Series: The Holy Bible

Sermon 1 of 7: The Bread of Heaven

Speaker: Robert Morris

Date: October 24, 2009

I want you to turn to two passages, Matthew Chapter 6 and John 6. If you’re new here we bring
our bibles to church and we normally turn to two passages. We always turn to at least one. So,
open your bibles to Matthew Chapter 6 and then put a marker at John Chapter 6. We’re
beginning a new series called the Holy Bible, Beyond Words. We’re going to talk about John’s
words, not just the importance of it but we’re going to get in God’s words and I’m going to
show you some keys about studying God’s word and we’re going to see some things in God’s
word that possibly you’ve never seen before. I heard about a family, they had been in one of
the family members in the hospital and they came home and after a few days the pastor came
by to see them, just kind of dropped by unexpectedly, just wanted to check on them and all.
And so they were visiting for a while and then the man decided kind of thought to himself I
think I’m going to try to impress the pastor and so he said to his son, son go get dad’s favorite
book, and he went and got the Bass Pro catalog. Well, what we want to do is get to the place
and stay at the place where God’s word is our favorite book. I want to show you, this is the
original bible that I had when I got saved. And we had to have it rebound two times in four
years, because I’m going to show you, in the front of it I would write on it and I would do bible
studies and I would just write down scripture. I don’t know if you can see those, just scripture
after scripture. And then when I would find the scripture. What I would do, you can see this at
the NRH as well. What I would do is I would just underline and then I would go through it again
and I would high light it. This is just Psalms here, now we’re in Proverbs. Here’s Ezekiel, I liked
Ezekiel as you can see. And of course after that there’s Joel, Hosea, Amos, I didn’t like Amos
very much. But I would just go through it. Here’s the back, and as you can see I would just go
through it. And these are bible studies. I would write down scripture and you can tell the pages
are just kind of falling apart. And then back here you will see are the maps, I had just gotten
saved, those are bible studies. And when I got to the maps, I had just gotten saved. I didn’t
know what to do with the maps. I didn’t even know why there were maps in the bible. I just
thought, I would just buy a map if I wanted to know how to get to a place, you know. I didn’t
know they were bible maps. So I pasted scripture over them, taped it over and I memorized
these scriptures in the back. That’s my bible and I was just thinking look at John’s, Pastor John
hand me your bible. Here’s Pastor John’s bible, he’s had this for a few years. Now doesn’t that
look like it’s about to go be with Jesus? Here’s something interesting, I thought this was cool.
All the binder is completely worn off, the only thing left says Holy Bible. But that’s the way our
bible should look, I’m grateful now that we have bible on computer now, I’m grateful we have
bible programs now, if you don’t have one I would like for you to buy one. I’m grateful that we
have bible on I Phone’s now, that’s great, but please make sure that if you don’t have a bible,
get a bible that you can read, that you can carry with you, that you can bring to church. You
know, I speak in a lot of other churches and it’s amazing how many times, right now when I
speak in churches, good churches and when I say I want you to turn to two passages, I don’t
hear any pages turning. And I think we’re developing a very, very bad habit and that is that
we’re getting away from God’s word and that’s a bad thing.

