Bread Of Life - Ruan Spies (Upstate)

I'm going to invite Ruan to come and I'm going to introduce Ruan. So this is Ruan. He is, he's married to my daughter, Ryan, and for those of you guys here, dads, and have daughters. This is what you're looking for. I'll tell you a quick story. I've told this story before, but Ryan had gone through a bad breakup, and she was and after that, a few, a little while later, she meets Ruan. I thought for sure, after Ryan went through her bad breakup, I thought, she's never going to put her heart out there again, then she meets Ruan. They had just started hanging around together, and Ryan lives in South Africa, and she'd come home to when we lived in San Clemente. She came home for a, to do, we had a conference, and she was working, and she mentioned that she had started seeing Ruan, and I was like shocked that she was kind of there. And so she was working really hard. It was a stressful kind of week, and her and Ruan were communicating, and so Ruan reached out to our daughter, Carly, and he said, hey, can you do me a favor? Can you go to the shop and get Carly a coffee, and get Ryan a coffee in like a pastry, and you know, because I know she's stressed, and I just want to like do something nice for her. And so I hear this story, so Ryan's saying, yeah, Ruan, Ruan did, she calls him speech. His last name's speech. It looks like spies, but it's speech. So she says, she says, yes, you know, speech did this, and I'm like, man, Ryan, I don't know if you're following a lot, but I definitely am. Because that's what we want for our kids. We want someone that's like going to like go the extra mile, and this guy goes the extra mile, and the way he treats Ryan and is like we're, again, we couldn't be more like grateful for how he, the husband he is, but beyond that, this guy is a man of God. He is, like, if you, I could get, if we're installing Bosh, I could get, you know, 20 young guys to get up and say, this guy's changed my life. So I want you to receive him. He is an elder in Josh Jen, so he's an elder in our Stellan Bosh congregation, but I want you to receive him as like a messenger of God this morning, because he spends time in God's presence. He carries God's presence. He hears God's voice. He was a young elder. How old were you when you became an elder? He was like 25 single guy in elder in the congregation. He's also a really smart guy, and so I want you to receive him this morning. I want you to receive this as if the Lord was saying, "Hey, I've got this word for you." So I'm going to pray for him and then let him go. So Lord, we want to thank you for this gift of God that you've sent to us. Well, we want to receive a message. Lord your word says that if you receive a prophet, in the name of a prophet, you'll receive a prophet's reward. So we want to receive from this man this morning the word of God that will not return under you void. Lord, will you come and Lord give us a radical reset this morning in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks so much. Yeah, good morning, everyone. It's really great to be with you guys. It really feels like family. I think we were more than a year ago just off to London and Margaret moved the side, and it's incredible to see just what God has done, how the church has grown, just spending time here. It's like quickly pick up again the initials of touch points that we had with people. So it's great to be in. I want to share something that I follow just in praying for you guys as a church, but just for those of you who haven't made me yet, I'm lawn gave quite the flattering intro there, but I'm from South Africa grew up in the Central Potos South Africa. I'm African, so I had the joy of speaking Africans this morning to someone else which is very big surprise for me. And saying the Central Potos South Africa came to know the Lord at around the age of 17, and then ended up going from the Central Potos South Africa to the coast in a little town called Wellington, and I spent a year there at what is now called leap. I know Paul did the US version of it. I must say the South African version is a lot more rugged than what the guy has experienced at leap. But spent a year there, and I came from a church background. My father was actually in Afrikaans, we would call it a Germany, so we were part of a reformed church, a dat reformed church. My father was a preacher there. My parents loved the Lord, and that was sort of my growing up, the setting I was in. But I only came to know the Lord myself yet at the end of high school, and moving down to Wellington, I went for the Bible school. I didn't know that we would be part of Josh Jen, and so the Bible school was affiliated with Josh Jen at that stage and then became more and more part. But I remember joining in there, and it's like this element of church that I'm familiar with. But I saw people loving each other, like I haven't seen anywhere else before. I saw something where it wasn't just about the person standing in France sharing a message, but it's like I saw the people sitting down on a Sunday actually doing the things of God, and not just the guy standing up front. It was a new thing for me also to not have some title associated with the past, it was like the guy leading the congregation at that stage, his name was also Ruan, and it's like Andrew Silly is Andrew, it's like Wormary was just Uncle Will, and it's like there was just something different of this like absolute zeal for God, but this belief that every single person is supposed to