December 28th – 10am Service – New Light Anglican

Good morning everyone. Welcome to church. It’s so good to have you here. In Psalm 95, there is an invitation to come and let us sing to the Lord, to shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation, to come to him with thanksgiving. And the reason the psalmist gives is because our God is a great God. And that’s true all the time. Whether you joyfully skipped into church this morning or whether you dragged yourself in, you can come and sing joyfully to the Lord. Let’s stand. Let’s sing together.

Heavenly Father, you were there right at the beginning. You had your plan to send your son to save us. Knowing that we can come before you, not needing to do anything to earn that love that you have so deep for us. And we pray this morning that we can open our hearts and minds to hear your word with our friends and family around us in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, please grab a seat. Thanks for joining us this morning. And firstly, let me say to you, well done. Well done on getting here. It is Sunday. We are in the time of year that nobody can keep track of what day of the week it is for the next 10 days or so until we go back to work or for some of us who are working, we actually have to check what day of the week is it. Do we need to come in? Hopefully not. I’m off till the 5th and it feels lovely. So, welcome. Thanks for being here. A special welcome to you if you are new or visiting this morning. It’s great that you can join us. And if you’re joining us online virtually, whether you’re away on holidays and you’re normally here in person or being in person isn’t for you and you like joining our service online, it’s great. We have a special welcome URL that you can click on on your phones or online. And you may have been handed a welcome card, one of these orange things, and given a Bible on your way in. We would love it if you could fill that in for us. We don’t want to spam you here at New Light Anglican. We just want to get to know a little bit more about you.

And I actually think I may have forgotten to tell you my name. It’s Emily and I’m normally here on a Sunday morning either up here or sitting in the congregation. I have a young family here and we actually have a teenager in the house which is a bit crazy. So we’re learning what it’s like to parent a teenager. So we need those other families around us to also help us through that as well.

Now we do have lots of things on this morning and through the month of January even though people might be away on holidays and things. As you can see that we’ve got our kids in the service today. Our under fives program is still running down in the hall if you want to use that service. But our youth and kids up to year five will be in the service and there’ll be packs later on for those kids just to do during the sermon a bit later. And we’ll be starting off our sermon series today called Meals with Jesus. Now throughout the Bible, there’s several occasions where Jesus shares a meal with other people and uses it as a way of teaching. And we’re going to learn about those things starting off today, but also trying to use the month of January when maybe things are running at a bit of a different pace to get to know each other in the service or sorry, each other in our church community and also in our wider community because we are all about bringing the good news of Jesus to the area around here. And if that means that we can share God’s love through a meal, then we would love to be able to do that.

So, a couple of things. Hospitality Sunday is the 18th of January, and we would love that to be an opportunity for you to invite or go to somebody’s house or a park or share a meal with people from our church community. And then on the Australia Day long weekend or actually Australia Day, try and do some kind of gathering over a meal with somebody outside our congregation, whether it’s family or other friends or neighbors or people you don’t normally hang out with. Offer that kind of olive branch to them and say, “Hey, let’s meet at the park or grab coffee. We can have a play or have a picnic somewhere.” But make sure that that hospitality opportunity goes on your calendar and that would be a really great way of helping others to know what we’re about and that we’re not scary people either.

Now we do have a translation service as well. You can access that by the QR code on your phone. If you want it in a bit bigger text, you can grab one of those devices up the back on the barrel. It’s the sunflower translation service. And I know that it’s already made a big difference to some people who English isn’t their first language or heart language and they want to understand the service in a different text. So that that is available for you as well. And one final announcement is that next week we welcome the Kirby family to our congregation or our church community. And we have Evan, Maris, and Billy who will be joining us. And we know that you all feel make them feel very welcome. Now Melissa’s going to lead us in prayer.

Good morning everyone. Please join with me in prayer. Father God, we thank you for the last week of celebrating your son Jesus. We thank you for a church that loves you and has a desire to reach others. We thank you for all the families and guests that attended services. We pray that people’s lives will be changed forever because of you. that those who do not know you yet will have open hearts to learn more about you, be touched by your light, and forever change to follow you. Keep working in their hearts and minds, and we pray they will return again soon.

Father God, we thank you for the last 12 months, and we look to the year to come. We confess our need of your presence and your guidance as we face the future. Help us to trust and seek your will for our lives during this coming year. To rely on your changing love amidst life’s uncertainties. To put you above all things of the world that may hinder or distract us from following you. Forgive us when we sin against you. Not only in our actions, but also our thoughts. We pray that Jesus be our joy. that faith be our foundation and scripture be our sustenance and love to be our language.

