What is Wrong With Bread

Introduction

It’s good to be with you this morning. It’s good to be able to have the opportunity to speak for you this morning. As I said at the outset of our class on Zachariah, we’ve got quite a few of our people that are out. Some of them I don’t know where they are, but others I do know where they are and they’re traveling. And we’ve got quite a few people who aren’t our people in. So thank you if you’re one of those people that aren’t our normal people who are here this morning. That sentence didn’t quite come out like I thought it was going to. Thank you for being here. If you came to hear Tony, I’m dreadfully sorry to be in your position. I’m not Tony.

Although Tony and I were participating in a wedding a couple of years ago, he was performing, and I was the photographer for the rehearsal of that particular wedding. And everybody thought knew I was the preacher or a preacher, and several people had come up to me and asked me if I was the guy performing the ceremony. I said, obviously, you haven’t met Tony Mock because we look nothing alike. And they said, and when Tony walked in, they said, Oh, yeah, okay, well, now I understand. Then they came to me and asked me which one was older. And I said, I’m 34 at the time. Tony’s almost 50. And they said, Oh, well, he looks young. I said, Thanks. But it’s good to have the opportunity to do that.

Someone asked me after the class this morning, do I get nervous preaching? And the answer is no. I quit being after doing it for 13 years, you just don’t really get nervous anymore. You get excited. And then when you don’t have the opportunity to do it, opportunity to do it for a while, you tend to get really excited, which makes you talk really fast, and I’m going to try to control that. Sean and I talk about that all the time. He goes, he says, Man, you’re like a bullet and a gun. He says, once somebody pulls the trigger, it just all comes out as fast as possible. I’ll try to remember that, try to control that a little bit this morning. This morning, if you will, open your Bibles to the book of Matthew.

We’re going to begin in the fourth chapter in just a moment. And I want to talk to you about the temptation there that we see of Jesus. And I know some of you had asked me a couple of weeks ago when you found out I was preaching what I was going to preach on, and I told you I was going to preach the lesson that I preached on Elijah when I was subbing for Charles Willis over at New Caney. And honestly, I changed my mind on that, and I forgot to tell whoever asked me that. And the reason why is this has been a lesson I’ve wanted to preach for years. And a lesson that particularly focuses on the first temptation that we have recorded. Now, every preacher in his arsenal of sermons, in his repertoire, in his catalog, whatever French or American word you want to use for collection of stuff that he uses to preach from, has at least one, if not two, I think I have ten, different sermons on Jesus being tempted in the wilderness.

But it has always seemed to me that there’s kind of a disconnect, if you will, not necessarily disconnect, but kind of an odd pairing of that first temptation with the other two. When you look at it in, and let’s just go ahead and read just the first couple of verses here, chapter 4, verse 1, it says, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones. Become bread. And of course, when we look at the other two temptations, when he’s put upon the pinnacle of the temple, or he’s taken up into the high mountain and shown all the kingdoms of the world, we certainly could look at those and say, yep, it would be absolutely sinful to participate in those things.

That we can see the sin there. But has it ever puzzled you what was wrong? What was wrong with bread? I mean, when we think about bread and no, this isn’t a low carb lesson. Somebody asked me that. And it’s not a gluten-free lesson, although I guess it could be. What’s wrong with bread? I mean, bread alone, if you just take bread. Bread sounds wholesome to us, doesn’t it? I mean, that do you love in Texas more than bluebell ice cream and Mrs. Baird’s bread? Unless it’s my wife’s bread. I love the smell of bread. Come home and Lawrence baked a loaf of bread, and it just, I quit walking when I go through the door and I start wafting. Yes, I waft. It’s hard to believe, but so did the Hindenburg.