walk in the things that God has for them, that just wrecked me for any other kind of church experience. And so I moved to study engineering in Stanambash, and Joshin just planted there, and it was a group of 30 people, and I just thought like man I'm not, I don't know if I want to do this church plant is hard, there's not a lot of students, I'm a 19 year old, I want to make friends, and one of the leaders in Josh Jen in Wellington at that stage challenged me, and he said like what if everyone had your attitude? Like if everyone thought no this church is small, there aren't any other students, let me go to the church that has students, and is a bit bigger, it's like the church will never actually grow and become what God wants it to be, and his challenge to me was like will you be that one, will you be the one that sticks through? And I know like then being in Josh Jen for a while, it's like you, you hear that story coming through a lot, whether it's parents with children, older people, younger people, but I was like okay, I'm going to give myself to this, and God like did something in me through that, we're revealing more of himself, and we actually saw the church grow, we've got four or three congregations in our town now, we've got in the evening congregations over 400 students, and it's just incredible to see what what God can do as we say Lord Yerah, like I'm willing, use me, and so people often ask me like if I'm, if I'm sharing, if I'm preaching, I was chatting to Lan Son Nick, you were saying how stressful it is for him to preach, I think I've had enough reps that it doesn't feel that stressful, but the thing that that stresses me out in church life is large events where food is required, it's like if you are responsible for some kind of catering, I heard last week, and Margaret was saying that it got some pizzas, and just the fear of like will this be enough, will people have enough food to eat, it's like I know that fear, I know that stress, I don't have an event you're looking around and seeing people eating enough, I'm not sure if you guys have also done something like this, but in our congregation around once a year we'll do something called Lucas coming for dinner, so how that works is youthful arts and say I can host, so many people or I want to go eat somewhere, and there's some admin wizards in the background doing things, and on the day you get told you need to go there, and this is what you need to bring, and the hosts find out on the day who is coming to eat by them, so we did this earlier this year, we said we can host, I think it was initially four people, then we got asked and there's too many people that wants to be hosted, so can we do six, on the day we found out the one person's bringing someone else, the other person asked and they also bring someone, and a few minutes before and we got a call, it's like oh can some visitor also rock up, and just that like oh my goodness how are we going to do this, but you learn to make do with what you have, but I was reading earlier this week, I was reading the count of Jesus and the feeding the 5,000, and just thinking like the stress of the disciples in that, and we're going to look at that portion now, but it's like there's a mass of people that needs to be fed, and the disciples like I can just imagine if I was in the issues, my practical like logistics mind will just kick in and try to figure out like what do we do about this, but Jesus uses a situation like this for something really significant, and that's what I want us to look into this morning, so we're going to spend some time in John 6, and we'll read just now from from verse 5, but just some context for this, so by the time we get to John 6, Jesus has done quite a few miracles, there's been quite a number of healings, he started making a name for himself, and we see in verse 2 how it says that people are starting to come to Jesus because of the signs that he's done, and so Jesus is next to the the Sea of Galilee, and we see like a multitude of people coming in, and it's at this point where we're going to pick up the story, so if we can start reading from verse 5, okay, so this is Jesus lifting up his eyes and seeing that a large crime was coming down towards him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?" He said this to test him for himself knew what he would do, Philip answered him, "Two hundred and nory would not be enough bread for each of them to get a little, so the nory would be about a day's wages during that time." So Philip, it's like I think I would have reacted similar to this, it's like two hundred days of pay will not be enough to feed all of these people, never mind getting the supplies. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, say to him, "There's a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place so that men sat down about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves and when he had given things, he distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their full, he told his disciples, "Gather up the lift over fragments that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and full twelve 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 a prophet who has come into the world." I think it's only up to them. And so this is a story, if you've been in church, if you grew up in kids church, you've definitely heard this story. And it's one of those things where people, it's like you can take different angles in how you speak about the story, but if we just stopped, yeah, we