We pray for our link missionaries for Graden and Dave at GRN for Ryan and Lynn for geese in Seells. We pray for your wisdom and clarity as they reflect on 2025 and look to what is needed in 2026. We thank you that you make all things clear. We pray for those traveling at this time of year. We pray for your traveling mercies. Keep each person safe. That those on holidays will have a wonderful time with family and friends and will return feeling refreshed. We pray for New Light Anglican staff and leaders as we plan for 2026. sermon series, church events, building project, children, youth, and connect groups. We pray that you will be glorified and as followers of Jesus, we will continue to be challenged and changed to be better at serving you. And we pray all these things to you, knowing you hear our prayers and answer them in your perfect timing. Amen.

It’s time to read the Bible. My name’s Judy. If you don’t know me, I’m one of the oldies. If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your phone, now would be a good time to open it. We’re reading from John chapter 6, beginning at verse one. Now, if you’re new, hopefully you would have gotten a Bible as you came in. If you don’t own one, please take that one with you. If you’re new to reading the Bible, the book of contents is in the front of the Bible if you have the paper version. Okay, we’re going to start with verse one, chapter 6.

After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them.” Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. The men alone numbered about 5,000. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward, he did the same with the fish, and they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.” So they picked up the pieces and filled 12 baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely he is the prophet we’ve been expecting.” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.
John 6:1-15

Thanks, Judy. Welcome. Great to have you all here. Welcome, extra welcome to the kids that are in church this morning. We have some activity stuff for the kids and we also have sheets for the youth. So, I’m going to get you guys to stand up and head up the back and someone will hand those to you. And just as they do that, I’m going to do a little bit of setting up up here. I’m not doing anything with this just to keep you wondering in case I’m thirsty.

As Emily said, it’s a strange time of year. It’s a time I was struggling to keep track of what day of the week it was. And I didn’t just have to show up here. I also had to prepare to show up here. And so, keeping track of that, really this week, it was just a matter of just don’t stop. As long as I keep moving, I’ll get to Sunday. And so, we’ve done that. And we look into this coming year. It feels like as soon as Christmas is over, we’ve hit the end of the year. We’re so close to the end. And then we have this kind of random Sunday that happens every year that’s between Christmas and New Year’s. There’s always that question, what are we preaching at that time? What are we doing at that time? We still have Christmas decorations up mostly because we haven’t had time to take them down. And so we’re trying to figure all that out. We want to jump straight into thinking about community together as a church and our series with meals with Jesus is unpacking that. Last year we did it focusing on some of the stories in the Gospel of Luke, which was Jesus having meals at different people’s places. We’re going to focus on John’s writings this year, which is going to be the Gospel of John, and then we will jump to Revelation at the end. Thinking about some of the different kinds of meals that happen. And we get this one in John chapter 6 that we just read, which is the feeding of the 5000. So, it’s a very unusual meal. There’s also the feeding of the 4,000 story in the Bible. I want to think about that and I want to think about what we think about as we look forward from that.

This is a time of year that people do a lot of looking back and a lot of looking forward. It’s the time of New Year’s resolutions. It’s the time to sign up for your gym membership and things like that. My favorite saying at New Year’s, I heard it years ago, never forgot it. And that’s the saying “may our problems last as long as our New Year’s resolutions” which is I don’t know, it’s either we’re hoping our New Year’s resolutions don’t last long or our problems don’t last long for sure or maybe our New Year’s resolutions is the source of some of our problems. That might be true too. It’s that kind of year where a time of year where we’re thinking about those sorts of things. And it’s one of those things that there’s a skepticism in me that says don’t bother. It’s only going to it’s just a fad. It’s just a thought for now. And there’s another part that says, well, you might as well take the opportunity. Do something. If this is what it takes a new year to get you and maybe it doesn’t last, but maybe it’s something just to get you started. There’s something good about that. So, as we head into the new year, I want us to think about where we’re looking. And this morning’s sermon is going to focus entirely on that, on where we’re looking as we unpack John chapter 6.

