A Group of Chefs Is Called a Church

Reading this morning is from John 6:35, and then we're going to skip a few verses and go on to verse 48. So verse 35 of John chapter 6. Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Verse 48, "I am the bread of life."

"Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. And here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth. Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

"For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. We're going to have a look, well, we're sort of going to have a bit of a look at that passage today. Today's more of a topical sermon, but we're going to think about, well, I think we're going to get to that once we start as well. I might just pray as we begin. I thank you, Father, that you are with us.

Thank you that you send your Spirit amongst us to help us to understand. We pray that you would do more than just help us to understand, Lord. We pray as we delve into the sermon today and the passage today that you would light our hearts on fire, that you would give us joy for one another and joy in you and in your son and the work that he has done. Please be with us this morning in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Well, when I was a kid, maybe around the ages of eight to 13, I had a friend named Chris. I met him with my dad. My dad was an electrician, and we were out doing an electrical job, and I met my friend Chris. And we hit it off right away. I remember Dad was inside working, doing the work, and his old Kingswood wagon was out on the veranda, and we stuck a bit of Neil Diamond in the cassette player.

And every time the big drum solo came in, we would run up his veranda and jump off the end together. We were pretty little kids. That entertained us at the time. Rest assured, my music tastes have got a little bit more added into them these days than just Neil Diamond, but we were best friends. We went fishing together.

We rode bikes together. We got in trouble together. One day, we sort of accidentally set a paddock on fire. Not a good idea. Don't do that.

I used to ring him. My mum wouldn't let us ring before 09:00 on a Saturday morning, so I used to watch the clock in the kitchen. I still remember the clock and watch the second hand tick by. And I was ringing at three seconds to nine, so that one second passed, his phone was ringing. I could speak to my friend.

We hung out all the time. But then we moved house. We went into town, really. We used to live a bit more rural. We went into town for work and school and the rest, and it was too far to ride our bikes.

Couldn't see each other. We didn't go to the same school or anything like that, and he couldn't come around to our house. And so we didn't see him much. I actually didn't see him for years until one day I bumped into him on the street, and he came around to our house. But it wasn't the same.

The relationship wasn't there anymore, and we couldn't have fun like we used to. And, honestly, it was all a bit weird. That relationship that we once had wasn't there anymore. And I wonder if things have ever felt like that between you and God. Does God seem far away to you?

Has something in your relationship with Him changed or simply disappeared? Does something in your very soul just seem hollowed out and empty? Maybe you're a Christian, and that's a pretty accurate way to describe things. Maybe you're not a believer, and that hollowness or distance or emptiness is still maybe what you're experiencing. Or maybe things aren't quite as bad as I've described, but they could still be better.

And if that's you, I get it. That's been me sometimes. Sometimes it's been brief, couple of days. Sometimes it's hung around for much longer, and it's hard to live with, isn't it? Maybe prayer, maybe prayer feels like a bit of a megaphone out into the desert.

You speak, you cry, you scream, but there's not even an echo. There just doesn't seem to be anyone on the other end. Maybe it's not quite like that. You might just have no desire to pray. God just doesn't seem to be there.

The Bible doesn't seem to speak to you at all. It sits on the shelf, but never seems to call to you. Church happens from time to time, but you're disconnected. Life is otherwise good, but you feel spiritually hollow. And I sense if that is you, you're probably not enjoying things as they are.

You'd like to have what other people seem to have. Now, honestly, some people maybe fake it a little bit, but others seem to have that relationship with God, don't they? The one that the Bible talks about. They truly seem to enjoy Him and love Him and seem deeply connected to Him. And if that's you or if you don't want that to be you, then I think today's message might be helpful.

Today, as I was sort of trying to say earlier, is a bit more of a topical message. We usually spend time going through a text in depth, but at Redlands, we spend some time each year going through some of the six things that we find to be really essential to church life. The things that we want to do really well, and one of them is that we believe the church should gather. It's what we're doing this morning. It's gathering together, that we should meet together regularly as a church.