The smell of bread just carries you from one end of the house to the other. Bread is good, bread is wholesome. That if you were to look at, if you were to look at the thing that sets apart the 20th and 21st century from all other periods before it, one of the great advancements of the 20th and 21st century were really two. Number one, indoor plumbing. And the second was the ability to preserve and obtain food with little preparation. To be able to go to the store. Pick up a loaf of bread. You didn’t have to get up, ladies, at the crack of dawn to make bread for your family that day, then it wouldn’t be any good the next day. You didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to start out to the field.

Well, I guess some of you do have to go out to the field and gather eggs or at the hent house and gather eggs. Most of us don’t. I don’t gather eggs because I don’t like eggs. But my wife, when she needs eggs, goes to the refrigerator and gathers eggs. It’s what we think of food as being something that’s sustenance, it’s wholesome, it’s necessary. Well, let’s read the rest of it.

Chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. The tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Then the devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple. And said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus said to him, On the other hand, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. He said, I’m going to make you a bargain. I’m going to give you all these things. You can see all you’ve got to do is fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and began to minister to him.

1. What Was Wrong With Bread?

Like I said, in context, we can understand what was wrong when we look at, when we look at the scene there in the pinnacle of the temple. We get it when we see the scene there on the mountain. But what was wrong with bread? How could something so necessary, so important for life, so vital and fundamental, how could that ever be wrong? We know it to be wrong because the devil wouldn’t have tempted him with it if it worked. And Jesus wouldn’t have refused if it were not. So why bread? Bread that’s commended to us in other passages. Bread that sustains, bread that is filling, bread that is necessary for survival. What in that moment? Because we know all bread can’t be evil unless you’re on Weight Watchers.

Or Atkins. Then it’s one of the seven deadly foods, I think. What is wrong with bread in that context? Well, some people say that it was a temptation. They’ll take you over to a passage like 1 John 2 if you want to open there. 1 John 2, beginning in verse 15. I’m in verse 5. That won’t work. Verse 15, do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away in it also its lust.

But the one who does the will of God lives forever. So we can look at this. And we can say, okay, well, lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, pride of life, surely. I mean, you’ve got the lust of the eye there, right? I mean, as Matthew records it, that would be the third temptation. Looking out over all the kingdoms of the earth. I’ll give you these. I’ll let you have this thing that you’re looking at if you’ll but fall down and worship me.

We can see the pride of life. We can look at the challenge that the devil puts before Jesus when he’s there on the pinnacle of the temple. The challenge that says, if you’re the Son of God, you’ll throw yourself down from this temple, because he’s given his angels charge over you that you shouldn’t even bash your phone or dash your foot against a stone. Bashing a phone is something we do now. Sorry, anybody with a cracked iPhone. Dash your foot against a stone. He says, You say you’re the son of God, prove it. Prove it. Do something dramatic. Prove it. Prove it not only to me, but prove it to all those that are down there. Imagine that. He didn’t remember, he didn’t take him up to a mountain and say, throw yourself down.

He took him up to the top of the temple, the pinnacle of the temple, the highest point in all Jerusalem and says, throw yourself down. All those people down there will see it.

We go back to the first and we say, oh, well, then there’s lust of the flesh. Remember it said he was hungry. You know, I think there’s a problem with breaking these temptations down that way. Because I really believe the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life are in some way part of all of them. I think the devil is at work in those three avenues in every way that he tempts us, but I know what you’re thinking. Well, we’ve identified it. That’s the problem. Lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, pride of life. You’ve been talking about bread. Time is up. Let’s go. Let’s go beat those late sleepers to Lubies where the rolls are fresh and hot.

Talk about something you’re never supposed to say as a preacher. But even that is not really the problem with bread in this instance. Oh, it was a lust of the eye. Have you ever taken a look at the stones in that area? You could just imagine them easily becoming a loaf of bread. They’re kind of oblong. You ever seen a good-sized river rock? It’s been worn smooth by the current of a river. You find a lot of those over there. Particularly along the Jordan. But I’d say to you, it’s more than the lust of the eye. Lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Was bread forbidden him? Not that we have any record of. He wasn’t told not to partake of bread. Would it have been an abuse of his power?

