Jesus is The Bread of Life || Victory Church [Book of John #19]

Good morning, Victory. This is my favorite place in the world to be, right here with all of you. I love you guys. I love this church. I love this people. I was on my way to church this morning just thinking how blessed are we to be able to celebrate Jesus with 149 different nations together every Sunday, loving God together, loving through all of our differences, amen? Hey, and we're right in the middle of this incredible series that Pastor Johnson started. By the way, Pastor Johnson and Summer are on their 25th anniversary. They're on a cruise in Europe, so let's celebrate with them. We send our prayers to you. They're enjoying that time. So you're gonna see a little bit more of Colleen and I for the next few weeks, but y'all can bear with us, amen? And we're just excited to be with you. We know that this series that we're doing through John is one of the most important series we've ever done in the church. We've never done this before where we started taking a book of the Bible and just going through it for an entire year.

And we're only in John chapter six and we're halfway through the year. And I kept thinking, what's lying ahead for us? Because John is the most incredible of the four gospels. It's my favorite one. Whenever somebody becomes a Christian, I always tell them, start reading in the book of John. That's the first book to start reading because it's the deepest of the four gospels, the deepest revelation of who Jesus is. And after all, that's what we're here about, to learn more about Jesus, amen? And I was thinking this whole weekend that what is it that you want us to learn Jesus about you today? What's this weekend do you wanna bring a revelation? And the Lord is starting to speak to the church out of the book of John. And in this chapter six, he enters into this miracle. Many of you know the miracle of feeding the 5,000. It's actually not 5,000, it's just 5,000 men because the Bible was written from a patriarchal point of view at the beginning. And so, how many of you know wherever there's 5,000 men, there's at least 5,000 women? Come on somebody, there's probably a little bit more women than there are men following Jesus. Thank God for the women in the church, amen? And then all the children that were with them.

So there's probably 15,000 people assembled in this particular verse. And I want you to turn with me to John chapter six and I'm gonna pray as we get ready to go into the word of God. Father, for the next few minutes together, I just thank you for this opportunity to preach your word because you have such an incredible revelation in this particular verse of scripture that if we get this God, it can so transform the way we think, the way we live and the results of our life. And I pray for everyone that's here and everyone that's watching us online and everyone that's all the campuses that Lord, you are beginning to bring this revelation in such a way that when we leave, we'll be transformed by the power of your word. It'll change us from the inside out and we won't be the same as we were when we came today. And we thank you for it in Jesus' name and everybody said amen. So, one of my biggest, always burdens for the church is how the church is doing in their physical life and their financial life. And if you've ever heard me preach, that's one of the things I like to talk a lot about because I know that's a great burden that many people carry in the church. Not everybody is doing the same economically.

We are a very, not only diverse racially, but we're diverse economically in our church. And so we have all different kinds of levels of economics and there are people in our church that are doing really well and prospering and doing great in the business world. But then there are many people in our church that are just getting day to day, by day to day, financially, because they're still discovering the truths that are in God's word that help them to prosper. And they haven't quite understood the full revelation of it. And so, my goal today is to help you get a deeper revelation of what it means to God is our provider. That he is our provider. And that in the process of understanding that he is our provider, he reveals himself in these miracles in John chapter six. So we're gonna begin reading here in John chapter six in verse one. He says, sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee. That is the Sea of Tiberias. And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside

and sat down with his disciples and the Jewish Passover festival was near. So what was happening is it's a large gathering of Jewish people that are there for the Passover. And if you're new to the Lord, you don't know what the Passover is. The Passover is a celebration. within the Jewish religion of when God delivered the Jews out of slavery in Egypt under the control of Pharaoh and he passed over them the night of the death angel when he came and visited the first born of all the Egyptians. He passed over the Jewish houses as they applied the blood over their doorstep. And they are celebrating this and in the process they are remembering what God has done for the people of Israel as he was starting them on this journey into the promised land. Now they are already here in Israel here but before that they are celebrating from the journey of Egypt into Israel and all that God had done in the Jewish people's lives. Now I don't understand it, I don't really completely comprehend it but God chose the Jewish people to demonstrate his incredible grace and mercy to people who didn't always respond the proper way to God. How many of you can recognize that sometimes we don't always respond properly to the ways of God? And Israel was a people that God put his hand on and chose them, we didn't choose them, he chose them and he said if you'll bless them I will bless you, if you curse them I will curse you. So God put his hand and protected them from all the enemies and enabled them to eventually reach into the promised land and where they would establish themselves and that's where they find themselves here now. But they had drifted away from God, they had gone back into old dead dry religion. They had shifted back into worldly ways, carnal ways and all they were doing in this time of their life is they knew about God but they didn't have a personal relationship with God. They didn't have an encounter with God. And Jesus comes on the scene and they see him do all these miracles and they see him heal the sick, raise the dead and all the different things that he was doing and now he's about to do a miracle that they've never seen before. In fact the miracle that he's about to do now is the only miracle in the four Gospels that's mentioned in all four Gospels. So that must be important, there must be a reason

