ENEMIES OF THE SOUL: Not on Bread Alone - Greg Johnson

Right? And how many of you know we have referred pain? We have referred hunger, especially in the West. Some of us friends have needs, longings, aching, hungers that no amount of bread will ever touch. No amount of success or sex or money or Caribbean vacations or social media or podcasts or sleep or fancy cocktails at the Eddie or academic achievements or the Patriots winning the Super Bowl are going to satisfy the ache. Because it's this deep void. It's this empty place. It's this gnawing hunger, this longing, this wound in our spirit that needs to be addressed. And some of you know it. Some of you this morning know it. And bread won't touch it and neither will the other stuff.

And so friend, one day, you are going to die and your heart will stop, and your body will decompose, and bread is not gonna do you any good. And neither are any of those other creaturely comforts. Netflix won't do you good. Money won't do you good. Any of that stuff. There's only one thing that will do you an ounce of good in that moment, and it's the voice of the Lord, calling your name. But here's here's what I I would love to say this morning is I don't think we should wait until the end of our life to hear the voice of the Lord.

And so you, friend, all you are are just little things vibrating. Of course, you back out. Like, it seems like it's substance, but what is it resting on? But if you if you read the scripture, this makes sense, doesn't it? Matter, space, time, reality itself is an emergent property of the vibrations of the voice of the Lord. You and everything you see, everything you touch, everything you will ever be are the vibrations of God's vocal cords as he speaks you into being.

He he's in starvation ketosis. He's past normal glucose. He's past, you know, fat reserves. He's his body is breaking down. And when it says he's he's hungry, he really is hungry. It's a signal his body is sending him, you need to eat or you're gonna die. And so it's here when he's when he's in trouble, when he's actually hit he's breaking down physically that the tempter comes and says, hey, Jesus. If you're the son of God, turn this stone to bread. Jesus is trusting and internalizing the lesson that God tried to teach Israel in the wilderness. And he says, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone.

And Jesus understands this in the wilderness. Yeah. He needs bread. Of course, he needs bread. But we all need something more fundamental. Because, friend, eat all the bread you want. Seventy, eighty, ninety years later, hundred if you're lucky, what's gonna happen to you? Is that bread gonna keep you alive? But there's something that can. How many of you know the story of Lazarus? Right? Lazarus dies. Four days later, he's in the tomb, and Jesus goes.

Bread alone or a whole series of categories of creature comfort satisfying things can keep us alive, but they can't make us alive. They can't help us to flourish. Because why? Because human beings, friends, our physical needs is only part of what it means to be human. Right? Genesis the book of Genesis tells us something profound about human nature. God formed us out of the, what, the dust of the earth, but then he breathed into us the breath of life.

But the universe is not wasn't just spoken into being a long time ago, friends. The universe is actually sustained moment to moment by his ongoing speech. Hebrews says, God sustains everything by the power of his word. The word of God is the reason that you are holding together right now. It's the reason there's anything at all. Have you ever wondered why there's anything at all? Have you ever wondered that? Like, why is there anything?

Relationships won't fix it. Success won't fix it. Entertainment, scrolling. There's only one thing that can raise the dead in your life, and that's the voice of the Lord. Because when God speaks, dead things come alive. Amen? When he speaks, the deserts bloom. Light comes from darkness. Dry bones become an army. Dead things come to life. And so I just, Lord, I just if there's dead stuff in our life, we are just asking you to speak this morning. Some of us need a fresh word from him.

Your mind is not a sealed container. It's much more like an antenna. You have 86,000,000,000 neurons in your brain. Every one of them is an antenna designed to send and receive signals. There are a 100,000,000,000,000 synaptic connections in your brain. Your brain is basically the most complicated antenna that exists. Is it possible that the God who created you and loves you could then use that antenna in order to communicate with you? Could it be possible? It is possible. And so the the question is just how do we learn to tune the antenna to the Lord? Right?

In twenty first century American life, we can eat all day constantly. The fridge is always full. We can drink every night. We can scroll constantly, and still under the surface, we feel a dull, quiet, growing ache. Who knows what I'm talking about? There's a sense that there's something missing. You know, mother Teresa, the late mother Teresa said something remarkable after spending decades serving the poorest of the poor in Calcutta,

We have devices in our pockets that give us instant access to any information, anything we want. You need info, you ask chat, You need entertainment. You watch Netflix. You want something. You click a button on Amazon. You're bored. You scroll. You're lonely. You swipe right. You feel sad, empty, restless. You need stimulation. There's always another video. There's another headline. There's another podcast. There's another notification.