I’ve heard lessons on this one. This would have been an abuse of the power of Jesus. It would have been using a miracle for self-serving reasons. Possibly, but you know what? I can’t really be tempted that way, can you? Devil’s going to have a hard time coming up to me and tempting me to turn to turn stones into bread, if that’s really all that this is.

I’ve heard it said that it was merely Satan making the offer, and the fact that it was the Satan making Satan making the offer is what made it wrong. Possibly. Possibly, certainly he wouldn’t have been there making the offer if it was a good and wholesome offer. Certainly he wouldn’t have been there making the challenge if it was a good and wholesome challenge. But I believe that it is something simpler, something altogether more common, a temptation that you and I still struggle with today. And I think to really understand it, you need to go back to Jesus’ answer to begin with, which can be found in Deuteronomy the 8th chapter.

2. Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone

Turn with me there in your Bibles, if you will, or read it off the screen if you prefer. Deuteronomy 8, verse 1 says, All the commandments that I am commanding you today, you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give you, to give your forefathers. You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. Circle that in your mind or underline it in your Bible even better if you’re the kind of person that underlines in your Bible. Whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore you shall keep his command, keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to fear him. Here in Deuteronomy, Moses speaking reminds them of the time that they had wandered in the wilderness, and he says, This was a time for you to prove the content of your heart and your character to God, whether or not you could truly humble yourself to God’s will, whether or not you could be obedient in difficulty. So he allowed you to go through famine, and then when it was time, he fed you with manna, but he never deserted you.

He never let your clothes wear out, he never let your feet swell, he never let you grow weary. He always sustained you, but it was necessary for you to endure that chastening. So he could know your heart, and I would submit to you so that they could know as well. You see, to really understand this, I think you need to take a look at how Jesus makes the same point over in Matthew, the sixth chapter. In Matthew 6, talking about the difficulties that we face, beginning in verse 25. He says, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not see, they do not sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you of little faith.

Do not worry then, saying, What will we eat, or what will we drink? What will we wear for clothing? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. You know what I think the problem with the bread is to begin with? I think it was in part the time that it was offered. Jesus hadn’t gone into the wilderness to sustain himself physically. Jesus had gone into the wilderness to be tested. Jesus hadn’t gone into the wilderness to be served and to heed for himself sustenance.

He had gone into the wilderness to be tempted. He had gone there with the purpose of fasting and with the purpose of temptation. So was it forbidden? No, he wasn’t forbidden from eating bread. Was it an abuse of his power? I guess you could argue that. Was it merely that Satan was making the offer? Certainly that’s part of it, but I truly believe that it is something that we still struggle with today. You see, I think within context, you have to understand what the bread represents. That Jesus was in the wilderness for a purpose. He was there to be tempted. He was there to draw closer to God. What had he been doing? What had he been doing? He had been fasting. And in what state did the devil approach him?

He was hungry. He was hungry. He was at, if there was ever a point where spiritual zeal ebbs, it’s when the body is hungry. Because let me tell you something, and I’m going to talk about this again in a moment. I can go all day and forget to drink. Except coffee. I need coffee. Coffee is life. But you miss a meal. And your stomach lets you know it. Imagine missing three meals times 40.

Imagine how tempting it would be. Had you the power to take those stones and make something as simple. As poor a nourishment as bread actually is, because there’s not much nourishment in bread. Bread will do one thing. It’ll staunch hunger.

The devil came to him, I’m convinced, because he was there for a different purpose. And anything to anything to derail that purpose fit within the funnels of the town.

It wasn’t time for Jesus to have sustenance. Jesus had gone out there for the purpose of suffering, for the purpose of trial, for the purpose of being tempted, for the purpose of being tested, proving his character, proving his mettle, proving what it means to be the Son of God. Now I want you to see this isn’t the only time he’s revealed this. John 6 and 26. Jesus answered them after feeding the five thousand and surprising them by meeting the gathering of people over on the other side of the sea. Truly I say to you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to enter to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for in him the Father God has set his seal.