why we see it in all four Gospels. So let's look at what it says happening. So when Jesus looked up and he saw the great crowd coming towards him he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Now you need to notice there's a key word here, bread, and we're going to come back to that in a minute because bread means much more than physical bread. He asked this only to test him for he already had in mind what he was going to do. He had a plan, there was a plan within the mind of God that he was about to unveil. Philip answered him and said it would take more than a half year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. And another of his disciples Andrew Simon Peter's brother spoke up, here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fishes but how far will they go among so many? And Jesus said have the people sit down. There was plenty of grass in that place and they all sat down about five thousand men were there. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted as he did the same with the fish. And basically he said he gave them as much as they could hold, as much as they could eat, he filled their stomachs. When they had all had enough to eat he said to his disciples gather the pieces that are left over, let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over from those who had eaten. After the people saw the sign Jesus performed they began to say surely this is the prophet who is coming to the world. Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force withdrew him again to a mountain by himself. So let's just pause for a moment. Let me kind of dissect this a little bit. What is he saying here? He is saying in the scriptures what John is recording is this great miracle where God multiplies the loaves and the fishes. If you have been a Christian or you have even read the Bible at all you have seen that before. You have seen how God does that. In the process he is revealing some truths that are way deeper than just multiplying the fish and the loaves. But the people have not gotten it yet but they are just so excited because they saw a miracle. We all get excited when we see a miracle. But the miracle they saw really got to them because many of them were poor. Many of them did not have much. The barley loaves, the barley loaf was the loaf of the poor. It was the poorest bread that they had. It was a representation of the poor. that how much God cares for poor people.

How many of you understand that God cares for poor people? And I think sometimes in our personal prosperity, we forget the poor. We forget the plight of the poor and the suffering that goes on in the earth. And as a result, sometimes we can distance ourself from the reality of what's really going on around us in the world. Right now, we're going through some financial challenges in our country. We have a war going on. We have an economy that's really strained. We see prices going up. We see gas prices, all these kind of things. And we understand that these things are going to happen, the Bible says, before the coming of the Lord, it even gets worse. A lot more things begin to happen. And it's really a time and a season for us to draw closer to God, but many people instead draw farther away because they get focused on all their problems, all their stresses, and all their issues with life. And one of the great stresses is not having enough to pay your bills, to not having enough to take care of yourself. And so many people were in this state of life, and now they see this miracle. And so the first thing they do is they think to themselves, this man is a prophet sent from God,

but instead of seeing him as Jesus the Lord, the King of kings, the one who is the ruler of heaven, they wanna make him an earthly king. They wanna make him, in essence, a political figure that would then take over the Roman government and bring back the glory days to Israel. Make Israel great again, if I could say it that way. Now, the issue wasn't, the issue wasn't, and please don't take that as I'm slamming a president or anything like that, I'm not doing that. But here's what I want you to see. This is where the church sometimes misses it because they put so much emphasis on politics and political leaders instead of who the real King of kings is, Jesus Christ, the Lord of lords. And they want people in the earth to solve their problems. They want people that run governments to solve their problems, to get things better for them personally. And so they put a lot of emphasis and stress and faith in that and not enough on the Lord. And Jesus knew this, they wanted to make him a king so that he would conquer the Roman government, that he would take it back so that the Israelis would no longer be in tribute to the Romans. But he was having none of that and he went up onto a mountain to pray and I'm sure he had to kind of cast off a little bit of discouragement because the people missed the point of this miracle. They missed the moment.

They were completely focused on the wrong things. Is it possible that even people in the church are focused on the wrong things? Is it possible that our focus is more on earthly things than on godly things and heavenly things? That we're putting more of our emphasis on people instead of on God? Come on somebody, can I get a big amen? And Jesus is trying to get you to see something. And there's three things that he wants us to see in this act and I'm gonna go through the three and when I first started seeing this years ago, it completely changed my understanding of God, my understanding of my future, my understanding of money and possessions and all those kinds of things and showed me that if I can function within the truths and the revelations that are revealed in this scripture, my life will take on a completely different dimension where I'm moving from man being my provider to God being my provider. All right, so the first one is this. The first revelation is when you follow him, when you follow Jesus, he will always provide for you. Not some of the time, not part of the time. He's not a part-time God by the way. He's not too busy for you. He will always take care of you, listen to me, if you follow him. Now a lot of people say they follow him and their provisions are not there

and they don't understand why God's not meeting their needs but the reality is most of the time, they're really not following him. Most of the time, they're following their will over God's will and when you follow your will over God's will, it goes like this. I choose my career path. I choose what I wanna do and then I ask God to put his hand on it and bless it. That's not how it works in heaven. In heaven, it's like this. Whatever you will, God, whatever you desire, I put my will on the altar, not my will but your will. Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on this earth in my life as it is in heaven. Now, how many of you know in heaven there's no shortage? There's no shortage in heaven. The devil has created a shortage in the earth. He comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. In essence, he runs the world's economy through shortage to always creating fear and anxiety. You can't turn on the news today without seeing some fear projected about the shortages of the world. Shortages of oil, shortages of this, shortages of that. You will never have enough. Look at what they're doing. Look at what's happening. It's getting worse. And the more you focus on modern day news, the more depressed you get. And if you spend a lot of time on social media, you'll see all kinds of conspiracy theories and all kinds of people saying this and saying that about what's going to happen in the future. Well, let me tell you what's going to happen in the future. What's written in the Word of God.

