Hello and welcome to the House of Faith Ministries. I'm Lisa Kaine and I'm recording this teaching on Sunday, December 22nd, 20124. Welcome. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Father God, oh holy, holy father God, we bless you. Thank you for your word. Pray that the hearts and the minds of listeners hear your word, that they apply your word, that they walk in your word, live by your word, and give you the glory, the honor, the praise, and the strength for you are mighty. And I thank you for sending your son and redeeming us and giving us the good news when he was born and letting us know who the Messiah is. Thank you. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. And so what's the title of this message? Especially being so close to Christmas. I mean, this is December 22nd, 2024. I just can't believe how fast time is flying. So, if you're amazed by it, I'm amazed by it. Believe you me, I in fact, Christmas really snuck up on me here. I'm prepared, but at the same time, yeah, it's crazy. Let's hope let's go to our um title here. I want to show you the title of this message. Bethlehem Ephraa, house of bread, fruitfulness. So, Bethlehem means house of bread. Ephraa is another name for Bethlehem, which means fruitfulness. This is going to be a very interesting teaching. So, we're going to start here in Micah 5:2 and then we'll be in John chapter 6 the rest of the time. Uh so here Micah 5:2 but thou Bethlehem or house of bread a place in Palestine Ephraa which means fruitfulness another name for Bethlehem. So but thou Bethlehem Ephraa though thou be little among the thousands of Judah yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting. Okay. So, as I teach, in case you're new here, the way I teach is I use the King James version scriptures that I post here on the screen. The the bolded word in dark black there is the word in the King James version. The words in parentheses after that comes from the Strong's Hebrew Greek dictionary. In other words, they're just other words that the translators could have used in lie of the bolded word. When I put those extra words there, I want you to see the fullness of the scriptures and get the meaning behind it. And that's what I'm doing here. But notice this is a prophecy. It's in Micah. It's one of the um smaller prophets in the Bible. says, uh, but thou Bethlehem Ephraata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been up from of old, from everlasting. So, it prophesies that a king is coming. Now, let's keep in mind, you know, when you teach about the birth of Jesus or his death and of the prophecies he's fulfilled, keep in mind he's fulfilled several thousand prophecies. This is one of them. And in reality, it hasn't been fulfilled yet because Jesus is king, but he hasn't come back the second time and has established his kingdom yet. He hasn't done that. The kingdom of God is at hand. We're here. But him sitting on the throne where we're all physically there worshiping him and that prophecy has been fulfilled, that hasn't happened yet. So, we're still in this transition. So, keep the reason I bring this scripture up is because when Jesus was born, they were expecting a king. Remember the first time he came, he came as a priest to redeem his pe all the people of the world. Anyone who wants to be saved can be saved. Jesus gave his life for all of us. Any one of us. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13. So, I bring that up because I really want you to see this. Now, Bethlehem being the house of bread, there's there's some significance in here that I want you to see where Jesus deals with this with the Israelites. And remember, he came to the Israelites. Okay? So, we're going to be in John chapter 6, and we're going to start here in verse 5 uh through 7. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philillip, "Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?" Notice redeem. That word by means to redeem. Now watch what is going on. It's pretty cool. And this he said to prove or test scrutinize him, Philillip, for he himself knew what he would do. You see, Jesus already knew what he was going to do. How one how he was going to feed the 5000 because that's what we're going to be talking about is the bread of life, the true bread of life here and feeding the 5,000 and then what the consequences of that was. But he also knew that he was the redeemer that came as the bread of life. So he already knows all this in the flesh. Remember he's the word that became flesh. So he knows all this already. Now let's continue on. So he's going to test Philillip. Remember God tests the hearts of man. And I'm gonna tell you right now, we've all fell for it. We've all we failed the test. Okay, I mean that's just the reality of the situation. But here Jesus says, and he is one that does not fail the test. So verse 7, Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take a little. Now let's let's remind ourselves who the disciples are. These are not Pharisees or Sadducees. These are fishermen or labor men, bluecollar type of men. So they don't know the history of the the scriptures. So Philillip doesn't catch on to this. But look what one of his disciples Andrew Simon Peter's brother saith unto him, there is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes. But what are they among so many? Which that word many there means so vast as this? It's interesting that I um Andrew says this because you got 5,000 men. That's just the men that they count. It's not the women and the children that they counted there. And he's looking at like, well, you know, I I don't know what you can do with this. Let's pause for a moment because I want to think this through for just a quick moment. How can Andrew suggest five loaves and two fish? Barley loaves