And of course, he would go on to talk about his flesh being the bread of life, and he would be rejected for that. He would be left by those that followed him because the saying was so hard. But if Jesus says this to those that were following him, those that were coming after him, that the only reason you’re following me is because I gave you something to eat and I filled your bellies, and that’s not what this is about. How in the world, can he have ever succumbed to the temptation? How could he have rationalized coming in, succumbing to the temptation to use power to sustain the physical when he was out there for a godly purpose? We could look at James 1. Blessed is the man who preserves or perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. I think that’s the real problem with the bread. It wasn’t time to eat. It was time to be godly, it was time to be spiritual, it was time to be focused on eternal things. It was time to be about his father’s business. It was time to be busy in the work of the kingdom. It was time to establish himself truly and fully as the Son of God and set out there before those that would know that he had endured and been tempted. Those are the things he was accomplishing there in the wilderness.

It wasn’t time to fill his belly.

3. Bread Is Want of the Physical Over the Spiritual

It says, Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. I should have put this in red. Sorry. So the disciples were saying to one another, no one brought him anything to eat, did he? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Brothers and sisters, is that our attitude today? Because I’m going to tell you, the devil doesn’t come to us with a package of sunbeam or Mrs. Baird’s or the off-brand day old stuff that you can buy and put out for hog killing that I know some of you do. People still do that. Put donuts on steaks to bring the pigs in when you’re trying to.

Some of you are going like this, some of you are going, huh?

The devil doesn’t come to us with fresh baked bread. Or with the temptation to make fresh baked bread. It’s getting really hard to say fresh baked bread. Becoming a tongue twister. But I tell you what he does do. He comes to us over and over and over again and says, replace the spiritual with that which is physical and not needful. The problem with bread, the trouble with bread is that bread is want of the physical over desire for the spiritual. Sooner or later we have to answer. We have to answer whether we’re going to be a physical creature or a spiritual creature. Sooner or later we’re going to have to decide whether the inner man is sustained by the flourishing and the growth of the outer man or whether the inner man is sustained by the things of God and dwelling more fully in them.

Brothers and sisters, we have to put bread, because now we’re not talking about actual bread, so I’ll put the quotes up there. We have to put bread into perspective. We have to put that physical temptation, that temptation to leave the spiritual to satisfy the physical. We have to put that into perspective. And I’ve got to tell you, this goes, what we’re talking about here is desire. Remember that hunger pang we talked about? Remember that sharp pang? If you miss a meal, you can go all day and forget to drink, maybe, but you miss a meal, your body’s going to let you know it. Even though water is more needful than food. Young people, I know every time anybody gets up here, we always kind of talk to you guys for a second, but the reason is, and Steve said this a couple of weeks ago on Wednesday night, the reason is we’ve been where you’re sitting.

There are a lot of things in this world that people are going to try to tell you that you need. You need a good education. That’s the most important thing in the world. No, it’s not. You need a significant other. And I’m going to tell you, I’ll let you in on something. My generation in particular failed you in this regard. We were the first generation that really, if you look at it, the people that preceded us by about 10 years mingling with us, we were the first generation where you really saw people just jump from relationship to relationship, and your self-esteem was sewn up in who you were dating. Be happy with yourself as a godly person. Don’t look for happiness through the physical satisfaction of having a significant other.

4. Bread Is the Convenience to Go Along to Get Along

Don’t give in to that temptation because with that temptation comes trouble. Don’t put the physical ahead of the spiritual. And if you can’t find a person today that will accept you as their boyfriend or their girlfriend because you are a spiritual creature, you are a spiritual person. You won’t compromise morality for physical desire. Good for you. And you keep right on doing it. You can look at Chadrach, Meshach, Abednego in the book of Daniel. There are three young people that wouldn’t compromise who they were supposed to be, even though they were commanded by the king himself to bow down at the trumpets. That’s what bread looks like. Bread can be the convenience that ends the struggle over disciplined adherence to authority. This is the go-along to get along.