That's what's going to happen in the future. So, there's going to be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, all kinds of tragedies, all kinds of poverty, all kinds of crazy sicknesses and diseases running rampant in the earth. And so, we better get ready for those things. And the only way we're going to get ready for them is we have to learn how to depend on God and not on things in the earth. If I follow Him, He will provide for me. Now, I went through this process many years ago. I had so many miracles. How many of you have ever had a miracle from God? Let me see your hands. You've had miracles. Look at all the hands. We've all, many of us have experienced miracles. And those that have not raised their hands, you may not even have recognized the miracles. I thought back about this all. I was sort of going through a litany of all the miracles that I've experienced with God. And I remember how God did a miracle for me when I was in college and I wasn't even saved. I was driving down the highway in my job, and I was coming back to Athens, Georgia. God's college, University of Georgia. I was driving back to college. And as I'm going back to college, it's raining and pouring, and my car starts to hydroplane. And it starts to go across to the other lane, and a car is coming at me head on, full speed. I'm going like 60 miles an hour. Head on, full speed, and I have no control. There's nothing I can do. And all of a sudden, at the very last minute, something happened. Something took hold of my car, and the wheels grabbed and took me off the other side of the road into a ditch, and the car whizzed by me. And I'm sitting in the ditch, and I went, what was that?

That had to be an angel. That had to be God. Now, some of you in your natural mind, oh, that was just a natural thing that happened. No, I don't believe that. I believe God had His hand on me before I was ever born. He knew what He called me to do. He knows what He's called you to do. You don't have any idea how much God has protected you from things that could have happened to you. We've all seen the tragedies around us. Have you ever wondered why they're not coming on you? Because God has His hand on those who follow Him. He has His hand on them. It doesn't mean trials don't come. It just means that in the trial, He will see you through. He will provide for you. Many years ago, I went through a real troubled time where I was thinking about God calling me, and He's calling me to come here to Atlanta, calling me now to come to Atlanta and start this church. We were in Richmond, Virginia, as youth pastors in this small church, as a medium-sized church at the time. The Lord spoke to us. We were not in a ready stage to do that. We said, Lord, we're not ready. We just had Lauren. She was a brand-new baby. She was a miracle baby. That was one of our first miracles. The doctors told Colin, you can't have children. You're not able to have children. How many of you know what doctors say is not always the final word? Come on, somebody. How many of you know God can have a higher word than doctors sometimes?

That's not to slam doctors. I love doctors. It's just to know. You know this, doctors, that God is higher than you. He knows more than you. Amen. We had a brand-new baby, and we're getting ready to start this new journey of family. When you become a father and you become a parent, responsibilities begin to get a little heavier on you, begin to realize, I've got to grow up. I can't be a kid anymore. I've got to take care of this little one. I'll never forget when the Lord said to us, right after Lauren was born, I want you to resign from this church, not because you're doing bad in this church, but I want you to get ready to go pastor a church in Atlanta, Georgia, start a church from scratch. In order to do that, you're going to have to go to Bible school. I went and talked to my pastor about it. My pastor was like, okay, that sounds good. He said, so are you ready to go? I said, well, I'm just going to wait a year. He said, why are you going to wait a year? I said, because I haven't saved up any money. I haven't prepared for this. This is just a new beginning. word from me. I figured just the Lord's giving me some advance notice and this is what he said to me. Here's what the Lord, here's what the pastor said to me. So what you're telling me is you don't have enough faith to do it right now. Now I'm a former athlete. I like challenges. I like competition. And when he said that, something inside of my competition juices just said, yes, I can do this. So I went home and I

talked to Colleen. I said, Colleen, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I feel like the Lord's calling us to to go now. And she said, well, we just built a house. We just built this little house and we just moved in. We have to sell a house within a month and close within a month to get to school on time. That's going to take a miracle. How are we going to do that? I said, I don't know, but I know the Lord is telling us to start moving forward. So we went and got a forced sale sign, put it in the yard. Forced sale by owner. We didn't have time to work with real estate agents, not to slam any of you that are real estate agents. We just didn't have time. We didn't want to lose any commissions. We wanted all the money. We needed it all to go to school. I went to work the next day. I prayed over that. Went to work the next day. About midday, I get a call from Colleen. Colleen said, you'll never believe what's happened. I said, what happened? She said, we sold the house. I said, we've only had the house on this. We only have one sign out there for like a few hours. She said, it's the first person that looked at the sign. And they came in with a real estate agent. And the real estate agent said, can I show your house? He said, well, we're not working with real estate agents. He said, well, what if I get them to pay the commission? They pay the commission, and I'll show your house and sell it, and you get all the money for what you're selling the house for. She said, if they want to do that, they came in, and within 20 minutes, we want the house. Bought the house, bought all our appliances, and said, we're closing in about 15 days. We're ready to close. Come on, somebody. God is a miracle-working God. So, we pack up. We're moving out to Tulsa, Oklahoma to go to Bible school, and I'm driving out there. And I get weird. I'm driving a big old U-Haul truck. Anybody ever here driven in a U-Haul truck?