Look Backwards to Steady Our Stance

And the first thing I want to say is that one of the things we do that’s healthy as Christians is we look backwards. We look backwards to steady our stance in Jesus. I was looking at some relay races. Relay races are an example of a situation where you are not supposed to look backwards, right? In fact, looking backwards does the opposite. It doesn’t steady your stance. It makes you unstable. I was looking at the relay race from 2016, very famous one. United States as they came in for the exchange they were clipped by Brazil. She lost her footing. So the 4×100’s women’s she lost her footing. The baton made contact with the person’s hand in front, but that’s as far as it went. The baton flew in the air and their race was over. They were expected to win the gold. This was their chance at a gold medal and this was in the heats and they were already out. They contested it. They said we were there was interference from another runner and so they were given a second chance, but their second chance was you have to run just by yourselves, no one else. And so that comes with its own challenge. First of all, the last thing you want to do is drop the baton a second time in your second chance. But also, you’re not running with anyone else. You’ve got no gauge of how well you’re doing. You’ve only got to qualify. You don’t have to set a world record, but you’ve got to go as fast as you can to qualify with no gauge. And the tension of knowing that what you do here in those exchanges will be they’ve already gone down the history books for what they did the first time. And they successfully not just won, not just qualified, they went on to win the gold. In fact, they won the gold by just about four meters ahead of their competitors. Incredible kind of comeback story, but you recognize that what’s happening in that moment is as much as they’re tempted to look backwards, especially after a drop, tempted to look backwards to get a gauge of what’s going on, they know they cannot risk the interruption to their footing or their pace.

The opposite is true for Christianity. We cannot afford not to look backwards because so much of what God has done in the past is what steadies our footing for the future. We get this little comment in John chapter 6 as people are gathering. We’re told it was verse four. “It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.” It has been consistent for God’s people that God constantly calls his people to look back at the past. And in particular, what he wants them to look back at is his faithfulness in the past because it’s looking back at God’s faithfulness in the past that helps steady our footing for the future. And so we would it’s something we want to do constantly and think about gratitude and and how we can be thankful. I don’t know what the year has looked like for you. Many of you know that it’s been a fairly tough end to the year for my family. Two years ago, Susie’s brother had a still birth and then end of this last year, her sister lost her 14-year-old. And so, it’s been a tough end to the year. So, there’s many ways we would like to say happy to see the end of 2025 and looking forward to a new year. And yet we would say that it is healthy for us to look back on the things that we can have gratitude for even amidst great difficulty. Because what the reality of what we find in life is that God is always faithful. And often it’s when we look back that we will see the faithfulness that was happening in the dark times. The light that was there even though we could only see darkness at the time. And so God calls his people to look back. In many ways, Passover for the Jewish people is as close to a new year to us as there comes. That it is this reset of their Jewish calendar. They are told to look back, but they’re also told to reset and look forward. And God calls them to look at his faithfulness and remember his faithfulness. Remembering God’s past faithfulness anchors us for the future.

Look Inwards to Acknowledge Our Limitations

So we look back to steady our stance. We look inwards to acknowledge our limitations. This whole story in John 6 is it’s the first sign in John. So Jesus has done a few different healings, but this is called the first sign in John’s writing that distinguishes a statement about who Jesus is. And so this feeding the 5000 is a particular miracle that comes with particular teaching about who Jesus is. And there’s a strange kind of interaction that happens with the other disciples as it Jesus is revealing who he is. You can imagine this scene. We’re told that there’s 5,000 men and that’s just the men. That means it’s not just men there. But there’s at least 5,000 men. We don’t know how many women or children are traveling. It’s the time of the Passover. There’s a good chance that around that area in Galilee, people would gather together. We know this is historically true. People would gather together to travel to Jerusalem in groups because it was safer to travel in groups. So, there’s a good chance that the group that is coming to see Jesus is a group that have been traveling together. And if that’s true, then we would assume that all their children are spending time with them as well as the family, the wives, the relatives, everyone’s there. So if there’s 5,000 men, there has to be a lot more all overall. It’s hard to depict what that number would look like. We just had Riverston carols. It was raining and so our numbers were a little low. So we’re probably under the 500 mark. We have had more like 1500 there. That feels like a little bit of that paddock. The last census we had in Riverston, the Riverston suburb had 11,000 people in it. It’s more than that now. You imagine, I think that pretty much the whole suburb of Riverston is coming over the hill to meet Jesus. They’ve heard the legend of what he’s doing. And they’re coming over the hill. And then Jesus, he’s a funny guy. He looks at Philip and he says, what’s his words? “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” What a funny joke. You imagine the whole of Riverston is coming over the hill and someone says, “Oh, did you think about lunch for these people?” Philip is totally taken back by it as you can imagine. What is going on there? What is Jesus doing? We’re told that he’s testing Philip. But what is the test? Is it can he find bread? Is it was he organized and planning for this? Is it that he would know who Jesus is and what he’s going to do? Jesus hasn’t I mean he’s turned water into wine but he hasn’t done a miraculous feed before. It’s not like he’s got a past history to go on. It seems like the first thing Jesus is testing is whether his disciples are understanding the right question.