I can tell you, this is one of the things that is going to be the undoing of many people today that wear the name Christian. The kind of denominational thing, the go along to get along, everyone else is doing it. Let’s just take the easy way. Let’s look for a day without difficulty. Let’s compromise on the truth. Let’s compromise when it comes to marriage, divorce, and remarriage for any cause. Let’s compromise on homosexuality. There was an article somebody sent me today where a woman that professed herself to be a Christian and single tried to sit there and argue within the context of an article that premarital sex was okay. You can’t find that in the scripture. But there are many people, that should say two, not one.

5. Bread Is Failing in Obligation Because of Momentary Need

Why did that change? That’s weird. There are many people today that will tell you that authority doesn’t matter. Convenience is what matters. We need to struggle to get people in here. We got to get these pews full. We need to expand this building. The coffers have to go up. We need all of the things that the bigger congregations have, and the only way we’re going to get there is with fellowship halls and with youth movements and ministries and all of those things. We don’t need to embrace the easy day. We need to stay with what’s true and what’s right. Because the easy way is bread. This also says one, and it should say three. Doesn’t want my handout. The trouble with bread is that bread is failing in obligation because of the seemingly insurmountable momentary need.

We’ve all heard it. The pressing need. This has got to be done. It’s got to be done right now. We got to address this. We got to get smart about this. We’re going to lose our young people. We’re going to do this. If we don’t start entertaining, if we don’t start making these changes, if we don’t start making these compromises, we’re being too strict on morality. There’s not enough social doctrine. I promised I wasn’t going to talk fast. Sorry. You know what those things are? Those are hunger. Those are hunger. And the temptation to satisfy them with something that’s not godly, the temptation to sacrifice godly focus, the temptation to sacrifice godly purpose is seems insurmountable. And I’m going to tell you, as long as you are trying to overcome it by physical means, it will remain insurmountable.

But when you turn to godliness, when you embrace the truth, when you let the truth speak for itself, God will overcome. We may struggle, we may lose a few people along the way, but we will stand on the side of righteousness because we will not eat bread when it is not time. We’ll not compromise the spiritual for physical. Go back to that passage in Deuteronomy, the eighth chapter. Look at verse 3. He humbled you and let you be hungry. Jesus was fasting alone in the desert. He as the Psalm says, he was proving that man was not sustained by God’s word, but he was being sustained in the inner, or not sustained by physical bread, but being sustained in the inner man by God’s word. He was not living by bread alone, and he was competent to stand with God in the face of the evildoer.

Do we have that confidence this morning? Oh, he’s out there. He’s out there with temptation. He’s out there trying to convince us that there’s some bread, some something, some something that we desire that we think that we need, that all we have to do is compromise our stand with the truth. And it still says one. Mine says one, two, three.

Than the eternal.

Jesus answered, Man shall not live by bread alone. When he had been fasting for 40 days.

6. Bread Serves Self

Chapter 4, verse 11, the finality of those three temptations. And we’re told about those three, but there’s no indication that those were all the avenues in which Jesus was tempted. In fact, if you look at Luke’s account in Luke, the fourth chapter, it seems like he may have been tempted even more than we understand. But the Father sent angels to minister to him because he had proven himself.

I think about that, and I think about that passage in Deuteronomy 8 that we’ve read a couple of times this morning. The Father wanted to chasten them and then provide for them. The Father provided for him when he had endured when it was time. You see, it all goes back to that concept of priority that we talked about. Priority isn’t just getting things in the proper position. And I think sometimes we think that. I need to do, we prioritize our day. I need to wake up. I need to brush my teeth. I need to go downstairs and get my coffee because that’s got to be done before anything. I need a shower, I need to go out the door to work. If you’re stay at home with the kids, then I need to shower and get ready to get messed up again because kids are messy.

