The Bread of Life

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll jump into God's Word.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessing of being able to read your Word, Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be with us now. Father, we need you to be our teacher. We need you to apply these words to our hearts and to our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we are at Leviticus chapter 24. Let me find my glasses here. Glasses are always tough to find because they are partially through. Leviticus chapter 24 beginning at verse 5.
And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in a cake, in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord.
Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before Jehovah continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat in a holy place. for it is most holy to him from the offering of Jehovah made by fire by a perpetual statute." Well, we need to ask ourselves our normal three questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this in? C, what are we called to do in response to these words? So what is this passage about?
Well, this is going back again to Exodus 25, verse 30, where God is the one who told them about the Shobron. flour, and it's baked into bread, frankincense oil on top of it, 12 loaves, and here it tells us on that golden table, right, the acacia wood overlaid with pure gold, it's going to have two rows, six loaves and then six loaves, so 12 totals, most likely representing the 12 tribes of Israel.
And the point is, right, that each tribe has brought their regular grain offering to the Lord. They have brought their regular presence before God, that they are before Him. He sees them, He knows their tribute, He knows their fidelity, He knows their love, and He remembers that He is their covenant Lord, their King, their God, their Redeemer. And so this is this memorial before Him. And so Every week, new loaves baked, brought before the Lord, put on the table.
At the end of the week, the priests take it, they go eat in a holy place, right? So that's what this is about. Well, what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, in my Bible, I have verse 1 and verse 9 underlined, but maybe you have something else. That's fine. The question, though, is seek calling.
What are we called to do? Well, this is one of these passages that Jesus himself actually alludes to, right? In Luke chapter 6, Matthew chapter 12, Mark chapter 2, Jesus is going in the grain fields and as he's walking along on the Sabbath, they go and they find the grain. And his disciples, what do they do?
Rub their hands together, right? They break the kernels of the wheat from the chaff. They pop it in their mouth and start grinding on it and walking away and eating it. And the Pharisees, they're always knowing Leviticus. Well, hold on, your disciples are doing what they ought not to do on the Sabbath. They're doing work. And Jesus says, well, hold on, remember a story.
1 Samuel chapter 21 where David went into the tabernacle. And he was being on the chase, on the run from Saul. He goes in and he's starving and David, who's not a priest, they bring him the show bread. They bring him this bread and he eats of it and he's not condemned.
So why? Why is he allowed to do that and not the disciples eat? How are these tied together? Well, Jesus's point is, right? The show bread was meant to show the people's presence before God and God with his people. And Jesus is there with them. He's the Lord of the harvest. He's the Lord of the fields. He's the Lord of the Sabbath.
And the ceremonial laws, these parts in the tabernacle were pointing to Jesus himself. And so he says, this is not unlawful, right? The Sabbath wasn't made for man, but man for the Sabbath, or Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so this was meant to point towards God being generous and loving with his people, being their God, being their Redeemer, being their King. This God is walking in their midst. The Pharisees reject that. They don't love Jesus. They don't believe He's God. They don't believe that He's their Redeemer and their King, and they refuse to bow their knee to Him.
What does this show to us? That Jesus is with us. Jesus has not bound us underneath the ceremonial law anymore. That old covenant administration is gone. But we know that the Bread of Life Himself came and dwelt amongst man. And He has sent His Holy Spirit to be with us now.
And so we know like we looked at yesterday. He is the one who holds the seven lampstands in his hand. He is the one who remembers his churches. He is the one who is with us, knows us, and loves us. And he is the one who is our King, our Redeemer. And so we love him. We remember him. This is all pointing us to Jesus.
Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would let us love you more and more. Lord, that this bread and this covenant ceremony, this perpetual covenant was meant to point to you being with your people and your people being with you. Lord, we thank you that you have promised us that you will be with us always, even unto the ends of the age. Please, Lord, let us let that truth comfort our hearts and lead us all of our days in Jesus's name. Amen. May God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.