Let me tell you a little bit about God’s word. The word bible means book. It comes from a
Greek word, Byblos. Plural would be Biblion, if you’re a Greek scholar. All it means is book. The
only thing that sets bible…book, apart is the word Holy. It is the set apart book, it is the Holy
word of God. Where we got the word bible from was from a city that in the Hebrew was named
Guvall. But in the Greek the city was named Byblos, it was a Phoenician city, it was a port city
and it was named…the name of the city was Byblos. Here’s the reason that we get Byblos,
bible and book from that. They were the largest importer of the word of Papyrus. Now papyrus
is another Greek word which we get one of our words from which would be what, paper. It’s
where the books were printed. So if you got a book printed at that time in the world it came
from Byblos. It came from a city called Byblos. So when the bible then was put together it was
called a book but the main thing is it was called the Holy Book the Holy Word of God. There
are 66 books within this book, 39 Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. There are, just
so that you will know, and I put these on the screen so that you can write it down, 929 chapters
in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament. Nine hundred twenty nine
chapters in the Old Testament, 260 in the New Testament, for a total of 1189 chapters in the
bible. That would be about 18 chapters per book on average. Obviously there are more books
that have more chapters, there are some books that have less chapters. So, 1189 chapters.
Now let me explain something to you about this. That means then if you read 3 to 4 chapters a
day, you could read through the bible in one year. Three to four chapters a day. Let me show
you something else. If you read 10 chapters a day, there’s 1189, let’s round that to 1200, if you
read 10 chapters a day that could mean you could go through the whole bible in 120 days. I
spent several years, the first years of my life as a believer doing that, reading 10 chapters a
day, going through the bible three times a year. There was some times when I was able to read
50 chapters a day, you can go through the whole bible in 24 days, if you read 50 a day. Now it
takes me about an hour to read 10 chapters. So 50 chapters a day took me about five hours. I
cannot remember now whether it did it three times or four times, but if you read 100 chapters
a day, which takes about 10 hours, takes all day, you would have to be on vacation to do it or
not have small children; but either one you could do it. You could read 100 chapters a day and
go through the whole bible in 12 days. And that is what we need to do, we need to come up
with some sort of, maybe not 100 a day, but some sort of bible reading program so that we
can read God’s word.
Now I know you also want to know this. There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament, 23,145.
I counted this last week. There are 7,957 in the New Testament, for a total of 31,102 verses. On
average 26 verses per chapter. Again there are longer chapters and shorter chapters, 31,102
verses. Here’s why I’m telling you this. This is going to shock you because some of you have
quoted this for so many years and is so excited to know this. There is no middle verse in the
bible, there are two middles verses. You can’t have one middle verse if you have an even
number of verses, 31,102 and for many, many years, people thought that Psalms 118 was the
middle chapter of the bible, it’s not. Psalms 117 is the middle chapter of the bible. There are
594 chapters before Psalms 117 and 594 after Psalms 117. And so I’ve heard many, many times
Psalms 118 and since Psalms 118 is the middle chapter then verse 8 would be the middle verse
of the bible, but that’s not correct. Actually the middle, and someone’s thinking by the way, it’s
also the shortest chapter in the bible. It’s only two verses. So if you would like to memorize a
whole chapter of the bible, Psalms 117 would be a good one. But the middle two verses of the
bible is Psalms 103 verses 1 and 2 Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that is within me, bless
His Holy name. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and forget not all His benefits. That’s the two
middle chapters of the bible.

Now, that’s how many chapters, how many verses, how many books in the bible, how many
authors of the bible? Okay let me just tell you, one. There were about 40 writers of the bible,
writes, we say about because some of the books we don’t know for sure. So about 40 writers of
the bible, but there is one author, His name is God. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about
it, but this is His autobiography. The Holy Spirit gave the scriptures to Holy men as they wrote,
this is what the bible tells us. But God wrote His own autobiography, and we have a copy of it.

The title of the message today is, the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of Heaven. Next week, by
the way, we’re going to talk about the Water of Life. And the next week after that, The Breath
of God. So we’re going to talk about bread, water and breath, which all refer to the scriptures
over the next few weeks. This series will go six weeks, by the way.

Here’s one thing I want to tell you about the bread of heaven.

1. The bible is our daily bread. It’s our daily bread.

Now, let me read you a verse before we get to Matthew 6. Exodus 16 Verse 4. Then the Lord
said to Moses, behold I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and
gather a certain quota every day, every day, daily, that I may test them whether they will walk
in my law or not. Talking about the manna.

Now, Matthew Chapter 6, the very middle of the Lord’s prayer. Verse 11, Jesus taught us to
pray.