But we set priorities like that. And we convince ourselves, and this is this is in part the arrogance of being, I think, from a Western culture. We convince ourselves that we can truly have our cake and eat it too. We can have all those things that we want. We just have to get them in the right order. Sometimes setting priority means leaving something behind for something better. Sacrificing the physical for the spiritual.

And work in that field. Work in that way. Work around those people. I’ve known people that, in looking at where they were and what they were trying to accomplish, made huge changes to their life and their lifestyle, including giving up some of the trappings of riches that we would typically think, why in the world would somebody give that up? The nice house, the second and third car, the vacation home, things like that. That once you have it, you think I’ve got it. But it took so much of their time to sustain it that they couldn’t be the godly person that they needed to be. And so rather than trying to make all those pieces fit, instead they said there are just pieces that don’t belong in this puzzle.

Sometimes that’s what it means to prioritize. The trouble with bread is that bread serves self and causes us to lose sight of what is truly important. If you turn over to Luke’s account of this and Luke the fourth chapter.

Conclusion

One of the things that we need to get through our heads this morning is that the devil is never finished with us. Oh, he may not try to hit me with the things that he tried to hit me with last year. Maybe I’ve outgrown those things finally, hopefully. But you know what? He’s got some new offer.

I guess everybody’s too young to know what Monty Hall is, but let’s make a deal. You didn’t want what was behind door number one. I’ve got something even better for you behind door number two. All you’ve got to do is be willing to give up what you’ve got right now. I think one of the things that we have to come to terms with is what is the bread that we’re tempted with. Where are we tempted to depart from the spiritual to embrace the physical? Where are we tempted to depart from being the godly person to embrace the needs of self and pride and arrogance? What thing, possession, attitude, behavior, person, are we unwilling to lay down in service to God that we know is hindering us from being that person that we need to be?

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. And Ed got me thinking about this when we were talking about Ephesians last Wednesday in the class, and then somebody echoed it over here. I think it was Dave, or I’m sorry, Steve, who’s not here this morning. Bitterness is a hard thing. You want to talk about something hard to overcome? Bitterness can be bread for you. It can be that thing that you can’t put down. Disappointment can be that thing that you won’t put down. Ego can be that thing that you won’t put down. Anything that keeps us from being the person that we need to be that we bitterly cling to? That’s bread. With difficulty so great, what difficulty is so great that God’s way seems unwalkable, unknowable?

Where or when are we tempted to cleave to something of this world? And remove our eyes from the Savior. What desire is so strong that we cannot sacrifice it or leave it behind for God’s calling? Think about Paul in Philippians, the third chapter. What is so precious, so great, so needful? What relationship is so important? What status is so is so ingrained within us? What desire is so strong that we would sacrifice being the people of God that we need to be and give in to the temptation to chase after the physical. In short, what’s your bread? I want to leave you with this thought this morning. It’s a lot clearer on the laptop than it is there. Bread that is not from the Father is whatever causes us to compromise the integrity of the spirit for the gain and satisfaction of the flesh.

Bread comes in all kinds of packages, no pun intended. It comes with all kinds of trappings. It looks like all kinds of things. But bread is whatever appeals to the flesh that’s not from the Father. Whatever appeals to the flesh that causes us to compromise the integrity of the spirit for the gain and satisfaction of the body or of the flesh. Know what that tells me? There’s a wide swath of things that we can be tempted with. There’s a wide swath of things that can hinder our walk as spiritual beings. There’s a wide swath of things that can unsettle us and make us put the temporary over the eternal, lose sight of the spiritual for the physical. God help us to see them clearly and put them into perspective and not lose sight of who and what we need to be.

If you owe some duty to God this morning, if your soul is not right, there’ll never be a better opportunity to change that than right now. Won’t you come forward confessing your sins as we stand beside?