and two fish. How for amongst I mean this is incredible. Stop. Look at this. He says which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes. Even he's saying you know I can't believe I just said that. We're talking about so many people and I just said that. You know, let's think that through because we know of the miracle. He already fed the 5,000. We already know the end result. So, here I want to stop and I want to say, well, wait a second. How is it when we're in our relationship with God and we're talking with God and we're asking God for something when he already has a plan, he already knows what he's going to do. He already has it taken care of. We just don't have the faith or the foresight to see it. And by the way, they think of Jesus as a prophet, a foreteller. So if we're to be Christlike, we should be able to foretell what's coming. Amen. So this is the situation. When we have that relationship with the Lord and we are talking with him, we're to foretell what God wants to do his way. Why do we limit ourselves and put God in a box or even put ourselves in a box? Our thinking, how do we let our thinking become so limited? It's lack of experience with the Lord one at the same time, you know, looking out and seeing the marvelous creation. We are not comprehending who Jesus and what he did is. You know, the creator entered his own world through a virgin named Mary and he grew up and here he is in his ministry and he's about to feed 5,000 people and he's break I just talked about breaking the rules of his universe that he created. But he is the creator of all of this and we're trying to tell him how to do something. Th this is where my mind is going right now. And I want us to stop and think for just a moment in our relationship with our creator. How do we treat him? Do we treat him like concierge or do we treat him as wow? You know, I love how John the B, not John the Baptist, John, the one who wrote the Gospel of John and Revelation and first and second, third, uh, the epistles of John, he called himself beloved because he recognized and accepted the love of Christ over him. So when we're in a situation, this is where we get to stop, realize that we're on the side of the creator. The creator, he's the one who's done all this. He's the one who is going to do what he wants to do because he is the bread of life and he already knows the outcome because he's going to redeem us. You know the reality of the situation is it does not matter whether we win any battle here because the war has already been won. Our soul is going to live eternally with Christ. Mike drop. That's really what it is right there.

That in in and of itself is awesome. So now though, because Jesus wants to bless and he loves to bless. And by the way, since he already knows what's going on, you can kind of sense, I got this feeling from Jesus, even though the disciples around him don't know it. And the reality is, if you hadn't read the rest of the chapter yet or hadn't been part of that or didn't know about Jesus feeding the 5,000, you're all stunned, perplexed, and like, "What's he up to?" Well, let's continue on because I love what he does here. And so Jesus said verse 10, "Make the men sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down in number about 5,000. So 5,000 men, and that's not counting the women and the children because they didn't do that back in those days. Now verse 11 says, "And Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he expressed his gratitude for it. He distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down and likewise of the fishes as much as they would." I want to pause there for a minute. So as they started passing out the bread and the fish, they would go to the basket, get some bread, start handing it out, go back, get more bread, hand it out. It was a bottomless pit.

Let's stop and think why we need to eat food.

We're flesh. Our body requires food. We can fast from time to time, but eventually we eat. Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and eventually he needed food and his angels had to help him. But that's how he overcame the flesh and he let his flesh know you're not the ruler here. My spirit is. I love that. When you fast, that's what the whole point of fasting is about. But here, he's feeding all these people. He's giving them the food their physical bodies need. Now, let's watch what happens here. This is very interesting. Verse 12. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost." It reminds me of kind of a green earth agenda. Let's take everything. I don't want to waste none. You know, that's how he is. So, he's even considerate of all of that. And then he goes on in verse 13, "Therefore, they gathered them together, filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eat had eaten." That's super abound. Super bound is that word above. 12 baskets. He had leftovers. Don't know where the leftovers went or who got the leftovers or what happened with the leftovers, but he had leftovers. So, not only did he feed 5,000 with five breads and two fish, he had abundance. He It could have kept going on and on. We could still be going up to those baskets to this day and grabbing it. But Jesus wanted to teach them something. So let's catch on as to what he wanted to teach. Verse 14. And those men when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did say, this is of a truth that prophet foreteller that should come into the world. They think this is a prophet that was foretold about. So they're like, "Oh, this guy is a miracle. He's a prophet." And they want to, this is what they want to do. Verse 15, when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. You see, back in Micah, it said a king. But remember there are many other prophecies that these Pharisees and