Give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread.
I want to ask you a question. Does that refer to our provision? Well yes I think it does. But does
it refer only to our natural provision? Is it possible… because when we understand about
bread, and we’re going to read a lot more scriptures on bread, bread represents the word of
God. Is it possible Jesus is saying, pray every day for a word from God? Pray for your daily
word from God. Let me ask you this. Have you ever felt weak or tired, have you ever gone on
an extended fast, and maybe after a few days you began to feel weak physically? Here’s the
problem, there are a lot of Christians that are on the wrong kind of a spiritual fast and they are
weak and tired. Do you know why they are weak and tired, because they are not getting their
daily bread? They are not getting a daily word from God. Did you know that God has a word
for you everyday? God would like to speak to you every day. Let me ask you this, maybe this
will reveal something about where we are in our daily bible reading. What was God’s word for
you today? See you should be able to tell me. You should know. You should say, this morning
when I read my bible, I read in Psalm 100 and I read that we are the sheep of His pasture, that
we are His people, I read this, I read this and God reminded me that He is going to take care
of me just like a shepherd takes care of His sheep. Everyday, everyday God wants to give you a
word and I’m telling you that that word will strengthen you and nourish you through that day.
Many, many times, many, many times during the day, I’ll be meeting with someone or talking
to someone and all of a sudden they’re telling me something about they’re going through and
all of a sudden I think, I’ll be reminded, that’s why I read in Ezekiel this morning, that’s why I
read Ezekiel 17 and didn’t hardly even understand it and now I understand it because this is
the word from God for me and apparently for this person I’m ministering to also. God has a
word.

Now, I want all of you to buy a bible. If you don’t have a bible, I want you to buy one and
here’s what I want to do. And by the way if you can’t afford one we will give you one. I said this
last night in the Saturday 4:00 service and I had forgotten to mention anything to the senior
team this past week, so Pastor David if you will just take care of that. And if we don’t have it in
the budget, if you will just give it yourself and that would be great. Alright, Praise the Lord.

If you can’t afford one, here’s what I said, go to the bookstore, give us your contact
information, we will get you a bible.

Here’s what I would like to do, I would like for everyone, if you don’t have one, I want you to
buy a bible. And here’s what I’m willing to do for you. I am willing to give you a 30-day money
back guarantee. Not from the church, from me personally. You buy a bible and read it for 30
days, if you’re not fully satisfied after 30 days, you come tell me and I’ll buy it back from you, I’ll
give you the money.

Now let me give you a little bit of background so that you can buy a good one. You might want
to buy a different one. There are two types of translations. There are many translations, but
there are two types or two categories of translations. The first is the exact equivalency
translation. I know this sounds kind of technical but I will make it very simple. An exact
equivalency translation, some call it a literal translation. Here’s what an exact equivalency
translation is, it is word for word, from the Hebrew Old Testament, from the Greek New
Testament. It is a word for word translation. The Old King James, again that was translated in
1611. So I think there are some better ones now because our English is a little different. So it
doesn’t mean that there is anything different from the Greek or Hebrew but our English, we
don’t speak the same as we did in 1611. My son, James, has been mentored for many years by
Steven Dolan, one of our Senior Elders, and Steve told him, you need to get the bible on CD
so that you can listen to it while you’re driving around. Well, you have to know something else
about my son, he is cheap. So when he went to buy the bible, the had the New King James for
59.00 dollars, and they had the Old King James for 9.99. So he bought the Old King James
and he was listening to it and then we started getting these strange phone calls from him. He
would call up my other son, Josh, and he would say, where art thou my brother? Have thy been
in the field today? So he just…so, anyway. So the Old King James is an exact equivalency and
also the New King James and that’s the one I preach from is the New King James, because it is
a word for word translation. New American Standard is also a word for word translation or the
exact equivalency. Also an English Standard Version, ESV.

Now let me tell you something, those are great, an exact equivalency is great for studying. But
simply for reading, I use the other translations which are the dynamic equivalency translation.
That’s the other type of a translation. It’s called a dynamic equivalency translation, other call it
a functional translation, but the best way to remember it is, thought by thought. It is not word
by word, it is thought by thought. Let me tell you some of these. The New International
Version, NIV. You just write down the abbreviations that will help you to find it. You just ask for
the NIV. Another one that is very, very good, the New Living translation, and it is a translation.
The Living Bible is a paraphrase, the New Living is a translation. It comes from the original
Greek and Hebrew. By the way, a paraphrase means that they paraphrase the word from
English, means they do not go back to the original Greek. And paraphrases by the way, are still
good to read and they are very very good for children. They are very good. So, New Living
Translation and one other, today’s English version is good. And I also mentioned about
paraphrasing. I have a dynamic. I have a New Living Translation. I have two of them in two
different places where I have quiet time. I have a book right there, a bible, that’s a New Living
Translation. I like to read the New Living.