I mean, the big ones, the big 28-foot ones, you know, pulling a car behind me, and then Colleen's behind me, and another car driving behind me, and we're driving, and we get to Nashville, Tennessee, right in the traffic hour, right around 5 o'clock, going right through the city of Nashville, and a huge storm comes over the city. I don't know what it is about Nashville that attracts storms, but there's a lot of storms that have come over that city, and we're driving through the city, and the rain is blowing sideways, can hardly see, and I have my little daughter in her little car seat, sitting there on the front seat. You're not supposed to put them in the front seat now, but back then we did. Put them in the front seat because there wasn't no back seat in a U-Haul, and so she's sitting in the front seat, and I had the windows rolled down because it didn't have air conditioning. It's the middle of summer, and we're riding. The wind's blowing the rain in on top of my little daughter, and I mean, it's just pouring down, and just all over her, and lightning, and thunder, and I'm thinking, what is going on? And I'm in my little car, and I'm trying to reach over while I'm driving through this traffic to roll the wind. I can't reach it. It's too far. U-Hauls are too far, so finally, I just had to say, okay, God, I'm just gonna have to believe that you'll take care of this, and I just keep driving, and I look over at my daughter. I'm as stressed as I can be. I am so stressed out, trying to make sure I don't wreck the truck, and I look over, and she's just, loving every single minute of it, and the Lord said to me, take a look at that. He said, that's how I want you to be. That's how I want you to be in your storms. You see, the Bible says, if you really want to understand heaven, you have to become like a little child, where you're not carrying the stresses, the worries, the fears that

everybody carries as an adult, and recognize that God just wants to, he wants us to be sons and daughters that know he will take care of us in the midst of every storm, and everybody, everything that comes at us. When we moved to Atlanta, I remember the real, real set in. When we start driving back to Atlanta to start this church, the reality sets in, we're gonna try to start a church with a two-year-old, no savings, no job, and we're gonna have to find a place to live pretty quick. We have old cars that are probably going to break down, and we know, how are we going to do this? How are we going to do this? And when we started, we started with six people right up the street here, six people in a little daycare center, and for the first three months, every Sunday, I would come ready to preach, and it was the same six people. One day, a visitor came. By accident, she was looking for another church and she accidentally came into our church. She sat through the entire sermon, came out, that was so good, I loved it, I'll be back. And I knew when she said that, I'll never see you again. And yet, and yet I knew. I knew God was gonna do something, I just didn't know when. And here's what I've learned about God, you have to be willing to wait. You have to be willing to wait. God gave me the gift of faith, he gave Colleen the gift of faith. And what I've learned about every big church in America, they're not all great churches, they're not all great pastors, but one common theme through all the great churches,

the great leaders, is they have the gift of faith. That God gives them, it's not something they earn, it's not something they manufacture, it's where your faith stops and his faith kicks in. And you start to believe when no one else around you can believe. God was trying to teach the people how to believe that regardless of wherever they go, and regardless even of out in the wilderness, I will take care of you, I will provide for you. I will provide so that you will not have to worry. If you just trust in me, I can do things that you can't do. I can create miracles in your life, doors to open, sustenance to come into your life. And what was so unique about it is the miracle was bread. Because they knew they were celebrating Passover, they knew the history of Israel, that when they went out into the desert, the first miracle was God bringing manna, which was a form of bread, from heaven. Dropped it down on them every day and was teaching them in the wilderness before they entered into the promised land how to depend on him daily. Therefore, we get this prayer, give me this day my daily bread. See, God wants you to depend on him daily, not every once in a while when you need a miracle. And when you start to depend on him daily, you begin to realize God is providing for me.

And he will always provide when I follow him. The second revelation that I got was whatever you give to him, he will multiply it. Now, it was interesting, you think about this young boy, he was the only one that came prepared. No one else had bread, no one else had fishes, they weren't not having, they didn't have anything, they just came out following Jesus. They were excited about the miracles. They forgot, oh, we need food, he's gonna talk to us for a while. And so this boy had this bread and these fishes and they took it from him. But he said, he gave it to him. I don't know about you, but would you give it to him? If you were the only one who came prepared, hey, wait, I came prepared. I wanna hold on to what I have. I'm the one who has the food, I can't, this isn't gonna do anything for everybody else. It's not enough. But there was something about this little boy, again, a child, faith, that trusted the disciples enough to release the bread and the fishes. Now what happened was a miracle. He took the bread, the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of giving, and he multiplied it back into their life. I don't know if you understand the principle of multiplication.

That God doesn't just bless us to bless us, he blesses us to bless others. He gives the prosperity in our lives so that we can share, not so we can hoard. Not so we can hold on to us for and no more and protect our family. And he teaches us in this principle that when you give to God sacrificially, when you give, even when it hurts, even when it's difficult, even when it means you're gonna have to trust him for a miracle, he will take it and he will multiply it back into your life. And once you start living the life of multiplication, you cannot stop the blessings of God from overtaking you. You get to a place, that's a weak applause right there, come on now. You know God will do that. When I saw this, the Lord began to remind me, and this is a scripture that's very familiar to most of you, if you've been in church, you've heard it, in Malachi chapter three where God is talking to Israel who had fallen away from God and he's calling them back because they're drifted, they've drifted from God. And one of the ways that they drifted from God that was so demonstrative was they stopped giving. They stopped giving to the sustenance of the church at that time was the temple. And because they'd stopped giving, the temple was starting to fall apart.

