Title: Eating Controls Us (John 6:47-55)
[John 6:47-55]
[47] ♠ Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life [48] ♠ I am the bread of life [49] ♠ Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they died, [50] ♠ This is what comes down from heaven. [51] ♠ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. [52] The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. [53] The Jews quarreled with one another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [53] Jesus said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] ♠ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] ♠ My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
“It is a good morning to receive grace.” May Jehovah this morning excite the hearts of all of us and guide our lives. I will deliver the message under the title, 'Eating Controls Us'. The modern world is a cutting-edge world. Among other things, we live in the United States, at the forefront of the cutting-edge era. However, about 10 million people in the United States, or 5 percent, suffer from obesity. Judging from the statistics, the degree of obesity is actually very serious. Some are crouching and unable to tie their shoelaces, while others are unable to sit in the driver's seat on their own and need help. Dr. Jeanne McDoowell, former health adviser to Clinton, diagnosed this phenomenon as a result of human abundance. The world is much richer than it was 30 years ago. I was able to eat food every day that I could only eat once or twice a year. By eating abundantly high-protein food every day, it is also a factor that devastates the body and even the mind. It is very good when eaten, but it causes obesity, and obesity is a shortcut to various adult diseases. It has grown in size, but rather its strength is weakened.
Even within the image of faith, there is an image that seems to have caused obesity by eating too much food. Compared to the past, the present day lives in an abundance of spiritual material. Hundreds of Christian books are published every day. There are devices that allow us to listen to sermons that suit our taste through TV or the Internet. You can access outstanding lectures without visiting famous seminaries or professors. Even the newspapers we read every day contain every article about Christianity. Compared to the past, spiritual resources are much richer and more popular. However, despite this, we do not get the essence and only maintain the state of obesity.
It is said that there are not many people in the new church. The more comfortable the church is, the more people flock to it. I am very interested in personal growth and training. However, they have little interest in the Great Commission, missionary work, or evangelism that Jesus commanded. We spend a lot of time enriching ourselves, even though there are spiritual imperatives in our lives. These are typical aspects of obesity that the modern church no longer grows and declines. It is the appearance of spiritual obesity in which the appearance has grown and knowledge has increased, but the actual ability is lowered. Today's text presents a way to treat spiritual obesity. If we could sum up the Gospel of John in one word, we could say, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Jesus Christ is the ‘bread of life’.
We read the Word of God a lot. We often mistakenly think, 'I read the Word of God, meditate on it, and do something'. However, looking at the location of the tabernacle, the Word of God is not there. It is not that I read the Word of God, but the Word of God should read me. The word of God should make me meditate. God's Word must guide me. We must have the Word of God at our very heart. The person who must lead me in the center of my life today must be Jesus. At the center of the Holy of Holies of my soul is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Anything else is false. These things lead us to obesity. What lies deep within our souls determines who we are.
Let's apply to our present life what Jesus Christ is the most holy life of our souls.
First, we must free ourselves from mass media slavery.
We live in an age more influenced by mass media than ever before. There are two ways to beat obesity. It's diet and exercise. The first thing that precedes exercise is diet. You can't control what you eat, and you can't beat obesity. It's not about not eating, it's about knowing what to eat. We live in a flood of mass media. If we open our eyes, we can easily access TV, newspapers and the Internet all around us. In our hearts, waiting for mass media is stronger than waiting for worship. While we say that we live a life of faith, meditate on the Word, and worship, we are not being controlled by the Word of God from the deepest part of our soul, but are being exposed to the mass media and our souls are stolen. In order to engrave the bread of life of Jesus in our daily lives, we must equip our souls with the Word of God. I pray in the name of the Lord that your life will be governed by the bread of life.
Second, read the classics.