But let me tell you on paraphrase. The paraphrase, most people are familiar with the Living
Bible, a great bible, the guy wrote it for his children. It is not an exact equivalency, nor is it a
dynamic, it’s not even a translation, it’s a paraphrase, but it’s great for kids. There’s a newer
paraphrase, it’s really really good, I really like it, it’s called the Message. Have any of you ever
read the message? The Message is really…I just like it. It’s really entertaining to read. It’s like,
the New King James Version would say, I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the
house of the Lord. The Message says, hey dude, let’s go to church, it’s fun. So it’s kind of that.
It’s just fun to read.
It is our daily bread. Let me give you one more scripture on this.

Psalms 69 Verse 19

Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits. Could this be referring to our daily
bread? The daily word of God.

Do you realize that God would like to load you up with benefits everyday? I believe He does it
through His word.

Here’s number two about the daily bread.

2. It is our sustaining bread.

We will get to John 6 in a minute. Hopefully you’re still in Matthew 6. If you flip back one page
probably you will see Matthew 4. Here is the first temptation. Jesus was on a 40-day fast, Verse
3, Matthew 4 Verse 3 says:

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, if you are the Son of God, command these
stones become bread.

When you’re on a fast that sounds good.

Verse 4

But He answered and said, It is written, by the way, it is written, is Jesus’ response to all three
of the temptations. It is written, it is written, it is written. That’s how we overcome. We sang a
song at the Southlake campus today, Overcome. We overcome by the Blood of the Lamb,
that’s His part, but the word of our testimony, that’s our part. This is the word of your
testimony. The word of your testimony is the bible.

It is written, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God.

Now obviously, He said it is written, so where was it written. Let me show you.

Deuteronomy 8 Verse 3

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna that you did not know,
nor did your fathers know. That He might make you know that man shall not live by bread
alone but that man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

So just in the same way that we need physical bread to nourish our physical body, we need
spiritual bread, to nourish our spiritual body. Now I was going over this message with Debbie,
talking to her about it, you know bouncing things off of her about it and I read that scripture,
man shall not live by bread alone. And she said, wait, what did that say? I said, by bread alone.
She said, I told you the Atkins guy was not of God, because she likes bread. It’s in the bible.

Here’s the point. If you’re going to be sustained spiritually you have to eat. In the same way, if
you’re going to sustain yourself physically you have to eat. You cannot make it through this life
without eating the bread of God.

Let me tell you a few verses on this.

Isaiah 55 Verse 2

Why do you spend money for what is not bread. Why are you chasing all these other things
that will not nourish you spiritually?

Hosea 4 Verse 6

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. My people. Here’s what He’s saying, my
people are destroyed because they don’t know the word of God and they’re destroyed.

Job 23: 12

I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. I have treasured the
words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

Here’s another way to say that. I’d rather read the bible than eat. That’s what Job just said.

Joshua 1 Verse 8

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and
night that you may observe to do all that is written in it, for then you will make your way
prosperous and then you will have good success.

Here’s what he’s saying. You meditate on this and you put into practice what you meditate on
day and night and you will prosper, you will have success. Not just financially, but in your
marriage, your children, your relationships, you will be successful, but you’re going to have to
get into the book.

Now, let me ask you a question and of course you will know the answer because of the whole
theme of the message, but taking all of this into consideration, what is the most important
thing that you could do everyday? Read the word of the Lord, don’t you think? Meditate on the
word of God. There’s nothing more important that you could do then to feed your spirit with
God’s word. It’s our daily bread, it’s our sustaining bread and here’s number three.

3. It’s our true bread. It is our true bread.

Turn to John 6
This may go a little different route at this point from what you think, but I think you will like how
we really understand about the true bread of God.

John 6 Verse 31

This is the Pharisees talking here.

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, He gave them bread…now notice
it doesn’t say “The Bread”….He gave them bread from heaven to eat…speaking of the natural
bread they have.