The question Jesus asks is where are we going to get the bread? But the real answer he is searching for, Philip goes for how are we going to get the bread? But the real question Jesus is digging for is who? Who is going to provide for the people? Who is going to provide for the people when no one else has the means to? So the first question in the test is the question of the right person. The second one is a test of the right comparison. A lot of scholars point to the fact that through this whole story of bread. Jesus is pointing back to God’s people exodus out of Egypt, but also their time in the desert where God provided manna for his people to eat, a kind of sweet that described like a breadlike substance. And so in the history of God’s people, Moses stands as this great leader, a start to their nation, Israel, as they came out of Egypt. He was the leader then. And in Deuteronomy, we’re told there’s going to be another one like Moses that’s going to come. And Jesus is starting to seed that question of who. Not just who’s going to provide when no one else can, but who is he? It’s the right comparison to who has come in the past, Moses. And here we see Jesus as one who is even greater than Moses who has come. And so it’s a comparison between Jesus and Moses, but it’s also a comparison between Jesus and disciples, isn’t it? Because his disciples don’t have the ability to solve this issue. And yet compared to Jesus, he is the one. And so we’re encouraged in this story to look inwards and acknowledge our own limitations. That’s what the question really leads Philip to. The question leads Philip to know he doesn’t have the ability to solve this issue. He is limited. And there’s a reminder for us that it’s helpful for us to remember our limitations, not to squash ourselves down and undermine any confidence we might ever have, but to put us in the right place before God.

The great church leader and teacher Augustine uses the idea of being recognizing our emptiness and actually emptying ourselves of the things that might be pushing God out the things that are the selfish things in us. He says this he says Jesus cannot fill us unless we come to him empty. That is if we are coming to God saying look at me use me I’ve got all the things I can you know I can do these things on my own I just it’s nice to have God on the side we miss the point that we must come to him empty. Augustine pushes the analogy further to say if God wants to fill us with honey how can he do that if we are already full with vinegar. We need to come to him empty. We look inward. We look backward to steady our stance. We look inward to acknowledge our limitations.

Look Outward to Surrender the Small Gifts We Do Have

But we also look outward. We look outward to surrender the small gifts that we do have to offer. It’s the way God has created us. Our own giftedness isn’t to be parked and forgotten about, but to be used by God. The crazy thing that happens next in the story, Philip says, “It’s impossible. We’re never going to get enough food.” Andrew’s response is ludicrous. What does Andrew do? He comes forward and he says, “Hey, there’s a boy. We’re stealing his lunch.” Poor kid. He’s the only one here with some food. 5,000 people coming or more coming over the hill. This poor kid’s the only one who actually has something to eat. And they say, “Let’s take that from him. Let’s take this poor kid’s five loaves and two fish and give that to Jesus.” Now, maybe Andrew is thinking of the water into wine and that Jesus asked them to do something and they brought water and he contributed wine. Maybe that’s we’re not told that’s what’s going on. It just seems like he’s just gone, I don’t know what else to do. You’ve told us I mean we start with five loaves of bread and at least someone will eat. But it is clear consistently in Jesus ministry that he chooses to use his people in their faithfulness. He doesn’t just make the bread come out of nowhere, but he actually uses the small gift that is offered. So while we might look inwardly and recognize our inability, we also look outwardly as we think about what we have to offer and serve God with. We come empty of ourselves because we are giving of ourselves.