The priests were not being supported. The life of God was not in the temple anymore and the people were no longer considering that God had anything to do with their finances. So God comes to the prophet Malachi and he prophesies something they did not want to hear. Now I'm going to share with you something you probably don't always want to hear. But the continual reproduction of God is connected to how consistent you are with this concept of tithing and giving. Tithing and giving is at the very core of our relationship with God. Why? Because the number one thing that keeps us distanced from God, that tells God we're not fully consecrated, is our money. He says you cannot serve God and money at the same time. He said when you're on this earth, understand it's not about laying up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Once you put treasures in heaven, then God can rain down resources into your life. If He can get it through you, He'll get it to you. Amen. So here's what it says. I'm going to read it for all of you new Christians so you'll see this. The Lord does not change. Let's say that together. The Lord does not change. A lot of people say, well tithing, that's the Old Testament. The Lord's changed His mind in the New Testament. How many of you know the Lord does not change? Just because He put an ordinance in the Old Testament doesn't mean it goes away. In fact, Jesus said, I came to fulfill all that was in the Old Testament, the covenant of the Old Testament. The only thing that we're not operating in that was in the Old Testament are the customs of the day. How they dress, how they put their hair and things of that nature. Those were just personal selections within that context of the Jewish religion. But when it comes to tithing, that's a broad-based principle in the Bible. And He had taught them very clearly in the Old Testament that when you bring the first of all of your increase, your crops, your lands, your animals, whatever currency you have, and you give it back to God, He will then see that you are consecrated financially and He'll put His hand on your finances. So here's what He says.

He says, return to Me and I will return to you, says the Lord God Almighty. But you ask, how are we to return? Will a mere mortal rob God? Will a man rob God? Would you rob God? Anybody here want to lift their hand and say, I will rob God? I will rob God. But listen, yet you have robbed Me. You know right now in the church today in America, they estimate about 7% of the church are faithful in their tithes. At Victory, because we've taught you for so long and built that into the foundational core of who you are as a Christian, we've taught you, we have about 50% of the people in the church are tithing. 50% of the church is tithing. It's an incredible statement of faith in the church, but what about the other 50%? Is it possible that sitting in this room and watching us online and at other campuses, there are people that are robbing God? And you say, I didn't know I was robbing God. I know, that's why I'm helping you. I know you didn't know. Now if you knew and you're still robbing God, that's a problem. But if you didn't know, I'm not here to condemn you, I'm here to help you. Listen, if you don't tithe, that doesn't mean we're going under. The church is thriving, we'll keep growing, we'll keep going. But let me tell you something, if you start to tithe, you'll begin to enter into a dimension economically that you didn't even know existed. And I'm going to show it to you right here in the scriptures. He said, but you ask, are we robbing you? And you said, no. How are we robbing you? In tithes and offerings. And because of this, you're still under the curse. The curse on the earth is here. It started with Adam.

Cursed is the ground for your sake, in it you'll toil day and night. The only way you redeem the ground, the cursed ground, is through your giving. And he's trying to teach us this. In Leviticus he called the tithe holy, sanctified, set apart for the Lord's use. It's not for your personal use. You don't take that which is holy and use it for unholy purposes. It belongs to the Lord. It doesn't even belong to you. You're not paying your tithe. You're not even giving your tithe. You're just returning what already belongs to God. You're just returning it as an act of faith that I trust you. When you hold on to your tithe, you're the owner. You're the one who controls it. And when you control it, let me tell you something, we don't do a good job with it. When we try to control it, then we eliminate God's hand on it. I don't know about you, but I found that God is a much better steward than I am. God is more wise than I am. He knows more about what's coming than the earth and I do. He knows how to do things economically that I don't know how to do. And so he's telling you, because of this, you're cursed with a curse, your whole nation's cursed because you're robbing me. Therefore, bring, how much of the tithe? The whole tithe.

Tithe means 10%, the first 10% of all your increase. Bring it all, where? Into the storehouse. Does it say anywhere, does it say anywhere, send some of your tithe to your grandma, send some of your tithe to a TV preacher, send some of your tithe to help a poor person? Does it say anywhere in the Bible that to do that with the tithe? It says clearly how much to give with the first 10% and where to give it, where you're spiritually fed. Now, you're offering over and above your tithe. You can do, as the Lord leads you, whatever those areas that you feel like God's telling you to send it. But the tithe always belongs in the house of God. Therefore, that there may be food in my house and test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of what? Heaven, and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I don't know about you, but I get excited. When I get paid or I make money, I remember I spoke at a church last week and they gave me an offer, and as soon as I get paid, I give an offering, I can't wait to tithe. I love tithing. When I got saved, I didn't even know about tithing when I was tithing. I gave 20% of all the money I was making to the Lord,

and I didn't even know about it. I found out it was only 10%, and I'm like, oh, I don't have to give 20%. I can just give 10%, and the Lord said, well, just keep giving 20. You're used to it. I've been giving 20% my entire life as a Christian. That's why this church gives 20%. I said, we can't just give 10% out of this church. We gotta give 20%, at least 20%, and if we can give more, that's even better, amen? I believe that that's one of the reasons why this church has prospered. I believe it. I'm not a prosperity gospel preacher where I'm telling you to give money to get something from God. I believe that's manipulation. I believe that's wrong spiritually. I don't believe that's taught in the Bible anywhere. I believe God tells us to give not to get something, but because we love God, and are giving this an act of worship, expressing to God, God, I love you more than I love money. I love you more than I love things. Now, it's one thing if you go to a church where it's obviously misused. It's 300 people, and the pastor's driving a Mercedes. That's a little bit out of order, but it's another thing when you see the church