Verse 32

Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the Bread from
Heaven…in other words, he gave you natural but he did not give you spiritual…He gave you
the bread from heaven, but my Father gives the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God
is…don’t tell us…He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said
to Him, Lord, give us this bread also. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, he who
comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

Verse 48…you can go back and read this whole chapter this week as you are reading through
the bible.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the
Bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living
bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this Bread he shall live forever and
the Bread that I shall give him is my flesh which I shall give for the life of the world.

Let me read you another verse.

Luke 22 Verse 19

And He took bread…which is what we did today. Gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them
saying, this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me.

Now, why am I telling you this? I’m saying let’s read the bible everyday, let’s read the bible, the
bible is Bread, it’s true. The bible is the word of God. Let me tell you something else. Jesus is
the word of God. Jesus is the word of God.

Let me read you just a few more scriptures, then I want to make this point.

John 1:1

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

Verse 14
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. The glory as of the
only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. The word became flesh and we beheld His
glory…He’s a person. The word is a person.

Revelation 19:11

Now I saw the heavens open and behold a white horse and he who sat on it was called faithful
and truth and in righteousness He judges and makes war. He, He, He, this is a person. Jesus.
His eyes were like a flame of fire, on His head were many crowns. He had a name written which
no one knew except He Himself. He was clothes with a robe dipped in blood and His name is
called the word of God.

Here’s what I’m telling you. When you read this book, you are eating Jesus. You are taking
Jesus inside of you. Jesus is filling you to the fullest. This is not just a good book. This is the
Word of God. The very Word of God and the Word of God is Jesus. How many times do we
have something during the day and something comes out of us that we don’t like and we
respond in a way that we don’t like and we think oh I wish I wouldn’t do that in those
circumstances. Listen to me, here’s what we want. We want to be like Jesus. I’m telling you
how you can be like Jesus and that is get Jesus inside of you. This is Jesus, the Word of God is
Jesus. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among you, His name is the Word of God.

Here’s what Jesus said, John 5:39

You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but it is those who testify
of me.

He saying, you search the scriptures, you think the scriptures give you eternal life, I’m the one
who gives you eternal life. The scripture testify of me. It’s me.

Jesus said in John 6: 63

The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.

This is what gives us life, God’s word. There are so many malnourished Christians because they
are not reading the word of God. They are not breathing in the life of God everyday. This is it,
we’ve got to come to the place where we love the word, we read the word, we study the word,
we meditate on the word, we memorize the word of God. We are born again by the word of
God, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever. His name
is the word of God, it is life to those who find it, health to their whole body, it’s purer than
silver, it’s better than gold, it’s sweeter than honey, it’s the word of God. That’s what the word
of God tells us. We’ve got to come to a place where we love God’s word. I’m telling you when
we get to that place where we love God’s word, it will change our lives.
Let me read you one little quote that I put in the front of my bible right after I got saved. As a
matter of fact, it might be good to show you a picture. We had a picture taken of it so you can
see it. Right there in the middle it says this, this book will keep me from sin, sin will keep me
from this book. A quote by R.A. Torey. This book will keep me from sin, sin will keep me from
this book.

Here’s what I’m asking. I’m asking for every one of us to make the same commitment today.
Let’s commit to read God’s word everyday. Let’s make that commitment and let’s see what
happens in the next few weeks.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes. We want to pray for you, we want to minister
to you. If you’re here today and you’re going through a difficulty, whether you’re at Southlake
or North Richland Hills we want to pray for you. Financial difficulty, out of work, relational
difficulty, family situation, health situation, if you have a need, we want to pray for you. Maybe
you’re new and you don’t understand. It’s not embarrassing and in a moment here’s what we
do. In a moment we will stand and when we stand there will be leaders that come to the front
at both campuses and you just step out and come also. There will be other people coming,
you won’t be the only one, you just step out and come to the front and let someone pray for
you. It doesn’t mean you’re a big, bad sinner because you’re coming to the front to have
someone pray for you because we all need prayer, all of us need prayer. So you could be a
leader here at Gateway or this could be your first time here, if you need prayer when we stand
up, you just stand up, step out and come and let someone pray for you, both campuses,
Southlake and North Richland Hills and in the overflow room.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you will draw every person that has any prayer need in Jesus’ name.
Amen