Ephesians 5:15-16 | Bread of Life

Sunday Morning | March 9, 2025 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

Student pastor Colby Flowers concludes the WKND 25 Student Conference with the Sunday morning message "Bread of Life."

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship. We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

Transcript

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You feel that? That was a second gone. Another one gone. Life is happening right now. And you? You're in it. But here's the truth. You don't get a replay. Opportunities missed them and they're gone. Look carefully, then. How you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise as the world says. Live for yourself. But wisdom says live for something greater. Because time you can waste it, or you can use it. Don't waste your life. Well good morning church. How are we doing? Morning. It's great to be with you this morning. And thank you for coming in. Despite the fact that we had daylight savings time. This is the cursed Sunday at Daylight Savings time. We got the blessed Sunday. When we fall back to. This morning is the cursed Sunday when we spring forward. It. And this whole idea of Daylight savings time is kind of weird to me. Maybe to you all. But you know, it's an attempt to try to save some daylight by moving the clocks of the hand back an hour. But really, how much does it actually help? I'm not sure, but I am certain that there are some things that don't adhere to the time change. And one of those things would be my four month old son, Ezra. It doesn't matter what time it is, it doesn't matter what the clock says, what my phone says, if he wants to wake up, he's going to wake up. I was with him last night. He's been sleeping in little stints, and I want to go and give a shout out to my wife. She made it to the building. I don't know why she even made it to the building today. He'd been under the weather, but she has made it taking care of two kids all week. Thankful for her. She makes it possible that we can do weekends like this. I'm so thankful for her. But with this whole DST, the daylight Savings time, my son really, really could care less. But you know, if my son did adhere to it, if he would adjust his sleeping schedule around it, I would come up with something called CST, a new CST that would be Colby Sleep Time. I would keep pushing that clock back over and over and over again till I got some sleep. But that don't happen. And this whole idea of daylight savings time is as simple. It is a simple attempt to try to manipulate our clocks to kind of gain more hours. But you and I both know that's not really what daylight saving time can do, because time goes on. Time is fleeting. And as we looked at that, this series or this this weekend with our students, how important is it just for us who are even older than teenagers, that we need to value our time more and more? Because the older I get, the less time I have, and certainly the less time I feels like I have. The days get shorter. But something interesting Moses wrote in Psalm 90, verse 12, he says, Lord, teach me to number my days, so that I will have a wise heart. Lord, teach me to know how long I've got left on this earth, because time is precious, and because of that I need to live appropriately, purposefully. And so our theme verse this this weekend was Ephesians five 1516. It says, look carefully then, how you walk, not as unwise but as wise. And here's our kind of our key verse. Making the best use of the time for the days are evil, that we would value our time as something greater than just what we see on a digital clock. But it's interesting. Today we we've kind of lost this sense of fleeting time. And I think there's different factors that lead up to that. But I think part of that is our technology. Part of that is our mechanical clocks and our clocks on our phone. But there is a device, iconic device. It's on stage with me. That kind of helped you see how fleeting time is. And it's an hourglass. So if you bear with me. You're. I'm assuming you know what an hourglass is, but the lower bowl, the sand fall, or the upper bowl that the sand falls down into the lower because of gravity. And as it's flowing, you can visually see second flowing. But what's interesting, and what we do know about an hourglass is that at some point this sand is going to be empty. And we don't get that luxury with a phone, with a, with a watch, with clocks, because we don't see that the time is ticking away. Eventually it will be gone. But we see this here. And so we've used this this weekend as this image to know that your time is fleeting. It's not forever or time on this earth. It's not forever. And so the main point we're going to see today is that we must remember God and our purpose, or else we will waste our time through distraction and idolatry. How crucial it is that we remember God and His purpose for our life. And we're going to see that today. In Deuteronomy chapter eight, we've got some scriptures. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter eight. The words will be on the screen. I hope you can follow along with us. We got some scripture to get through. We're going to look at as a couple big chunks of of Scripture, a handful of verses back to back. So bear with me. But I promise you, there is gold in this message. The Lord has so much to say. This Deuteronomy chapter eight Moses is writing to Israel. And if you don't know this story too well, they just got out of Egypt. They just been saved, redeemed by God. So now they're wandering in the wilderness. They've been complaining, they've been disobeying. They have been running, running and doing things that God has not told them to do. And so God has said, you know what? This generation isn't going to go into the promised land. You're going to wander for 40 years. And so Moses is writing this book as a charge and with instruction that as the people of Israel head into the Promised Land, there's some things you need to know and there's some things that you need to remember. And so he writes here in chapter, chapter eight of Deuteronomy, verse one, this is what he says. He says, the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do that. You may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. So right off the bat Moses says, and this is God speaking, actually Moses just right. And God says, if you obey me, you're going to multiply. You're going to be successful. And it's implied the opposite is true as well. If you don't obey me, you're going to get destroyed. And so from the very beginning, obedient to set before them that they need to obey God. Verse two says, and you shall remember, here's a really important word for this chapter. You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. So Moses says, you need to remember where you come from. You just got out of hundreds of years in Egypt, and because of that, you've been blessed by God to be redeemed and saved. And now you're heading into this promised land where you're going to have all of these wonderful things to you. But listen, don't forget where you just came from. And he used this whole process with them as he as as God says here to humble them. And how often do we need to be humbled by God? And so you all probably know this just as well as I do, that God will test you to expose what is truly in your heart. This was the whole point of this 40 years of wandering. God was wanting to see if their love for him and their obedience and faith to him was real. And that's why we go through seasons of testing and being tried and going through difficulties, because it's not wasted time, but it's purposeful time that God wants to test our hearts. He goes on in verse three, God says, and he that this is now Moses speak, and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Lead the scripture up here for us. I'm going to break this down. So manna was the bread that came down from heaven. It was literally the first instance we have of Uber Eats and DoorDash. This was the heavenly dash, the Heavenly Eats, the best delivery service you can imagine. God said, bread from heaven, here it comes. And they get to pick it up and eat it. It had a little sweet taste, but they even complained in where's our meat? God, they still at it. They had reasons to complain. And so God fed them and gave them food. And yet even through this process, he was humbling them for a purpose. What it says he was humbling them because he wanted them to know that you can't live by bread alone and by bread. This is literally meaning bread in this scenario. But the Bible applies this to so many areas of life that we can't live on anything alone. We simply need God. So if you know the story in Jesus's life, when he gets baptized, Holy Spirit sends him into the wilderness. For how many days, 40 days? How many years was Israel in the wilderness? You see the picture Jesus is kind of mimicking a little bit of what Israel was doing. And so he's now in the the wilderness. Jesus is and he is fasting for 40 days. And don't you know it? Here comes the enemy comes up to Jesus tempting him when he is as hungry and says, listen, Jesus, see those stones over there? Just turn them into bread. Bread. Jesus looks at them and says, let me quote you a verse that I know man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Jesus is saying, I can do without that. I can't do it. That obedience to God. Jesus is saying, I am the true Israel. I'm the one who's doing what Israel didn't do. I don't need the bread, I need God. But before we can say, okay, Colby, I'm with that. I mean, I can I can fast from bread. I'm in fact, I'm gluten free. I don't need any bread. I can do that. But there's more than that. It's more than just bread. Because when he says, you cannot live by bread alone, he's talking about food or pleasures or luxuries or things of this world. But instead you will live by the word of God. So, friends, this morning, the point is this you. You can't live by the things that can be blessed to you. Your bread, your food, your houses, your comforts, your luxuries and friends. You can be the poorest person in this country and be the richest person in the world. Because of where we live, we are highly blessed materially. So imagine the Israelites are going in to a promised land and God saying, listen, don't forget where you came from because you can't live by bread alone. You need something more. If we don't have the Word of God, if we don't have God's presence, if we don't have God's protection, the bread don't matter, the luxuries don't matter, the comforts don't matter. Because here is the thing about our modern culture the world promises instant, fleeting gratification, but God promises delayed, eternal satisfaction. Listen, you can easily go find something in the world that will give you your quick fix, I can assure you. You can go to your screens, go to your fridge and go have your experiences. And this isn't to knock on all of those things as being bad, but when those things become the main thing, that's when we get in trouble because they provide you with something that is fleeting and won't really gratify you long term. But God promises something to you and I that will satisfy you for eternity. But you know what you got to do? You have to delay the pleasures of this life. Sometimes. But it's easy. I see something, I'm gonna take it right here. What we see from Jesus and what we see. What? What Moses is saying to the Israelites. It's all too humble. It goes on in verse four. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these 40 years. Verse five. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his Son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways, and by fearing him just like a good father would. God the Lord disciplines us like his kids. If we are the children of God, he is our father. He's going to discipline you and we need it. So recently, with all the snow and the rain a couple of weeks ago, or like three weeks ago or so, we had some water damage that happened in our basement. And so that required a quick phone call to some friends in the church that came over. And we swiftly pulled up carpet ripped up the pad underneath. So my basement looks like a frat house right now. There is furniture everywhere. Things turned up, upside down, carpet rolled up here and there. And so we have no basement pretty much anymore. And so we got to get some things figured out first. But you know, it's kind of frustrating because that place sort of became a semi man cave. I don't know if anybody's got any of those. And especially with having kids, two kids, three and under, you need a quiet place to go sometimes, but I don't have that anymore. And so that kind of disrupted my comfort. And I didn't like that. I didn't like those disruptions in my life. And so obviously, I got frustrated. But, you know, the more and more I've thought about it, God uses those types of things to disrupt the comforts of our lives because he needs to humble us. I need to be humbled. If I get too comfortable with my things, in my possessions and my stuff and my experiences, I can so easily if I if I wanted to, I could try to do life without God and just live off my luxuries and comforts and experiences and just say, God, I'm good. I got this. But sometimes God needs to disrupt my life to listen. God will withhold comfort, to discipline and redirect us back to obedience, and sometimes we need that. We need to be redirected back to God. And so my first point this morning is this we are called to obey God by following him in his ways and fearing him. To obey God and to follow him and to fear him, and sometimes to get us back on track. God's got to flip our world upside down. And I know where you're at in the season. Maybe God's doing that with you. But listen, it's all for a purpose, okay? Go. So he goes on your verse seven. This is Moses writing on behalf of God. Verse seven, for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land full of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys of the hills, a land of wheat and barley, a vines and fig trees of pomegranate granite, a land of olive trees and honey. A land in which you will eat without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing. A land whose stone eyes are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper and keep getting better. You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Those are wonderful things to be blessed by God with all of these things. And God blesses us with these things. But there is such a great danger. So there's a dangerous temptation to forget God when your life is full of ease, comfort and possessions. Because everything we purchase and buy has a cost. You buy a new car. There's a temptation associated with him. You buy a new phone. There's a temptation associated with it. When we get new things and we we enter new seasons, there is a temptation to live up for those things and forget the one who gave them to you. See, we can make good things into God. Things that is, we take the blessings that God has given us and we make them bigger than what they actually are. So instead of to worship the creator, we worship creation. By hitting home yet? There was such a great temptation in our modern, rich society for us to get so sidetracked, to forget God, and to live for this life, and the possessions and the luxuries and experiences we can get. So second thing I want to express to you this morning don't get too comfortable in this world. I'm thankful God doesn't let me get too comfortable. But if you feel yourself slipping into a life where everything just becomes easy and God just starts drifting into the background, you better watch out because God may be coming for you. He may be stirring up your life. And certainly I would rather live without God's discipline, and I'd rather just follow Jesus 100% of the time. But I'm I'm doing this, and I'm making this as a warning to you. Just as God was warning the Israelites. And for us, we have just as much temptation as they did when they entered the Promised Land. Don't get too comfortable. Verse 11. We're going to read a handful of verses here. So? So buckle up. Y'all ready? Take care. Lest you forget, here's our word. So he says to remember. Now he's saying, don't forget. Don't forget the Lord your God. By not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses, and live in them. And when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up or filled with pride, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground, where there was no water? Who brought you? Brought you water out of the flinty rock who fed you in the wilderness with manna? That's your fathers did not know they they might humble you and test you to do you good in the end. In verse seven, we gotta slow down here. Verse 17, here beware, lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this well. It was the phrase that I got at work that's got me here. Come on, me. It's me that's got me to this place. I made those good financial decisions. I was able to do this or do that. I'm really smart. I'm really gifted me. Look at my life. I got the watch, the car, I got all I've got. It. And God thing even back then. Beware. Bless your heart. Get to a place where you're so prideful that you think this season and everything that you got in your life right now is because of you. Verse 18, you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant, that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. The