sharing and doing works all over the world. I think this past year, we celebrated giving now over $115 million out into missions across the world and to help the needy around our own community. We're not here to get rich off the gospel. We're here to get rich with God. More of you, less of me, God. And when they started to see this, they begin to realize, wow, we've been robbing you. And he says, I'll open the floodgates of heaven. Remember where the bread came down from? In the Old Testament, it came down from heaven. And he tried to get the people to see, just take enough for each day. Don't take more than you can take, because if you take more, it'll rot. It'll not be useful. Let me teach you to trust me every day for your daily bread, so that when you get into the promised land, you don't need miracles anymore, because you've learned to trust me, that I'm gonna bless you abundantly beyond what you could ask or think, and I'm gonna open the floodgates over you that there's not room enough to receive it. When there's not room enough to receive it, that's why you're giving so much more than you ever gave before. You don't make more to have more. You make more to give more.

I invested in a stock this past, a couple years ago, or last year, in this ETF in gold and silver. I'd never been in gold and silver, and so this friend of mine said, invest in this. So I took a little risk with this stock. And it went up really fast and really high. And it was like a whole lot of money that I'd never seen before. It was just a small investment, but it just turned into a big investment. And I began to see if I can do this right with you, God, I can set up an investment account that is not for me. That everything I invest goes into the gospel. Everything that you increase me, I can take it and invest it in the gospel and just keep growing it and keep making it grow. So I set a goal. I said, Lord, I know this is a lofty goal. Some of you need to set some lofty goals. I said, Lord, I wanna pay for a campus one day. I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I don't have the money to do it, but I wanna do it. So God, I'm gonna take this account and if it increases and continues to grow, every year I'm gonna just increase my giving, double, triple, until finally I get to a place, God, where I can give enough to fund a campus. I wanna do that. And I'm not a rich person, but I wanna do that. I don't know if it's ever gonna happen, but I wanna do it.

And I'm gonna try to do it. And the only way you can do it is you first have to tithe. I have people coming up to me, pray for my finances, Pastor. I can't pay my bills. I can't do this. I can't do that. I said, okay, well, before we pray, let me just ask you one question. Are you a tither? What do you think the answer is 100% of the time? No. I can't undo what you've created in prayer. I can't override what God's Word says. He will not bless you if you're not tithing. He will. You can maybe make money without that, but that money will ruin you. Here's what I've learned about the devil. The devil will pay you to get out of the will of God. Oh yeah, he'll, success can be just as dangerous as poverty. If you're not careful, success can ruin you. It can destroy you if you don't understand the principles of success moving to significance. And so he's telling the people, I'll open up the windows of blessing, there's not room enough to receive it all. So first of all, you have to believe it's God's will to provide. He will provide for me.

And then secondly, when I give something back to God, sacrificially especially, especially if you're having a hard time financially, this is where you have to take a step of faith when you're not used to doing things sacrificially. You have to take a step of faith to start the blessings of God back into your life. This is what he was calling Israel to do. And this is what he was trying to teach even in this principle of the loaves and the fishes. When I bless the people, you have to understand the blessing is not for you to just hoard it. It's to show you that I will take care of you. I will multiply to you. And then finally, this third revelation. The third revelation is when you surrender to him, he will give you eternity with him. That was ultimately the message. The ultimate message was not about money. It was not about all this provision. It was ultimately to show you that ultimately the real value in this is to point you that I am your savior. I am your Lord. And when you receive me, you've received the greatest riches that you will ever receive in your life. There is nothing more valuable, listen to me, nothing than eternity with God. Now, how many of you are going on, have been on or are going on vacation this summer?

Let me see your hands. You're going on vacation. And how many of you are not going on vacation? You're staying home, you're just staying home. And there's reasons why you stay home. Sometimes the reasons you're staying home is because you don't have enough money to go on vacation. But sometimes it's just you prefer to stay home, staycation. You have a staycation. I don't like staycations. I prefer to get out of the city. I prefer to get out of this place. I don't like the traffic. I don't like the hot summers. Come on, somebody, I like to go someplace where it's cooler. But anyway, I thought to myself, now, what is greater, having vacations in the earth or an eternal vacation forever with God? What's greater? Can you imagine if you could think through an eternal mindset, can you imagine what your life would be like? If everything is funneled through eternity and not temporal, if you're not just focused on what's going on right here and right around you, but you're focused on what it's gonna be like in eternity, then you understand, you understand this principle. The closest thing to hell you will ever experience is living on the earth. The closest thing to heaven a non-saved person