can say, "Okay, Jesus did this incredible miracle." I think all of us would have heard the sermon that God is able to multiply it a little bit that you have to do the impossible. We even see just how people see the sign and there's like a greater interest in Jesus. But if we had to stop at this part of the scripture, we'd actually miss something really important that Jesus wants to communicate through the thing that he has done. So I want us to go and just to give some context in verse 16 to 21. We see the disciples getting on the boat, going off the shore. It's the classic portion of scripture where Jesus walks on the water. And then verse 22 to 24, we see him crossing to the other side of the sea of Galilee from where he was. And we hear how other boats are starting to show up because they heard of what Jesus has just done with the multiplication of the bread. And it's at this point where people are starting to show up after they've heard that we pick up the story from verse 25. So when they found Jesus on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them, truly, truly. I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your full of the loaves. That's interesting. It's like in verse 2 of this chapter, we see how the people came to Jesus because of the previous signs that he did. And they are thinking, it's like we're coming because we heard this, but Jesus said to them, you are actually coming to me because you ate your full of the of these loaves. Let's continue. So Jesus tells them, do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that induce to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him, God the Father has said to seal. Then they say to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him, who has, he has sins. And just want to stop here, again, sorry, if you can go back there. It's interesting. So Jesus says, he speaks about like working for the for this eternal food. And the first question that the people have for him is not God. Like, what is this? Like, what is this? What is this food that you're speaking about? The first thing that people tend to ask God is, what must I do to get that? But the more important thing that Jesus is actually saying here is about the food itself. And so we can continue with the next verse. They said to him, sorry, can we just go back again? Let me just read that. Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him, whom he has sent. So they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our Father's ate the man in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus then said to them, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is you comes done from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall not thirst. I think it's only up to that verse. And so we see a significant shift here. We see how Jesus said, I did this thing. I fed you in a natural sense, but this desire that you actually have is not just for what I give you. It is for me. It shifts from something that God gives to God Himself. And another important part that we saw there was when the people ask him, what must we do to receive this? And he says, you must believe this is the work of God that you believe in Him. And he speaks about those who eat of Him shall not hunger and shall not thirst, because he is the fulfillment of those things. And that's something throughout the book of John especially that Jesus drives home. It's like we often look for something out of God's hand to be given to us, with the greatest gift and the fulfillment of all of our desires of everything that we need is found in the person of Jesus. And I want us to look at a number of other scriptures. I'm going to run through quickly just with us. So we read John 11 verse 25, Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. This is just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead for those who knows the story. Jesus performs the act raising someone from the dead. And then he comments and he says, it's not just something that I do. I am the resurrection and the life. Chapter 14 verse 6, Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Again, there was this interaction between Jesus and people. And speaking about the life that is to come, his father's house having many rooms and him going to prepare that place. It's like how do we get that? Jesus saying he is the way the truth and the life. One Corinthians 1 verse 30, he is the source of our life, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness, sanctification and redemption. An important thing, yeah, it's not that God just gave wisdom, gave righteousness, sanctification, redemption as a thing. Jesus becomes our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. Colossians 3 verse 4, when Christ, who is your life appears, you will also appear with him in glory. Christ is and becomes our life. 1 Timothy 1 verse 1, "See Paul in a possible Christ, Jesus, by command of God, I'll save it and of Christ, Jesus, I'll hope." Jesus is our hope. He not only gives us hope. This is something that I've come to know just in my walk with God is I am 100% certain that every single desire and need that God has placed within us will only truly find the satisfaction and the fulfillment in relation to him. Every single thing that we are longing for and desiring for finds us for fulfillment in Jesus. It's interesting just the way that we tend to approach God when it comes to identifying a need within us. I think there are two primary ways that we tend to default to and miss what