And we're going to look at that, and in particular, we're going to look at why we gather, what we're trying to achieve as we gather, and actually how that gathering might impact our very souls. Our first point, we've got two points. Our first one is that we gather as a community to enjoy a delicious spiritual meal. Okay? We gather as a community to enjoy a delicious spiritual meal.

Now I'm conscious as I say we gather to enjoy a delicious spiritual meal that you might feel like I'm laying it on a bit thick. For me, I grew up in an old bluestone church that was colder than anything indoors, and we had regularly a series of what seemed like incredibly boring sermons that lasted for at least three days each. And each one was packaged inside a pretty miserable service, it felt to me. And the best bit about the sermon was when it ended. Woo hoo. I used to set alarms on my watch and hope that they would be loud enough that the pastor would hear them going off and realise it was going over time.

The best bit for me, really, after it ended or in the ending was that we went out in the back and there was cake. But even then, all the old people would just talk together about nothing and wouldn't let me join in, and they'd say, "Get away from the cake. You've had enough." Like church, that's what church seemed to be like. Whatever I thought as a kid, when we come together and open up this book, Jesus offers Himself in all His fullness.

When we hear Jesus saying in our passage this morning, "Eat the bread of life, my flesh." When He says "My flesh is true food, my blood is true drink, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me," He's offering Himself as spiritual nourishment. Now that includes a few things. Once a month, I know you celebrate the Lord's Supper with some bread and some juice, the moment that Jesus gave His flesh and blood for the world, but it's more than that. Jesus uses the words in our passage this morning, food, drink, and bread, because they're consumed many times daily, aren't they?

They're constantly eating of those things. I mean, how often is your face in the fridge at home? Mine, it just seems constantly. That's my home. Maybe it helps me when I get too hot as well.

Always in the fridge at home. How about the pantry? How often are you unwrapping a snack? From verse 56 onwards, the eating is described as an ongoing activity, eating Jesus, consuming Jesus. He wants people to not just accept Him once in their lives or to remember Him just once a month in a ceremony.

He wants us to remain in Him. Jesus is not just a once-off meal. You know, tick the box on the to-do list. Faith given to us by God initiates communion with God. Now some churches will call the Lord's Supper communion, but I'm not talking about that.

Communion is really an old-fashioned word that signifies a deep and intimate connection, a profound bond between you and your saviour. This meal that Jesus is talking about of Himself could never be a one-off. Just like any friendship or marriage could never be just that first ceremony. I mean, you can imagine that, couldn't you? Couple have proposed to each other. They've accepted they're going to get married, and there's this big, massive lead up to that big day, an amazing celebration.

Two people joined together for life. The cakes are cut. The rings are exchanged. Kisses galore. People tapping on little glasses and all that kind of stuff, and then they go home to separate bedrooms and separate houses, separate bank accounts, separate friendship groups.

They don't eat together. They don't spend time together. I mean, it's silly, and I'm using it because it's silly. We gather here each week on Sundays. We gather throughout the week in small groups.

We gather in coffee shops and in homes and one on one. Not to make sure, absolutely sure, that we've had that first meal of faith, not even for a regular tune-up, but we gather to commune with, to feed on, to enjoy the regular meal of Jesus Himself. Now a lot of this happens in a Sunday service. Preaching and teaching, for example, what I'm doing here, I want to say it's the work of a chef, serving up delights. You could call the church a spiritual restaurant.

See, every time we see Jesus' compassion for sinners in here, we have a little meal of Jesus, don't we? Every time we're shown Jesus' strength against the controlling religious do-gooders, we get to enjoy His character and nature. Every time Jesus' purity is put on display as He does perfectly what we could never do, there is a serving in that of spiritual nourishment that we need so badly. But I'm not just talking about what a preacher or a pastor does in the Sunday service. We sing and we pray, and He should be in there.