Step three, I want you to look for a picture of Jesus in your mind. Your imagination is not just for you in your childhood. God actually gave it to you as a way to connect with him. It helps us access our our right brain. It helps us to be open. Ephesians one says, pray the eyes of your heart would be enlightened. Your heart has eyes. So Saint Ignatius taught us, imagination is a fantastic way to engage with God. I want you to just imagine right now that you're somewhere, your favorite place with Jesus.

And so some of us here have settled for a one way relationship with Jesus. And that was me for years. That was me for years. It wasn't because God wasn't talking. It's just that I didn't know how to hear him. And so I just wanna share a couple insights about how I have learned to hear God's voice, and then we're gonna practice. Sound good? And that's gonna and we'll go we'll we'll just have some time listening to him.

and soul mixed together. They're it's all mixed in, but they're both parts there. And but what does this mean, psychosomatic unity? It's good. Right? You can have all your physical needs met and still be empty. Who knows this? One of the strange realities in modern twenty first century American life is that most of us have access to far more food than we actually need, more creature comforts than any generation in history.

Because it's this deep void. It's this empty place. It's this gnawing hunger. It's this longing, this wound in our spirit that needs to be addressed. And some of you know it. Some of you this morning know it. And bread won't touch it and neither will the other stuff. And this, friends, is why we need the wilderness. This is why we go into the wilderness. This is why Jesus goes into the wilderness. And it's why and let we wanna follow him there through this kind of mobile wilderness of prayer and fasting because there are things that happen in the wilderness that can only happen in the wilderness.

goes into the wilderness. And it's why and let we wanna follow him there through this kind of mobile wilderness of prayer and fasting because there are things that happen in the wilderness that can only happen in the wilderness. In the wilderness, we get underneath the surface layers. When food becomes scarce, when comfort disappears, when silence increases, something deeper in our spirits begins to surface, a deeper hunger, a deeper need, a deeper ache.

the guilt, the shame, the empty stuff that I, you know, get it gets masked over in normal life. But in the wilderness, it comes up. The wilderness strips away their ability to lie to themselves. And for some people, it breaks them and they tap out. But for others, they they kind of push through this metamorphic moment, this, like, this transformative crucible experience, and they come out changed. But for everyone who spends enough time in the wilderness,

like, you realize there's there's stuff under the surface. There are hungers. There's pains. There's needs that bread is never gonna touch. Wounds that success will never never heal. And so let me just ask you this morning, friend. What's going on in your soul? What's happening under the surface of your soul? Are there aches? Are there hungers? Are there pains? What are the longings and the questions lurking beneath the surface?

Human beings can live on bread alone, but we can't truly live on bread alone. In other words, what do I mean? I mean, bread can keep us alive. Right? But we need something more than bread to truly live. We might be able to survive on bread, but we need something other than bread to flourish as human beings. So my wife, by the way, who's downstairs leading this, awesome family Sunday has gotten lately into sourdough bread.

God doesn't just talk through the Bible. He speaks most clearly through the Bible, but he also wants to talk directly to you. How do we know this? Because in the Bible, God talks to people outside the Bible. Every time the word of the Lord came to someone, they were not having a Bible study. God was talking to them. And then it got written down, and it's in our bible. Right? And so that should tell us something. He speaks outside of it. John 16, the clearest teaching on the holy spirit. Jesus says seven times the holy spirit will speak to us.

And the reason that's important is that is it possible to have a relationship with anybody and never hear from them? Right? Where you're just writing love you know, you're writing notes to them and they never give you a note back. Can you imagine married people if you just talk to your spouse and they give you the silent treatment? Like, what kind of relationship would that be? Lame. Not a relationship. And yet for many of us, that is our experience. Talk about the word of the Lord. It does have the power to hear us, but we have to know how to hear it.

And as I've been thinking about it, this this is what I think Jesus understands. Bread can sustain your existence, but what sustains existence itself? See, without bread, we can't live. But without God's word, you wouldn't even exist. It's and it's not just humans that need the word of God. The entire universe needs the word of God, friends. The universe exists because of the word of God. In the beginning, we know this, there was nothing. I don't care if you're a

There was nothing. We're all in agreement, and then all of a sudden, bang. There was light. And we can still see it. You know, the James Webb is up there right now. You can see the ancient background radiation, 13,500,000,000 years old, telling where does the light come from. Scientists don't don't know where the light came from, but we do. Right? In the beginning, what happened? God spoke, and he said, let there be light. And the nonexistent universe obeyed his command.

