Our Life is Like Bread

I read and look at a lot of ministry resources and when this one popped up it really peaked my interest because the subject it covers is a message that we all need to hear right now.

And that message is that God is with us.

That God is still caring for us and providing for us.

That whatever difficulties we face, God is still blessing and providing for us.

And we should take comfort in that fact.

But as I was reading through the information here about us being “blessed, broken, and given” to God, I was fascinated by how the author talked about and compared us all to something as simple as bread.

Everywhere we go in the world, there is some version of bread.

The French have baguettes and croissants; Latin countries have tortillas; Indians have naan; Chinese cultures have doughy buns. And Americans have sliced white bread.

Bread for many is the building block of a meal, a staple in every diet.

It was this way in the world of the Bible too. Bread was a common, ordinary meal.

It is the very commonness of bread that makes it the perfect metaphor for our lives.

Think about it, if we are really honest, most of what we do is ordinary.

We get up, go to work—paid or unpaid—tinker at our hobbies, and try to do our best.

We shuttle kids around, mow the lawn, and shop for groceries.

For the most part, there is nothing about our daily lives sets us apart from the people around us.

It’s just life. Like bread, it’s ordinary.

And I think that is how we see ourselves sometimes.

Within that though, maybe we have settled for a life that we think does not matter that much.

Or maybe we are living with an unsustainable drive, grasping and grabbing for something that always feels just out of reach.

Or maybe we are wrestling with an unkind voice—the one that says that we just don’t matter, that we are “less than” or “never enough.”

Well, if that is how you are feeling this morning, then let me be clear. It is not true!

There is much more to this life than what we see or even what we could ever imagine or realize.

Remember, when I started, I started with bread and the ordinariness of bread.

However, throughout Scripture, we discover that nothing is as common as it seems, not even bread.

Think about it, bread fell from heaven as a sign of God’s provision.

Bread became a metaphor for the law of the Lord.

Jesus fed the multitudes with loaves of bread, and referred to himself as “the bread of life.”

Then, on the night that He was handed over to suffering and death, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples as a picture of His body being given for the life of the world.

God has taken something as ordinary as bread and turned it into something extraordinary.

And truth is God intends the same thing for all of us as well.

God does not look at us as just some ordinary lump of clay sent here to just mutter through life.

God looks as us as wonderfully and lovingly created creatures, the full expression of His love.

God sees us as extraordinary and worthy of His attention.

And just like that bread, God’s intention is to use us and turn us into the extraordinary child of His that we were intended to be.

And the only thing standing in His way is us.

So, what we need to be doing is changing how we view ourselves and how we view the “ordinary” of life and start seeing God’s “extraordinary” plans.

And over the course of the next few weeks, we are going to be looking at this and looking at the bread, mainly from the Gospel of Luke.

And this morning we will looking at a familiar passage found in Luke 9:10-17.

And if you are familiar with this passage, you will know this is where Jesus fed the 5000 men, plus the women and children that accompanied them.

And as we go throguh this I want us to pay attention to not so much the miracle in itself but pay attention to Jesus.

What Jesus said and what Jesus did in carrying out this miracle.

So, if you would like to follow along in your Bible, again it is Luke 9, and I will be reading verses 10-17.

Luke writes . . .

Scripture Focus

Luke 9:10–17 NIV - Anglicised

10 When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, 11 but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing. 12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.” 13 He replied, “You give them something to eat.” They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” 14 (About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

Send Them Away Jesus!

Now, again, this is the instance when Jesus fed the 5000 men plus the women and children that were with them.

And it is important to point out that the 5000 was not the total number, it was just the number of men.

The number of people there could have easily been double or triple that number.

Not all of them were married and not all of them had children.

But many had more than one child and there were also orphans and single women there as well.

So we could be looking at a total number of people of between 10,000 and 15,000 or even more.

The reality is, we do not know for sure, we only know that 5000 was the bare minimum number that was there.

But let’s look at the first couple of verses again here.

It says . . .

Luke 9:10–12 NIV - Anglicised

Now, it starts out talking about “when the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done.”

So, what was it they had done?

Did they do something bad?

Were they in trouble?

Absolutely not!

We find out from the beginning of the chapter . . .

Luke 9:1–2 NIV - Anglicised

1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

And, the result . . .

Luke 9:6 NIV - Anglicised

6 So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

So, they had been out preaching the Gospel and were experiencing some great success with it.

And they came back and they were excited to share this with Jesus, but they were also exhausted.

They were plum wore out.

So, Jesus takes them and the Bible says that they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethesaida.

And the purpose was so they could rest and be renewed.

However, they soon learned that this was not going to be possible.

In verse 11 again . .

Luke 9:11 NIV - Anglicised

11 but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.

So, even though they were tired and exhausted and wanted to rest, the crowds kept coming.

The needs kept rolling in.

And Jesus being Jesus, welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed healing.