He should even be in the announcements. Now you might feel like God isn't speaking to you. You might feel distant and spiritually hollow and deflated, and you might be asking where God went. He used to be so close. What happened?

And if that's you, can I ask you, what are you doing as we pray? Are you praying together with the leader, conscious of communion between the Father and the Son and yourself? What are you thinking as we sing? Are you thinking about other things while your mouth remembers the words? It's so easy to do.

Are you, or are you allowing yourself to be drawn into the truths that the song expresses and being spoken to you by each other and by God? Jesus is to be fed upon regularly as a believer. It's how we are connected with Him. It's how we grow to love Him more. It's how we're changed by Him to be more like Him, and it's how we enjoy Him.

Do you enjoy God? Good. Maybe not everyone's in the same place. Do you want to enjoy God? If we want this, we need to prioritise gathering together just like we prioritise our meals every day.

We need to be convicted of the beauty of gathering together regularly for our spiritual health. Now I'm really conscious that some of you grew up in families where this is normal and it's habitual and it's easy for you to continue doing that. It's built into your life. But others of us grew up surfing and camping out and sleeping in on a Sunday, and this is a real change. It's a challenge.

And it's challenging, isn't it? Because there's so much good stuff to do. It's challenging because churches work often, isn't it? And the people in it are work too. Now I know what you're thinking here.

You're looking at me and you're going, "Surely not you, Phil. It could never be you. You could never be hard work." And, honestly, I'll agree. There are exceptions.

But people are work. People can be hard work. Sometimes the church is challenging, though, because we're spiritually lazy. We're spiritually lazy. That's our first point.

We need to gather. We need to prioritise gathering together to enjoy a delicious spiritual meal. Our second one is that as we gather as a community of chefs, we share delicious spiritual meals. Okay? We gather as a community of chefs to share delicious spiritual meals.

See, we're all chefs. I know I said before that preaching is the work of a chef, but we're all chefs. Don't get me wrong. There are some significant differences, differences in the level of training that a minister receives, in the amount of time that we're given to prepare, and the authority given by the elders that should weigh on the shoulders of any pastor. But to a degree, we all share in this work. I'll listen to some of these passages.

Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom." One another. How? By singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Hebrews 10:24 says, "Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another." Hebrews 3:13 says exhort, which just means to encourage or to urge one another every day.

Exhort one another every day. See, after my first point, there could be a real temptation to think that when we gather, we gather to sit down, to consume, to be fed by the professionals up the front. And sure, there's some less passive stuff like standing and singing and praying, but there's a danger, isn't there, that we could end up expecting to go to a Michelin-starred restaurant for a meal instead of a shared lunch where everybody brings something for everybody else. In our gatherings, we serve up Jesus to each other. Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs."

The word is at work here, living in us in some rich way, and it's so rich in us that it flows out of us so that we end up teaching one another. Singing isn't just for God, for instance. It's for each other too. Have you noticed that some of your songs aren't directed towards God, but they're directed towards each other? I'm obviously not fully up with the song list here, but one of the old songs I used to sing, particularly as a kid was, don't know if you know it, "Brother, let me be your servant.

Let me be as Christ to you." See, you can have someone up the front preaching faithfully each week, but sometimes more of our King is pressed into our hearts each week through singing than through preaching. Sing your heart out to the Lord and to the person on the other side of the room. It's not the quality of singing that matters. In fact, one of my favourite singers from one of my previous churches was a guy who was completely and utterly tone deaf.

That he would come each day, and you knew it was him because he'd belt it out in the completely different key, different notes every time. And I was, he was so encouraging to me, not because he was the best singer in the world, because he was passionate and on fire for Jesus, and he encouraged me, and he spoke Jesus into my heart. Proclaim Jesus to each other. Proclaim His life, His kingship, His love for you. Listen to your brothers and sisters do the same for you.