God is actually saying to us. On a shared story, just in my time when I was in Wellington, there was something quite significant that God did in me. As I mentioned in high school, I came to know the Lord and despite my parents' best effort and being great parents, I went through quite a rebellious phase in high school and I tried everything. We were drinking around, we were messing around in different ways, trying to get little adrenaline rushes by getting chased by the police and burning things down. Whatever it took to get a little thrill, we were going for that. My friends were a few steps ahead of me when it came to these kinds of things and they were starting to do drugs. But I looked at them and I realized like man, it doesn't matter how we increase the intensity of the things that we're doing. We still find ourselves feeling empty and looking at the lives of some believers and seeing like they've got something that I don't. I might be able to speak the same language. I grew up in church. I know what the right things are to say but looking at their lives, I could see that there's something different and so I came to the Lord and I said, God, I'm broken, I need you and so I stepped into relationship with God. I got forgiven of my sins and I experienced something of this new life. So there was that initial take on my heart. Then I get to Bible school and I don't know what for what your experience was. But being surrounded by a bunch of zealous people running off the God, you tend to start looking next to you and seeing how other people are doing things. What other people are experiencing and you're like, man, I want that or I want that or I want that and the culmination of this was for those of you who have been under the ministry of Mervis. Mervis came at some point and the way that he was speaking about God's love did something in me where I'm like, I haven't experienced what he's experienced and I want that. And so that night he was, he had an event that evening, that night on my God, I'm going to seek you until I get to experience that love that he speaks about. And we stayed in a little house on the property then, Wellington, I went outside, I spent the night, like God, give me, like you all love, like you want to give me an experience of your love, like I haven't experienced this, please show me your love and just nothing. The next morning someone, the guy who was like, oh, how far they came to me and he's like, is everything okay? And I just start crying. I'm like, I've never experienced God's love and God doesn't want to show it to me and I don't understand. And I thought, I'm going to ask God, God's going to give me this experience that I wanted. And this was around February of that year. I never experienced anything. The whole year until October, I'm still like wrestling with this thing, like I've sort of, I don't understand, I'm sort of just putting it to the side, I don't know what's going on. And the one evening we, I was on the worship band and we had a Thursday night practice. And it was just one of those where, actually the Ingrid, the lady that wrote some of the songs that we were playing now was leading. And there was just a sense of God, it became a thing of like, it went silent. Like, oh, everyone just stopped playing their instruments and we just sat in silence for almost an hour. And while we were sitting there, I was just asking God, like, this is one of those moments where you are aware of Jesus. And I'm like, God, can you please just give me, give me that experience of your love that other people are speaking about. And in that moment, I felt him correct me, like, just meet me in that. And he showed me that I had such a narrow view of what his love is. I was asking him for a specific experience based on what I was seeing around me. But he was saying to me that he is love. And that I experienced his love in the person of Jesus. And it really shook me. Like, I was like, God, what are the areas of my life and my missing you in? I was like, I've got such a small view of you and other things that you do. And what I realized after that evening was if God gave me that experience when I was crying out to him that night after Mervis ministered. One, I would have thought that it's because of the way that I sought God. It's because of my works that he met me. And number two, I probably would have chased that feeling for the rest of my life, looking for the next little fix, like the next little, oh, God, I feel your love. Where first revelation of who Jesus is and the fact that he is love. It's like that is found in the person of Jesus and I do not need anything more. And so just to point out some things from the story, I think the first inclination that we have as people is we want to do in order that we will experience. It's like we want to earn something. We want to do something, whether that's towards God or maybe you don't even know God yet. What we do is we pursue, it's a career. It's going to be that next relationship that I get into that's going to give me some kind of satisfaction. It's the money that I'm going to get. It's the position of power that I'm going to get. And I'm telling you, those things are going to leave you dry. Whether they are spiritual, when I'm a calm leader, when I am full time, whatever that might be, whether it's the other things that I mentioned, you're going to find yourself in that cycle of feeling empty. But the second danger that I think there is and it's something that I still find myself falling into is we ask