But, the disciples were tired and they had a different opinion on what should be happening . . .

Luke 9:12 NIV - Anglicised

12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”

They disguised it as being concerned about the people, send the crowd away so they can go …and find food and lodging because we are in a remote place.

However, their concern was not so much for the people, but rather it was for themselves.

They were tired and they wanted to rest.

Which is reasonable.

And, if we’re honest, isn’t this is how we feel when we see the needs of our friends, family, and neighbors sometimes?

The needs of the world around us can all feel overwhelming.

Just turn on the news, and we’re bombarded by more tragedies and hardships.

Scroll through Facebook, and all you see is ugliness and negativity.

All the struggles and problems that the people are dealing with. A simple ‘sad face’ emoji won’t cut it.

You may reply and say you’re praying for them, but what can you really do? It’s just too much.

And on top of that, you’ve got your stuff to deal with. Your own life is no walk in the park.

So, we are like the disciples sometimes just saying “Jesus, just send them all away.”

Jesus, just some peace a quiet for a change!

Jesus, just let me focus on myself for a while.

Jesus Blessed, Broke, and Gave the Bread

But, every single one of us knows that it doesn’t work that way.

We know that God is just not going to turn them away.

Just like we know that God is not going to just turn us away in our time of need.

Instead, God calls us to welcome and care for those in need.

God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Look at the rest of the passage . . .

Luke 9:13–17 NIV - Anglicised

13 He replied, “You give them something to eat.” They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” 14 (About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

He says, “you give them something to eat.”

Remember what He tells Peter when He restores Peter?

Three times He told Peter to “feed His sheep.”

Provide for what the people need.

Be the hands and the feet of Jesus.

That is our calling.

And that calling in itself is a blessing from God.

But it’s not even about us though, it is about what Jesus does with what we bring Him to work with.

Look at what Jesus did with the bread here in verse 16 . . .

Luke 9:16 NIV - Anglicised

16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people.

First, Jesus blessed the bread.

Second, Jesus broke the bread.

Third, Jesus gave the bread.

But, what is so significant about that?

Think about it . . .

Those three actions changed the whole story.

A “desolate place” became a place of abundance.

A desert became a banquet.

A story that began with “not enough” ended with there being more than enough.

This is what happens when Jesus takes something that we think is just ordinary—bread!—and blesses it, breaks it, and gives it.

It changes everything.

Our Lives Are Blessed, Broken, and Given

So, what does that have to do with us?

Everything!

Jesus took bread, blessed it by giving thanks to the Father, broke it, and gave it.

Bread in the hands of Jesus is blessed, broken, and given.

Our life, as common and ordinary as bread, in Jesus’s hands becomes something more.

In the hands of Jesus, our life becomes blessed.

This blessedness is not about accumulating or achieving more.

Blessedness is about having your our true identity recovered and our true calling revealed.

It is to be given a new name.

Once we were a sinner; now we are a saint.

Once we were far off; now we are a cherished family member.

Also, in the hands of Jesus, our life becomes broken.

But broken in a new way.

There are several different kinds of brokenness.

There is a brokenness that comes from our frailty—our finiteness, our limitations.

There is a brokenness that comes from our own failure—our sin, our participation in the spread of wickedness.

And, there is a brokenness that is the pain of living in a fallen world—our suffering and pain.

But all these kinds of brokenness can be placed in Jesus’s hands.

When we place the brokenness of our failure, frailty, and suffering in Jesus’s hands, we become open to the grace of God.

This brokenness is not about wallowing in our sin or fixating on how miserable we are.

To be broken is to allow the grace of God to humble us, to lead us into vulnerability with others, and to transform our heart. Our Brokenness becomes openness in the hands of Jesus.

After all, and this is important, bread that is not broken cannot be shared.

And finally, in the hands of Jesus, our life becomes given.

We realize that we are not here for ourselves.

Life with Jesus is deeply personal but never private.

The openness that comes from being broken is meant to lead us outward to share with others.

There is a hunger in the world around us, a deep groan for something more.

When our life becomes blessed and broken in Jesus’s hands, He gives us out for the life of the world.

We become the way others find the Bread of Life.

But to be that way, we must first experience the blessing and embrace the brokenness—only then will we be consecrated to bring change in powerful ways.

Closing

But I wonder how ready we are for that.

If we are ready for that.

If we can allow God to bless us, break us, and give us back to the world.

If we are ready for God to change the ordinary to extraordinary.

The first step is coming into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Have we done that?

The second step is giving ourselves fully to God.

Have we done that?

If the answer to either of those questions is “no,” then why not?

What’s holding us back?

If you want to change that, send me a private message and let me know how I can pray with you and for you.

Or, leave a comment here for all to see and for all to pray with you and for you.

Don’t leave and log off until you have given God a chance to change your heart this morning.

And as always stay safe and we will see you at 6PM tonight.

Have a blessed afternoon.

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