. But I’m the commander of the army of the Lord. And the place that you’re standing is holy. You need to take your shoes off.”

So Joshua takes his shoes off and has this little moment where he’s talking to the angel of God’s armies. A lot of people think this is a Christophany—an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament.

When I think about this story, it’s like the third option. “Are you for us or are you for our enemies?” And I can just hear people saying, “Are you for the blacks or are you for the whites?” “Are you for the Republicans or are you for the Democrats?” “Are you for my worldview, or my philosophy, or are you for the opposing world view philosophy?”

We’re pitting ourselves against each other. And we’re coming to the Lord, saying, “Are you for us or are you for our enemies?”

And God’s like, “No, man. No.”

First of all, God is for everyone. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him…whoever believes in him. Whatever their background is. Whatever their philosophy is. If they put their faith in Christ, if they give their life to Christ, they get eternal life. Whether they get everything right in this life or not, that is the trump card. Sorry I said trump there. I know you’re not supposed to say it. That overcomes anything we’ve ever done. The life and blood of Jesus overcomes anything that we could ever do wrong.

That’s the grace. That’s the beauty of it all, that somehow all of us, no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we fight, no matter how zealous we are, no matter how right we think we are, we are still on the wrong side. Humanity will always be on the wrong side whenever we’re doing humanistic ideas. We’re all just trying to build a new tower of Babel. All these things, capitalism, socialism, communism, whatever it might be. Some might be better for some. Some might be better for others. Some might be better sometimes. Some might be better others. I don’t know. All of them are human philosophies that are going to leave us all empty and short of the glory of God. So we shouldn’t be fighting for them. We shouldn’t be making that be all we’re about.

We want to get on God’s side. And God’s side is found in the scriptures. God’s side is found in a relationship with him. God’s side is what’s going to get us from this life to fullness of life. We’ve got to find a way to get off of our side to God’s side. We know that Jesus Christ was the answer. God sent his son into the world to teach us what his side is all about, and to lay down his life to provide a bridge for us to get from our side to his side.

That’s why John, when he starts his book, he says, “In the beginning was the Word.” And he uses the word Word to describe Jesus. And the word Word in the Greek, and we’ve talked about this, is logos. And it’s basically God’s universal principle that rules the cosmos. It’s what makes life exist and happen. It’s God’s philosophy. It’s God’s politic.

So if we really want to get from our side to God’s side, we’ve got to go through Jesus. We’ve got to learn his teaching. We’ve got to learn his way. We’ve got to apply his blood to our life, We’ve got to invite him into our life. And for some of you, you might have spent your whole life looking for the next philosophy, or the next idea that might make you feel alive or whole. It’s never going to happen. There’s only one way to enlightenment and truth. There’s only one way to heaven in truth. There’s only one way to truth and that is Jesus Christ. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. And here’s the most amazing thing in the world. He loves you and he wants you to be on his side, be in his family. He wants to come and do life with you. That’s what the Bible teaches over and over again. And that’s what we see in the life of Jesus.

That’s the reality, We’re trying to figure out how to get from our side to God’s side. Sure enough, in Joshua’s day, God said, ‘Well this is how you do it. This is what you do to get on my side. I want you to walk around the walls of Jericho. I just want you to keep walking consistently day after day, day after day, in silence, keep walking and on the final day, I want you to shout.”

And we know the story. Those walls came down and God’s will and God’s purposes were brought out. And so for our day and age, when we see all these dividing walls, when we see all this division, I really feel like God has spoken clearly to us how we’re supposed to walk in his way, be on his side right now. It’s to consistently, day after day, whether COVID is here or COVID goes, whether the political party we want or don’t want wins, whether we’re black or white or brown or whatever, this is how we get the walls to come down in our society. We continue to walk with humility and we continue to walk with generosity. Those are the two things that are going to make the biggest difference in this time.

Jesus said, “If you want to come and follow me, come learn of me. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and humble in heart.” That is the way of Jesus. That is the social Jesus. Humility and generosity. He withdrew to a quiet place. He drew everybody in. And he met their needs and served them by feeding the five thousand, by healing the sick, by teaching them his ways. And that’s what we get in John chapter six.

I want to talk a little bit about the power of God, as far as this miracle. Because this is a fascinating miracle. There are a number of miracles in the book of John, trying to teach us about God. And I’m going to tell us here in just a second one of the things that I think Jesus did that we can mirror as we go through this. One of them is the revealing of God’s supernatural intervening power. There are different people who have experienced that. There are people who haven’t experienced that. For me, I have seen God do miracles, signs and wonders. Oftentimes it’s not when I really thought he would. And it’s definitely not been every time.

There was a time where I was living in a village in Belize and I got to see the scriptures about casting out demons come to pass as I worked with a young man and prayed over him and he did experience two demons actually leave him. And he saw a man in white talking to him. It was fascinating and it was something that I hope I don’t ever have to be a part of again. But it was really cool to see the power of God in that supernatural intervening power show up for this young man,

I’ve also been here in the church, many times we’ve prayed for people. Sometimes we’ve believed that they’ll be healed and sometimes we don’t. And sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes we didn’t think they’d be healed and then they got healed. Sometimes we thought they’d be healed and then they didn’t. But we’ve seen some actual, bona fide miracles. We’ve checked with people weeks afterward and months afterward and it’s still been true.