will ever experience is living on the earth. But the closest thing to hell you will ever experience is living on this earth. When you get into heaven, you'll recognize, that's what I was shooting for. That's what I was aiming for. That's when when a loved one dies. It's not so bad It's it's bad for us because we lose our loved ones But they are in eternity if they know Jesus they are in eternity with heaven and they're with God forever and ever They're not worried about paying their bills. They're not worried about a physical body that's deteriorating. They're walking in a perfectly healthy Resurrection body, but they're ready. They're walking on streets of gold that we spend all our time trying to earn They were they're living in the mansions that God's already prepared for them from the foundations of the earth They're in the presence of Almighty God who knows what it's like in heaven I don't know because I've never been there, but I can only imagine that it's a little better than here Amen, and then when we get there, we'll real we'll recognize how much time we wasted focusing just on temporal things on the earth The greatest thing is to take people to heaven and that's why God blesses us so that we can help people Discover who Jesus is That's the number one purpose for money The number one purpose for money is not for you. The number one purpose for money is to win people to Christ There's only one Number that really matters in the earth. How many people are going to spend eternity with Jesus when Jesus came? He began to reveal himself and then he launches into this statement after he does this miracle And this is what he says in John chapter 6 25 when they found him on the other side of the lake He had just walked across the water by the way another miracle Rabbi, when did you get here? Jesus answered very truly I tell you you're looking for me not because you saw the signs I performed But because you got your fill of fish and chips He says do not work for food that spoils But for food that endures to eternal life

The motivation of work is not for the temporal the motivation of work is so that I can prosper and help people Come to Jesus Which the Son of Man will give for you for on him God the Father has placed his seal of Approval. He says you're following me for the wrong reasons When I see these prosperity gospel folks, I just all it cringes to me that people are following people for the wrong Reasons, I don't follow you God for what you're gonna give me. I follow you because you're God and I love you, and I want to love you with all my heart all my soul and all my strength And then I also want to do the second commandment. I want to love others as much as I love Myself I can't love others if all I'm focused on is self and Me and my family and paying my bills and and driving a fancy car and doing a fancy life If I'm only focused on that I missed the point of existence My existence is not here for that. I didn't wasn't born in the earth to survive I wasn't born in the earth to just grind out a living by the sweat of my brow I wasn't born in the lower earth to just be happy while I'm on the earth By the way, if happiness is your goal, you'll be sadly disappointed living in this earth Most people are seeking happiness instead of the will of God Sometimes when you're seeking the will of God listen to me. You're not happy There's a lot of things God tells me to do. I'm not happy about But I know deep inside of me It's God's call to press through my unhappiness and pursue the will of God over my feelings my emotions How I feel about stuff So Jesus is telling them he says as you pursue me, you're gonna see that there's a higher gift than bread Life is not about possessions and then he says and then they asked him they said in verse 28 What must we do to do the work that God requires? And Jesus answered here's the work you've got to do the work of God is this to believe in the one he has sent In other words have faith that I am God So they asked him what sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? I'm thinking are you kidding me?

You just multiplied 5,000 men and women and 15,000 people and you fed them Supernaturally you raised dead people you turn water into wine you walked on water. What more do you want? Isn't it amazing? How people can still experience the miracles of God and want more I want more signs Before I believe I have people all the time. Well, I I don't believe unless he reveals himself to me. He's been revealing himself to you your whole life. And you just ignored it because you're focused on you instead of on Jesus. So he said, what sign shall you do? Our ancestors ate the man in the wilderness and as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven and eat. In other words, Jesus, you're supposed to just keep giving us more bread. And Jesus said to them, very truly I tell you, it's not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it's my father, the good father who loves you, who gives you the true bread. Everybody say true bread. Remember, we were gonna come back to that word bread. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Sir, they said, always give us this bread. And Jesus declared, look what he declares. I am the bread of life. It's the first I am statement that Jesus makes in the New Testament.

When he says I am the bread of life, you better pay attention to that. You better pay close attention to that because he's telling you there's something more valuable than things in the earth. There's something more valuable than physical bread. When they came to Jesus and he hadn't eaten in a long time, he said, I have a food that you don't know about. There is a food in God that is not physical, tangible food. It's spiritual food. It's called the bread of life, and the bread of life is Jesus. Jesus is the bread of life. Not money, not possessions, not things in the earth. Jesus is the treasure of the earth. Jesus is the great treasure that we will sell everything we have to buy into that treasure. And Jesus is trying to get our attention. And here's what he says. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Wouldn't you like to go through life never hungry and never thirsty? Never hungering for things on the earth. Never thirsting for things outside of God. Always fulfilled. Come on somebody. Always fulfilled. Always fulfilled in life.

People said, I'm just trying to find fulfillment. You can never find true fulfillment outside of Jesus. It doesn't exist. There is nothing in the world that will fill you where you're never hungry or thirsty. In fact, the more you get things, the more hungry you are for more. The more you get things, the more thirsty you are for more. Your natural man always wants more. But once you have Jesus, you have the treasure of heaven living on the inside of you. You have now become the richest person in the earth. There's no one richer than those who know Jesus. You can live in the poorest nation of the world, in abject poverty, and if you have Jesus, you're richer than Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and every other wealthy billionaire in the world who doesn't have Jesus. There is no one richer than the one who has Jesus. And yet we trade this incredible riches off for the temporal pleasures of the world. He says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. For I've come down from heaven, the bread of heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me,