just for God to give the things that we need. And it's not something that's wrong. But what we've been looking at in scriptures, there's so much more. And like I mentioned for me, the danger was if God gave me that experience of what I then regarded as his love. It was like, okay, now things are good, but a day or two, difficult circumstances come and I just find myself again. And I think there are some of us that are sitting in that same kind of cycle. Like God has come through. God has given you breakthrough in certain areas of sin. God might have provided for you in an incredible way. But now you find yourself a few days, a few weeks, a few months, a few years down the line. And it feels like, oh, I just need this thing again that God needs to give me in order for me to be satisfied. But that's just another cycle that we're going to go through. With the thing that God wants to give us is Christ. The greatest gift that God wants to give us is Himself where He becomes not only the provider, but He is our provision. He's not only the one that gives us the experience of love, but He Himself is love. All those things that we saw He is wisdom. He is hope. He's not just the giver of those things. I think this is something that God will continue putting His finger on and trying to work into us. It's like He's got a way of making sure that anything that is not of Him, He's going to touch on that thing. He's going to push that button until He becomes all in all. And I think what I want to call us to this morning is identifying just where in our lives, are we thinking, God, just give me that thing that I need? And shifting to the place of God, you are the thing that I need. You are the performance of all these desires. And so some tests that I thought we can do, it's sort of like, how do I know that I'm missing these things? How do I know where my heart is actually at? I'd say the first test is the test of desire. Where are you looking for satisfaction? What do you think needs to change in your life in order to experience peace? Are you constantly finding yourself in, I'm feeling like there's lack, whether it's financial, whether it's some internal, emotional kind of state? We see how Jesus said in John 6.35, that if we eat of Him, we will not be hungry. We will not thirst. We see this also as He meets the woman at the well. It's like He is the one that satisfies those desires. But where are you if you look at your life honestly in terms of your desires? And what you are doing to try and fall them? The second test is your prayer life. When you pray, what are you asking God for? Is it just, God, please, I need this? Will you give me this thing? If only this came through, Lord, I'll serve you more and give myself more. Is it similar to the prayer that I had where it's like, God, just let me experience something of your love. Let me experience something of your presence. What is it reflecting? God, I know that this is found in you. Thank you for that. May I have a greater revelation in that. I can't make out my handwriting from the third point that I made. But maybe if we can stand together and just actually consider and respond to this, as I was speaking about the desires and the different things that you might be praying for. It's like, you know where you are at. Maybe you are in the first group like where I was as a teenage or where I've never actually come to experience who God is and what he's done for me. It's like I found myself chasing things and thinking I'm in right standing with God but looking for satisfaction in other places. If that's you this morning, the call of God is that life is found in him. Eternal life, but also eternal joy and satisfaction that starts right here and right now. And so if you've never experienced that, if you've never come to God and received him, received his salvation, today there's an opportunity where Jesus is standing in front of you and calling you to that. Maybe you have experienced him. Maybe you've been walking with him for a long time already. But you find yourself in that place where you are still longing for the for God to give the things. If you consider your desires, if you consider the things that you are praying for, realizing that we're missing the person of Jesus, his ultimate answer this morning to you is him. And he's going to continue working this thing into us. He's going to continue placing us in those situations where he needs to become all and in all. And so I want each of us just to respond in that. Just say, Lord, show me more of you. Let me find my all in you. Just while the music is playing, I think each person just bringing that before God. But as we're doing that, that first group of people said where you might never have experienced the salvation that God gives us. You'll know if that is you. Your heart will be beating faster. You'll know that that thing that I'm speaking about, you've never experienced. So for the rest of us, let's acknowledge where we have missed it in the way that we relate to God. And let's ask him, God, would you reveal yourself to us? May you become real to us. But may we see that you are our all in all. God, it's so it's so easy to fall into trying to earn something so easy for me to fall into just defaulting that I ask you and you give me something just until the next time that happens. But what do you say that when we eat and drink of you, we will not thirst, we will not hunger, we will not long. We want to open our souls to you, take your rightful place within our lives, Jesus.