only reason he blessed the people of Israel is because it was supposed to point back to him, God doesn't bless us so that we could get the glory. God blesses us and lifts us up so that we can point back to God and say, look what God did for me. Look at my life. I'm so blessed. I'm so thankful. And it's not because of me. It's not because of what I've done or what I've said or my gift. It's because God has blessed me. Verse 19 and if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Are you listening? This morning, Valley View Church. If your life is built around what you own, what you can experience, if it's built around the luxuries of this life, you will perish. May not be now, may not be tomorrow. May not be in a month or a year. But eternity is coming. Verse 20, the last verse for our main passage this morning. Light the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you sow shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. Now if I can take what we've kind of talked through here and pointed towards our theme for the weekend, we will waste our time. If it is aimed at comforts, possessions and worldly experiences. You will weigh out your life if it's all about what you can attain to the job that you can have, the luxuries that you can possess, the experiences that you can accumulate, if that's what your life is built around, you are going to waste it. And that's so crucial for our students to hear that, for our students to know that now and not figure it out when they're 50. I want them to live the most fruitful life possible. That is full of meaning, and they make an impact. But for us as adults, some of us are already halfway there to the finish line. How how important it is that we use our time that we have left wisely. And if you use it for all of these things, you're going to waste it toward Jesus says in Luke 923 through 24, if anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. In other words, whoever clings so tightly to their life that they won't give up anything. I gotta have my comforts. I gotta have my Sundays to myself. I gotta have all my possessions. I gotta have all these things. And I'm not giving it up. This is what we look like before God with our hands clenched. I'm not giving up my life. God, this is mine. You gave it to me. I'm keeping it. That's what it means. If you would save your life, keep your life, you're going to lose it. What does he say after that? But if you lose your life, you'll find it. You'll save it. So, do you look like this before God or this before God? See, when we become full of the world, we won't have the desire to enjoy God. My daughter, three years old and she is smart. She is clever and she's cute. She has three really good weapons, and she will enforce all of them so that she can have sweets before dinner. And I'm telling you, it takes everything in me to say no. But she wants the candy, the cookies. She wants the gummies. You. She'll even want the healthier things. You'll want fruit and all of those things like. And to say no to that is important. Because if she fills up on that, she ain't going to eat dinner. Listen, this morning, if you are snacking and filling your life up in this world, you think you're going to be hungry for God. If you are on your phone and by. And just as a side note, statistically the average American spends seven hours per day on a screen. And if we're only awake 16 hours, we get eight hours of sleep on average. That doesn't give you very long the rest of the day. Seven hours on a screen. If you fill your life up from there, guess what? You think you're going to be hungry for God's Word. If you still live your life with watching football all day on Sundays and spend and then listen, we got March Madness coming. I get it. If we spend all of our time focused on the screen of our TV for all the things that we can consume and eat up, you think you're going to be hungry for God? Students? You think you can spend hours and hours upon video games and social media and swipe and swipe and scroll and scroll? Do you think you all are going to want God? If you're filling up your life with all of those things? Because the flashing lights, the experiences that you're going to get, they will instantly they'll provide a little bit of gratification, but it's going to be gone in a second. You go to God's Word. You get filled up for a lifetime. So my third point this morning is we need to enjoy the creator over his creation. Enjoy the blessings that God has given you. We are not a church that's so legalistic that we say you can't have technology, you can't have the experience, you can't enjoy life. No, we want to enjoy life. You can ask our students, we've been enjoying things this weekend. In fact, we fit just to give out a little glimpse. We fit 70 refrigerator boxes in that chapel, and we literally made a cardboard box maze in which students have to climb through above. It was pitch black. Super fun. We had tons of stuff we like. We like fun around here. But listen, me, if you fill up your life with all of the pleasures and luxuries and things and it becomes the main thing in your life, you're going to forget God. So my point here is this Enjoy God and more than what God can give you. Y'all, I promised y'all something. I promised y'all some gold. Y'all ready for the gold? I want to take us through a couple verses here in John chapter six, and it's really important something is going to set up in in this really well in John chapter six, Jesus just fed the 5000. And if you remember what Jesus fed the 5000, he put them with bread. Fish kept putting things out the basket, hand, hand and pass it down. Then he goes on the water, walks across the water, through through the storm with his disciples. They get to the other side. And then this chapter records that crowd, that 5000 crowd that was filled with all that they could eat with their bread. You know what they do? They notice Jesus is gone, and they run all the way around the lake to find Jesus. Look at these verses. Y'all ready? Y'all ready? John 625 when they found Jesus, him on the other side of the sea, they said, Rabbi, hey, when do you come here? It's good to see you. Look what Jesus says in verse 26. I think Jesus is hilarious. Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but why you ate your fill of the loaves. I know what you're doing. I know what my daughter does when she comes up to me. Hi daddy. I know what that means. I got some parents in the room. I know when your students are coming up to me and say, hey, Kobe, what's up? What do you want? I can't tell you how many times I had to say that this weekend. This is Jesus. I know why you're here. You want more bread? You see where I'm going already? Where? We just want where we just talked about in Deuteronomy eight. And Jesus said to them, he keeps going, do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life. Are you hearing value church, which the Son of Man will give to you? For on him God the Father has set his seal on the job. And verse 32, because here's where it comes to a center point. Look at this. Verse 32, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one. It is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So they asked the good question. Sir, give us this bread always. We want it. Isn't it funny how they're missing it? And it's standing right in front of them. Y'all see that? I think we can laugh at them. And it is funny. I've laughed plenty of times, but do we not also miss it too? We have the bread of Heaven in front of us, and we keep going to the bread of the world. Y'all see that? So look what Jesus said to him. Famous words I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not. Hunger means you'll be satisfied. And whoever believes in me shall never thirst. If I can bring all this to a point this morning. Jesus offers himself as the bread of life, who saves and satisfies us for all eternity. There is not a bread of this world that can do that for you. There is not a screen that can do that for you. There is not a relationship, or a marriage, or a child, or a degree, or a job, or a car, or a device, or a 401 K, or a house or a wardrobe. There is nothing that can offer you what Jesus offers you. He is the bread of life to give you eternity fully satisfied in him. And though the lie of the world is to say, there's something better for you here, don't buy that lie. So, fourth and final point. Come enjoy the Bread of Life. For some of you, that's this morning. For some of you, your time is run. It's getting. It's getting close to running out. And look saying out. All of us don't know when our time is up. But this morning, maybe tonight or this morning is, is is your opportunity to come enjoy the Bread of Life because you've been snacking on the bread of the world. My challenge for you is simple are you snacking on the world or are you enjoying the Bread of Life? This morning? Prince Valley of You is here not to just put on services and have activities for your kids. We want salvation. We want to see people to come to taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen. This weekend we had a student give their life to Christ. Praise God, praise God! What's to say that's not supposed to happen right now? You. You're here this morning. You don't know Jesus. You've never tasted and seen that the Lord is good. You've never taken the bread of life for yourself. Today's the day. It's not tomorrow. You don't know when you're saying is going to end. Because here's what Jesus does Jesus and the gospel by believing and taking part in the Bread of Life. When your life expires, Jesus flips over your life for eternity. But it's a sand that will never, ever end. This could be you this morning. So if you're here this morning and you want to accept Jesus, don't hesitate and leave without finding one of us because we want to introduce you to the Bread of Life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the beautiful story, the gospel story that brings in so much truth, the father. It redirects us back to to you and father. Some people may be in the room this morning, and they've been going through a season of discipline because they've kind of fallen off track. They've lost their sense of obedience and following you, and they've been settling for the bread of this world. But maybe this morning, father, there are people in this room that need to take a step of faith and say, I want the bread of life. I'm coming back to you. And, God, there may be some this morning who have never tasted the sweetness and the goodness and the satisfaction that comes from you. So if that would be them, God, that you would move, that you would bring them forward, that they would believe, and we would get to see more people come to Jesus today. But, father, wherever we're at in our path, in our journey, in our life, the the theme of this weekend is a humble reminder that our time is short and fleeting. May we not put off the decision to follow you. May we not put off the decision to obey you and to love you, and to seek you and pursue you, that we would make our life count, that we would live our life in such a way that it would brag about you. It would lift you up, it would glorify you so that other people would hear and believe. Our coworkers, our family, are the people we meet in the grocery store, the people that are surrounding us, that we would be an influence to them, and we would live a life that makes an impact. So this morning, father, wherever we're going to respond, I pray that, father, we turn our eyes to you and we turn our eyes to the bread of life, because you alone can satisfy. In Jesus name, Amen. Y'all stand. We're going to sing one more song.