Jesus speaks into the tomb. And he with a voice of command, and he says, Lazarus, come out. And some people have said, it's good he used Lazarus because there would have been a lot of dead people walking around if he hadn't. But the the voice of the Lord, the one who spoke the universe into existence, that same one cried out, Lazarus, come out, and the dead man heard his name spoken by the one who created him. And he got up and he obeyed.

And I and and for me, is that's when the switch went on, and I realized because God wanted there to be something, and he spoke it into being. And this is this reality itself is a gift of God through his word. And that's what the scriptures teach. That you exist because God continues to speak you into existence. And we like to think it we're we're very close right here to, you know, where the capital is right over there. And on top of the capital is the independent man. Have you guys seen him? He's back. He's gold.

You know? But we like to think of ourselves as autonomous independent agents. Right? We just depend on ourselves. We're just like Raj, Roger Williams, the independent man, but he's lying to us. The independent man is lying. We are what theologians call contingent beings. Our existence is is contingent upon what? Upon the word of God. Now this sounds crazy. Right? This is like the you're being spoken enthusiasts, but can I nerd out? Can I please nerd out with you guys? Okay. So this is like my astrophysicist,

Anyway, I was walking my dog, Chip, down Howard Street in Spokane, and I began to look up. And I I don't know how to describe it other than it was like a light switch turned on in my soul. And I was looking at the leaves of the sycamore trees, and I realized, my gosh. This is an incredible universe, isn't it? It's like plants, trees, life, me. Here I am. Like, I could have not been here. And I just had this amazing insight to ask the question, why is there anything at all?

and we have breath. You know that you might say we have matter, and we have spirit. We are physical creatures, but we are also spiritual creatures. And the spiritual part is real. It's real, isn't it? We know this. We know this. Why do you have a breathing app? You know? Why why does stress make you sick? There is a connection between the body and the spirit. We are what philosophers and theologians call a psychosomatic unity.

And so finally, like, I don't know what to do. You know? I'm take I'm I'm heating it. I'm icing it. I'm ibuprofen it. I'm whatevering it, and it's not going away. And finally, I went to the doctor, and they're like, this isn't back pain. This is gastritis. This is an inflammation of your stomach lining. And I'm like, but doc, I'm feeling it in my back. And he said, yeah. It's the pain is referred. So it you feel it here, but it's really here.

Some of us never get there. We never get there. We never actually unmask it. We keep it covered over with food or drinks or screens or other dopamine delivery mechanisms. But if you go in the wilderness, it will come up. How many of you have ever seen the show alone? I think it's like a History Channel show. Okay. Like three people. I'll have to explain it to you. We we started binging this thing in our house. I think we made it through how many seasons, guys? Several?

But then something happens. The battle stops being physical. It starts becoming spiritual. And if you watch the show, it's pretty it hits you pretty hard. Like, all of a sudden, just they start people start weeping. Like, these grown large bearded men with tattoos just weeping on the camera. They're confessing all their sins because it's not the wilderness that makes them weep. It's not the challenge of survival. It's the stuff that starts coming up in the wilderness.

Right? How could it be God if it sounds like me? And what I wanna say is that, not every thought in your mind like, every thought in your mind is thought by you, but not every thought in your mind is introduced by you. There are thoughts in your mind that did not come from you. Some of you have your mom living in your mind, and she's telling you to clean your room. Let's do a little experiment. 15% could save you what? could save you what? Or fifteen minutes could save you what? Okay. Yeah. And if you're in pain, who do you call? Wayne. Okay.

And this is a promise. And one of thing I wanna invite you to do even before we begin is just if you have believed the lie that I can't hear God, that only pastor Andrew hears God and this prayer team hears God and special people hear God, I want you to actually renounce the lie that I can't hear God. It's a lie. So in the name of Jesus, we renounce the lie that we can't hear God. Jesus says in John 10, my sheep hear my voice. And so what I wanna what I wanna do,

I like to go to the beach. In fact, let's all just go to the beach with Jesus. Just imagine right now you're walking along the beach by the Sea Of Galilee with Jesus. And you can see the sparkle of the water. You could feel the sand under your feet, the warm sand. And as you walk along, there's Jesus. And you could see his sandals. You could see his robes, and you can feel his love. The reason he died was to have a relationship with you. So we just say thanks, for being here with us.