I love the illustration of the value of a pencil in that picture because a pencil is a pretty cheap item by itself and by itself it’s actually completely useless and in the hands of an infant it can be a scribble on the wall or on the floor or hopefully on a piece of paper and you’ll put it up on your fridge proudly and say that is their dog even though it’s not looking like a dog. But in the hands of a master artist that pencil gains immense worth doesn’t it? And the same thing is true as we think about our own small contribution that God has gifted us all uniquely in different ways and in his hands our small contribution no matter how small can be used for masterful artwork. And that’s what happens with this small five loaves and two small fish from this boy. It goes into the hands of the artist, the hands of the creator. and it becomes something amazing. And that’s true as we think about all the things that we have in our life, both good and bad, and how they shape us to be who we are and how they might be used in small ways for God’s great glory. I think even things like the traumas we face, the difficulties of our past, if we only hold them to ourselves, then they are not used for God. But there’s times when even our traumas can be shared with others. Even our difficulty and hurt can be shared with others in a way that might help them, encourage them. The small moments we might have over a cup of coffee with someone. The small financial opportunities we might have to give to ministry. The small amounts we of time we spend in prayer. It can often feel like we don’t have a huge amount to offer God. He is the creator of all after all. And yet he does amazing things with small gifts. And so we look inward and recognize our inability. We come to him empty because we look outward and give him the small that we have.

Look Upward to Treasure the Treasure

And we look upward to treasure the treasure. This miracle that happens. God turns this small amount of food into a huge amount of food. There’s more left over than they started with. is an incredible outcome of this miracle. But the real challenge of this story becomes how the people respond and what they desire to treasure. It’s a strange verse, isn’t it? That says verse 14, “When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, ‘Surely he is the prophet we have been expecting.’” And you think, “Yes, they’re getting it. He’s the one greater than Moses. Surely he’s the prophet we’ve been expecting.” And then it says, “When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.” We talk a lot in Christian ministry about make Jesus king of your life. And here they are. They want to force him to be king. What a strange kind of idea. And so Jesus slips away. And the challenge here is what they’re truly treasuring. Because what they’re truly treasuring is not the one who has done the miracle. What they’re truly treasuring here is what they have been fed. It’s their own stomachs that they’re truly treasuring here. And the danger is they’re going to force Jesus to be king so that he will feed them again. So that he will continue to fill their stomachs. And Jesus is saying they’re not treasuring the right treasure. That he is the right treasure and we need to treasure him.

The abundance of Jesus ministry in this story is evidence of his identity as the one he says he is, who has come from God and who is God. And it’s also evidence of his power to save. That he is the one in our inability. He is the one who has the ability. He is sufficient to save. One of the meals that we’re going to look at towards the end of this series is in Revelation. Revelation says it like this. Jesus says, “Look, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends.” This is a promise we have from Jesus that he says he will always answer. If you open the door, he will always answer. He is always going to answer that prayer. And the power of abundance we see in this story shows us he has the power to be the one to answer that prayer. The same thing is true his abundance in spiritual blessings. We’re told in Luke that Jesus is talking about prayer and he’s talking about you even though you’re sinful. He says know how to give good gifts to your children. This is Luke. He says, “How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Once again, he’s saying, “This is the prayer that will always be answered.” Those that ask for the Holy Spirit will always receive the Holy Spirit. His abundance in this story shows us that he is the one that has the ability to answer these prayers. And we’re called to treasure him above all. We look upwards to treasure the treasure. As Jesus feeds their stomachs, we’re reminded that Jesus didn’t come to satisfy our desires. He desires that we’re satisfied in him. He wants us to treasure him as the treasure.

As I round up and think about the different ways we look as we look into a new year. And because we got the kids in the room, I’m going to attempt a magic trick with you. This is what ministers do in the middle of the night. Jet woke up this morning very early, got up for a drink and came into the kitchen and I had splashed water everywhere and was practicing a magic trick for you all. One of the things, we’ll see how it goes. I love magic. I hate performing magic because it’s a one-time wonder. We are reminded as Christians that we always should be looking back at what God has done. I’ve got a biggest vase glass of water I could get here to remind us that all the things God has done in the past shows us his goodness. And we can always look back to the fullness of God and see what it is he has done. I’ve got an empty glass here as we look inwards at ourselves and recognize our own inability. And we acknowledge our inability and say we come to God empty knowing that we need him and there’s nothing we can do that will make us right with him. And so we look back to steady our stance. We look inward to acknowledge our inability. We look outward to offer our small gifts. And we ask Jesus to fill us. Yes. Wow. It is. It’s amazing. I’ll be here all week.

Sometimes what we have to offer is very small. I have a small piece of paper here that a small scrap that represents our ability. And we can often feel like what we have to contribute God is small and insignificant. And we look inwards and we see our inability. But we should be looking outwards and saying what is it we have been given by God that we can use our small gifts and we should use them. Jesus uses the illustration of a mustard seed. The smallest seed when used by God does powerful things. And so we take our small gifts and we do this over a big tub. And when God uses us then we are able to do amazing things and the small gifts that he uses can be incredibly unbelievable. We look back at what God has done. We look inward and recognize our inability. We look outward as we surrender the small that he’s given us. And then we treasure the treasure and have an outpouring of him.