On the spectrum though, I just need us to understand. There’s this idea of Deism. Deism is the fact that God created the world, but then he doesn’t intervene. He just kind of wound up the clock and he’s letting it go. Deism is not a biblical idea. It’s not within orthodoxy. I don’t believe it’s true at all. But I can get why people would go there.

Most of the founding fathers of America actually were deistic. Thomas Jefferson created a bible and he took out all the miraculous signs and said, “Now this is the Bible that I believe in.”

The one problem with that is, if you take out the miracles, you take out the resurrection of Christ. You take out the resurrection of Christ, we are of men most miserable. We have nothing to hope for. Because if Jesus wasn’t a sacrifice that was able to rise from the dead, that means his sacrifice for us was not sufficient. So that’s why it just can’t be true.

But on the other side of Deism, you have this Pentecostalism, where it’s like God’s going to do everything you ever wanted him to do, and if he doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong. And that’s not a true at all either. That gets way outside the biblical concept.

There’s one other word I want you to know. It’s Cessationism. Cessationism is this idea that God stopped intervening supernaturally with miracles and all of that after the acts of the apostles. After Peter, James and John passed away. That it was a time that God was doing that and God is doing that no more. I can get why they would say that scripturally. But also, at the same time, I’ve just not found that to be true in my life. And I don’t think that makes sense of the God that we serve either. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.

So somewhere in this camp between this Cessationism and this extreme Pentecostalism is where I think I’m trying to find my way, and where I think Living Streams is trying to find our way, where we do hope that God will supernaturally intervene, that he’ll give us grace in that way. But we also put our hope in God and we say, “If he doesn’t, then he’ll give us the grace to endure well.”

Like Paul said, “If he doesn’t give it to us then we can know that in our weakness his strength will be made perfect.”

I know some of you are both. Some of you have experienced those miracles and you’re rejoicing but then in other areas you haven’t. And some you have not experienced those miracles. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything wrong. But if God says no to the miracles, then that means he’s saying yes to the grace you need to endure. And though it might be hard, you can endure.

So that’s a little bit about the power of God, the miracles of God. I want to mention that because I want to list what I do see in the life of Jesus, what his version of social justice looks like.

First of all, withdrawing from the crowd. I think withdrawing from the crowd is something we all need to understand. There’s a lot of populism. There are a lot of people building their lives on rhetoric right now. We need to make sure to withdraw from the crowd to hear the voice of our God as he guides us through this challenging time.

Secondly, we need to serve practical needs The fatherless, the widow, the orphans—these are the people that God’s heart is really paying attention to. We should be doing that as well.

Revealing God’s supernatural intervening power. We just spoke about that.

Speaking about the kingdom of God. I think it’s important for us not to be spreading other news. Right now, if you’re just talking about conspiracy theories or you’re just talking about Republican agenda or Democrat agenda, if that’s what you’re posting and talking about the most, I think you just need to take a moment and check yourself. Make sure that you’re talking about the good news of Jesus. Because that’s the message we’re supposed to be speaking about above everything else.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and talk about these things and see where we land in these things. But if the political stuff becomes more than the gospel, we’ve got something wrong. Jesus testified to the truth. As Christians, we need to really be careful to find out what is true and make sure and help other pope find out what is true. Not just what is rhetoric.

Ultimately the best thing we can do is sacrificial love. Give ourselves to others for their benefit.

I want to close with this story of a guy named Daryl Davis. He’s a musician. He’s an African American. In 1987 he was playing at this club and a white guy came up to him and they kind of had a drink together. He was just saying, “Man, you play that piano so well.” They had a conversation and he ended up finding out that this white man was a member of the KKK. Daryl Davis was kind of shocked and a little unsure of what to do. But they talked a little bit more.

And for whatever reason, Daryl Davis felt like this was something that he needed to do. He needed to meet these people. And basically, the premise is, “How can you hate me if you don’t know me?”

Over time, up to this point, Daryl Davis has been able to get to know two hundred different KKK members and actually see them get out of the KKK. He has a closet full of all their cloaks. As they get out of there, as they get to know him, they actually end up handing their cloak to him. I think it’s just a beautiful story of engaging into this world that we’re nervous about.

Jesus, that’s exactly what he did for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us. He came into our world. He felt our need. He felt our pain and all of that. And he gave himself completely, sacrificially to us. He entered into our world so that he could show us how to get out. And if you can get to know Jesus, if you can get in relationship with Jesus, you will begin to experience his wisdom, his power. And you’ll realize it is not of human origin. And it actually can help build the world and build your life and bring you to peace.

That’s our message today. We’re going to have a little response slide—some things you can pray through, as we end this message. If you don’t know Jesus, if you haven’t invited him to be the Lord of your life, then this prayer is a really great thing. If you pray this for the first time, we’d love to know about it. Please comment below. Let us know that you gave your life to Jesus and you’re ready to go that way. We’ll get you baptized, or whatever comes next. But for the rest of you who know Jesus, this is still a good thing to pray, just kind of realigning our hearts with him. God bless you and we’ll see you soon,

First, say Father in heaven I understand that I have done wrong. Please forgive me,
Next, say Father in heaven I understand that You want me on Your side and made. Way for me by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Please put Your Spirit in me to teach and guide and comfort me.
Next, say Father in heaven I understand that You want my life to be a blessing to others. Please help me to remember that and give me opportunities for that.
Finally, say Father in heaven I understand that one day You will send Jesus again and He will restore everything. Please help me to have hope and peace as I look forward to that day.

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