that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on this last day. Amen. I want you to take a moment just to say a lot, bow your heads and close your eyes. I want you to think about what's been said this morning. We've taken you on a journey through the miracle of the bread and the fishes. I've shown you that whenever you follow him, he will provide for you. Whatever you sacrifice and give to him, he will multiply it to you. But even greater than those two miracles, whenever you surrender to him, he will give you the greatest gift that all of humanity searches for, complete and total salvation of your soul. The Bible says, what does it? profit a person if they gain the whole world and forfeit their soul. God doesn't want any of you to forfeit your soul. God doesn't want any of you to go to hell. He doesn't want any of you to miss heaven, the eternity and the riches of heaven. He wants all of you to know Jesus. But not everyone will respond. Not everyone's heart will turn towards God. Many people's hearts are hardened towards God in the earth. But he says when he comes after you, he'll draw you. And I prayed, I prayed this yesterday morning. God, when we have services today, would you just draw the people? Would you draw their hearts towards you? Those who don't know you, Lord, draw them. There's nothing greater than salvation. There's nothing

greater than receiving Jesus. It's the greatest gift that you'll ever receive. And all God asks for you to do is believe it. Believe it and receive it by faith and repent of going your own way. Repent of your sins and say, God, I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to live with you. I want to live for you. I want to live with an eternal life, not a temporal life. If you're here today and you can say honestly, God has been drawing you. He's been speaking to you about your life and about your future. Maybe you're struggling in some area of your life right now and you don't know how to get out. The first step out of all the issues that are bogging you down in life is a step towards Jesus. Saying, Jesus, come. I can't do this anymore without you. Once you come to the end of yourself, that's when Jesus can come in and take over your life. And if you're here today and you're at the end of yourself and you say, I don't want to live without Jesus. I don't want to go any further without God. I want to pray with you right where you are. I want you to lift up your hands, if that's you. If you're here today, you say, that's me, God. I'm lifting my hands to you. Just lift them up high so I can see them. Lift them up high. In fact, why don't you just lift both of them? As you're lifting both of them, what you're doing is I surrender to you, Lord. I surrender to you. We're gonna pray this prayer and as you just keep your hands lifted, let's say this together. Jesus, right now I repent. I repent of my sins, my rebellion, everything in my life that's violated your kingdom. I ask you, Jesus, forgive me. I believe that you, Jesus Christ, you're the Son of God and today I surrender. I surrender my will, my life, my future into your hands. I believe that you rose from the dead and I believe that you can save me. Save me today, Lord, in Jesus' name. Lord, all of us here, we just lift our hands to you, not just the people that give their lives to you today. We lift our hands to you and we just welcome you right now. Would you come into this moment and would you do something special in us as we get ready to receive communion? Would you help us to recognize that the depth of what communion really is, it's not just some religious act that we do, it's something that we do in remembrance of your body and your blood that was shed for us. So we invite you

into this moment right now and we thank you for it in Jesus' name. At the end of your aisles, there are some communion elements. Would you just pass them down? And if somebody would just give me one, thank you. Once you get it, if you would, if you can navigate this, take off the top and get the bread out. And then once you get the bread, take it in your hands. And I hope this has meaning to you like it has to me. This bread is not just bread, it's a symbol of the body of Jesus that was broken for us before he ever went to the cross. The Bible says that on his body was placed 39 stripes. Before he ever went to the cross, they whipped him 39 times and the blood was flowing out of his body. Then they nailed him to the cross, his physical body, they nailed him to the cross. It's one of the most torturous ways to die, suffocation. And as he's hung on that cross, the last words that he spoke, the last few words that he spoke is, Father, forgive these people. for they do not know what they're doing they don't they don't really know what that they're putting God on a cross but he knew that was his ultimate destiny he had to die he had to die he had to offer up the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be saved he had to be hung on a cross the prophetic had already prophesied that was what was going to happen to him he's lay there and he's I mean hung there and he was dying his body was being broken so break the bread break it this is symbolic of the broken body and then he died Lord we thank you for this bread we recognize that you are the true bread of heaven and as we partake of this we eat this and put this in our body we partake of you we absorb you we want more of you Jesus so we ask you to bless this bread let it bring life to our mortal bodies let it bring healing to our physical bodies let it transform us from the inside out so that our bodies are no longer ruled by this world but they're under the Spirit of God control we thank you for this bread and we take it now in remembrance of you in Jesus name in the same manner they took the cup so go ahead and open the cup he hung on that cross the blood was shed the blood started coming down historically there is no there is no cleansing of sin without the shedding of

blood in the Jewish religion they had to they had to slay animals but he eventually took the place of every bull every goat every lamb he became the sacrificial lamb on the cross so as he hung there in his final moments blood coming out eventually taking his life from him he tries to explain to you I'm doing this I'm doing this for you I'm about to die so that you can live I'm about to die so that everything you've ever done wrong all the sins of your past can truly be forgiven so that you can come into heaven you can't come into heaven with sin and the only way you can come in is you have to have a sacrifice so I'm gonna shed this blood for you so that when you come to heaven the blood of Jesus has cleansed you has washed you and made you as if you never sinned so father we take this cup and we do this in remembrance of you when we take this cup we remember that you forgave us of our sins you gave us a new life you gave us an opportunity to serve you and live for you not for the temporal but for the eternal and we take this into our body remembrance of that and we thank you thank you for your blood in Jesus name let's take the cup hallelujah thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app we hope this content was a blessing to you but we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you so send us a letter and tell us things like what God is doing in your life how we can pray for you or even content that you would like to see us create in the future we just want you to know that we see you you're important to us and we'd love to continue to create some things in the future that will bless you so send us a letter and we hope to hear from you soon