Communion and Conclusion

We’re going to change gears and think a little bit of looking back as we have communion together. I brought a second table up here this morning because I didn’t think it was a great idea for me to do magic tricks on the communion table. I think I’ve said this before, but the phrase hocus pocus comes from communion. It comes from the midcentury when communion was done in Latin. And the phrase this is my body sounds in English a bit like hocus pocus. And so while the minister’s up the front doing his magic over the communion, some were mocking him kind of saying, “Oh, the minister’s up front doing his hocus pocus.” And one of the reasons that’s significant is because there was a real shift in the church to say, “Actually, what’s happening up here is something incredibly important, but it’s not something magical that’s happening. It’s not some sort of trickery that’s going on. It’s a symbol of what God has done.” And so it’s something that we look back at what it is he’s done. But it’s also something we recognize doesn’t magically make us right with God. It’s not this miracle worker in itself, but it is it’s also not nothing. It’s also a significant reminder. And just like we look back at God’s goodness, that’s not nothing. That’s something that steadies our stance in him. It’s something that reinforces our position before him. And so as we take communion, that is what we’re doing. We’re not doing some kind of magical thing and it’s magical bread and and wine, but it’s also not nothing. It is a symbol that solidifies our stance before Jesus.

So, the team is going to pass out some small cups and some bread. Kids are in the room, and I’m going to leave it up to parents to decide whether your kids have communion or not. As a church, we’re okay with children of Christian homes to have communion together, but I recognize this is a different stance for different families. So, no pressure on whichever way. The team are gonna try to eyeball parents to get the appropriate nods if they can figure out which child belongs to which. Miles is going to play some music. Hold the bread and the the juice. It doesn’t matter if you’re a visitor here. If you love Jesus, you are welcome to join together in communion. Hold them and we’ll take them together shortly.

We finished our reading this morning at verse 15. After that, Jesus walks on water and then after that, there’s teaching on the bread miracle. in particular thinking about John’s emphasis in his gospel on the signs of who Jesus is and think about Jesus as the bread of life. This is what Jesus tells them. This is John. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth. Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven.” A true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Gives life to the world. You hear what he said there? The true bread is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread every day.” Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The message here is that Jesus is the only one. Jesus himself, not something we do, not even this communion we do now is something that brings us salvation or makes us right with God. Jesus is the only one who can make us right with God. And what we do here is remember what it is Jesus has done in order to put our faith and remind us of our faith in him. And so later on in his ministry, he’s with his disciples. They’re at a Passover meal and they’re looking back and Jesus looks forward and he breaks bread with them. And in a similar way to his teaching here, he says, “This is my body broken for you.” And then he takes a cup in the meal and he says, “This is my blood poured out for you.” These symbolic things point our hearts to who Jesus is and what he has done. And so as we eat and drink, we are reminded of his faithfulness in the past to steady our stance before him as we think about how we follow him now and into the future. So let’s eat together, remembering Christ’s body broken for us and be thankful. and let’s drink together remembering Christ’s blood poured out for us and be thankful as the rest of the band comes back up.

Let me pray. Lord God, we do thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you that we know you are the one who is always faithful. We pray Lord that as we rest in that truth, as we feed on you in our hearts by faith, we pray that this will be something that will steady our stance that will remind us of who you are and your goodness to us. We pray for those difficult times, those dark times when it’s hard to see any light. We pray Lord that you might show us your light even amidst the darkness and that as we look back we might see your light shining. We might see the way you’ve grown us, the way you’ve taught us, the way you’ve loved us even in the darkness. Amen.

Lord, we thank you that when times are feeling tough and we might be walking through life a little wobbly and in times that we are striding through life feeling confident with how things are going. We thank you that we can hold on to your steadfast love and take that into the new year with us knowing that you are better than everything. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Well, thank you for joining us this morning. And of course, the morning isn’t over yet. If you are new or visiting, this is pretty much how church runs every Sunday. And we’d love it if you could come back again. We sing our praises to God. We learn from the Bible and we spend time growing in life with Jesus together. So, make sure that you put some of those dates on your calendar for January for Hospitality Sunday and make sure you can fill those social occasions up. But we have the coffee machine on and a bit of morning tea and enjoy that it’s a bit cooler outside. So hang around for as long as you like. Thanks for joining us.