I Am the Bread of Life
John 6:35, 41, 48, 51: Luke begins our series on the I AM statements in John’s Gospel.
The Revelation of God in Suffering: He is greater than we can imagine!
Job 36:24–33; Job 37:21–24. The experience of being confronted by something so vast and spectacular and awe inducing is similar to what Job experiences in the last few chapters of the book of Job. As we’ve studied over the past few weeks, he has had the life he knew and loved stripped from him, and we’ve seen how he and his friends respond to these circumstances. In these final chapters, Job is corrected by Elihu and then God enters the dialogue by speaking directly. In our passage today, we are confronted with the incomprehensible nature of God—he holds a very different place than mankind! God is completely other, and because he’s all powerful, all knowing, and all present, he is unsearchable by men—too vast, too brilliant, too magnificent, too deep, too other for men to ever plumb his depths. Yet, we do not have to despair because he is knowable through Jesus as our savior and lord!
Growing into Christ
Ephesians 4:11–16. Discipleship is essentially this, “I’m just a beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” Discipling someone else means that I’m trying to help them grow in their faith and to move a bit further down the road toward living a life that points to Jesus.
Jesus' Ministry: Disproportionate Influence
Luke 6:17–49. One tiny light can capture the attention and illuminate a space much bigger than you might expect. Your life, by the power of the Holy Spirit’s work in you, can have disproportionate influence on our world.
The Devoted Life
Acts 2:42-47. Devotion denotes a love, loyalty, and enthusiasm with which to live. The early church prioritized their time, energy, and money for this particular purpose: to live for God and make him known. To have a gospel community like these earliest Christians, we should endeavor to devote ourselves as they did.
Rooted & Built Up
Colossians 2:6–7. The Lord creates in us deep roots and builds in us a strong trunk and thick branches, so that we can weather the storm. And not just in the sense of, “I survived,” but weather it in the way that a live oak does—when the storm has passed, the leaves on the tree remain green.
Witness
2 Timothy 1:8-14. So what does witness mean? In our everyday use of the word, the definition is, “one who sees and can provide an account.” We who call Jesus our savior and trust in His finished work on the cross have seen the good news and can give an account of its power in our lives. Our witness is our day-to-day functioning as believers, our daily living out of the gospel.