Maybe every now and then be silent and take in the joyful noise that Jesus died for you, that He rose to defeat death, that Jesus lives and reigns, and everything will be okay. But it's not just singing either, is it? Pardon me. Our time over coffee or during growth groups or men's ministry or women's ministry or whatever it is that you do is that same shared meal where everyone brings their favourite spiritual delight from their week. Have you ever thought about it in terms of that?

Whenever we gather, everyone bringing their favourite spiritual delight from their week. You can imagine someone's got there's an allegory. Someone's got a little pile of chicken skewers maybe on a napkin. And on the napkin is written something. It says, "Brother, this week I prayed for you. I know it's been a tough week."

It's a little spiritual meal, isn't it, of encouragement? Or there's a little old lady, and she's got some delicately seasoned devilled eggs. And next to them is a little sign, and it says, "Hey. This week, God showed me that I hurt you. And I wanted to apologise and see if we can have a coffee or something."

Or maybe at this shared meal, a young guy, a 21-year-old guy comes up to you. And because he's 21, he's got a little Ziploc bag full of cereal and a spoon, and he invites you to have some. No one thinks the same as me. And he says to you, "I know you're new here, and you might not know anyone. Do you want to catch the game with me and my mates this week?"

Another spiritual meal of love and Christian fellowship, a meal of Jesus. You could be any one of those people. In fact, you should be all of them in some ways because that's a beautiful picture of a gospel-centred church, a Jesus-centred church, the type of church that I want to be part of. Hopefully, it's the picture you guys show each other every week here. But what a shame for some who might be here just for the free feed.

Now as I talk about this shared meal illustration, there's a couple of things wrong with it that I think I want to point out. So you can go to a restaurant and get a wonderful meal whether you're a local at that restaurant or not, whether you're a regular or not. But I'm not sure you can say the same thing about a church. For someone to serve you a stimulating, helpful, timely spiritual meal, they need to know you. For you to be able to speak into somebody else's life in a meaningful way, you have to know them in a deep and maybe even an intimate way.

And it's true that the pastor can't really serve up a sermon or pray or care for people that he doesn't know and love. Can I encourage you to find a church and go there? I don't know if your leadership team's going to like this bit. They can tell me later. But even if it's not this church, find a church that serves up Jesus week in and week out.

Go there. Commit to it. Go every week, even if it means you miss out on sport, sleep, work. Be active. Join in.

Listen to that imperfect sermon from the imperfect pastor, and suck every bit of marrow and juice out of it that you can. And afterwards, during the week, get to know the people. Love them. Care for them. Let them love and care for you.

Serve up the gospel to them in your attitudes, your words, and your actions, and let them serve up the same to you. Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure everyone here, the leadership team included, would love it if that church was this church because they need you. Not to be a bigger church, not for a bigger budget, not even for better singing or materials or whatever, but because every single person here, I hope, is hungry for your little serving of the gospel. And we're all so rich in Jesus that we really have to share Him with you too.

Now I was going to share a quote with you, but I forgot the book and left it at home. It was amazing. And you can go here just going, "Wow. What an amazing quote. That was fantastic."

Meet me next time. I'm sorry I forgot to bring that book. If you're feeling spiritually dry, like you're far from God, disinterested in spiritual matters, it may be that you're missing the nourishing meal of gathering in a community of chefs. Your soul may be starving to death, too weak to even cry out for what it needs the most, a good serving of Jesus.

I wonder if you'll pray with me. Our Father God, we thank you that you serve your Son to us at any moment, at any time. But thank you in particular that you have given us the church and gifted people and each other to continue speaking Jesus into each other's lives. And, Lord, we pray that you would develop our hunger for Him. Maybe we are distant from you.

Maybe our souls are so hungry that they can barely speak. Lord, we pray that you would build this church into a community which regularly speaks Jesus to itself, to each other. And we pray that this would be a church that is on fire for your Son, that loves Him, that goes out encouraged and enthusiastic every week on fire for Him, spreading the good news of Him out into the world as well. Please be with us, Lord. Give us hearts that want you.

Give us hearts that love you and desire you for His sake. Amen.