Sadducees, their disciples and all these people should have seen and known that he was going to come as a savior first. They should have known, but they were looking for a king. So they see this guy feed 5,000 with an unlimited supply of bread and fish, and they're just like, "Oh, this is our king. let's go get him and make him king. I mean, they were ready. Jesus is like, that's not why I'm here the first time. So, he leaves and goes to a mountain. Now, it's interesting enough if you continue to read, he is going to send the disciples to the other side of the sea. So, verse 16, let's continue on here. When evening was now come, this is the evening, his disciples went down into the sea and entered into a ship and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark and Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. Now understand that Satan is doing his part to keep Jesus and the disciples from doing their thing. But Jesus already defeated the devil in the wilderness through his flesh by fasting. And we know that at the birth of Jesus in Luke, you can go read this in Luke 1. Uh Zachcharias and u Mary sang a song. So the song, the music went before Jesus, which by the way, when you go to battle, you go to war, you go in with trumpets, they're they're the ones who lead. That's how warfare is done spiritually. It's done physically in the olden days. Remember uh the walls of of Jericho, they came tumbling down because they did a shout because they had been doing praise and worship music while marching around. So this is warfare. So here you see this sea rise up against them. But watch what Jesus does. So when they rode about five and 20 or 30 furongs, they see Jesus walking or treading all around on the sea and drawing nigh to the ship. And they were afraid. You can go read other versions. I'm in John and you can see where Peter says, "If that's you, call me and let me walk out there." But in this version of it, look what happens here. He says, um, Jesus says, "But he saith unto them, it is I, be not afraid." Okay, now look verse 21. Then they willingly received him or they chose and preferred to receive him into the ship and then immediately which means directly at once the ship was at the land whether they went. Jesus came to defeat the enemy and he had done it successfully on the cross. Well, here he is showing how he did it. And so because the men were able to say, "I choose you, Jesus." Look at this. They were immediately saved and already immediately on the other side. Foretelling that the moment you declare Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're on the other side. You're already on the other side. If you're still here in the flesh, your spirit's already on the other side. You're already walking on the other side. That is foretelling what Jesus is going to do when he is crucified and he rises from the dead. I hadn't seen that before where he was immediately on the other side. That's the first time I had seen that and I'm catching it. I I saw it with Philip. Philip was transported and around and it's funny that he is the one he asked Philillip about what are we going to do with the fish or how are we going to feed these 5,000. Philip's like you can buy as much bread as you want. ain't gonna be enough for this crowd. And yet here now they're on the other side. Instantly, Philip has seen him feed the 5,000. He has seen him calm the storm. He has seen him move the ship to the other side instantaneously. And you see later after Jesus has risen from the grave and he's moved on, Philip is transporting naturally, supernaturally if you will, between places. You can go read about that in Acts. So this is very very telling of what Jesus is doing here. Now let's go to verse 25 and this is so that's the disciples scene. Now watch the people's reaction. This is hilarious. Verse 25. And when they have found him on the other side of the sea they said to him, "Rabbi, when camest th they're trying to figure out how did you get here? We didn't see you leave from the other side and we were watching." And then to top it off, you got here so quick. How'd you do that? And it's interesting. Look at how Jesus responded here. Jesus answered them and said, "Very verily I say unto you, ye seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled," which also means gorged and satisfied. Oh, there's something going on here now. What is going on? He says, "You didn't come here because you saw the miracle that I performed. You came here cuz see you didn't understand the miracle. You didn't receive the miracle but you were satisfied in the flesh and you want that again where you don't have to work for the food. You didn't have to work at all for that. And Jesus is pointing that out to them. So look what they say to answer him. Or he continues on by saying, "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father seal?" So they said to him, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" Because see now they're curious. Wait a second. We just got satisfied. And you're saying the son of man's going to do that. But it just happened. Which obviously Jesus is saying, I'm the son of man. I'm son of the son of God. So they're asking him, "What is it that we have to do? What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" And Jesus answered and said unto him, "This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Look it, let's keep things simple. What's the will of God? to believe. That's all. Look at that. This is that you believe. Have faith on him whom he has sent. Have faith on Jesus who was sent by the father. The whole book of John is fascinating because it's about Jesus and the father. He's he's identifying the relationship. So your will by if you want to know what God's will is in your life, just believe. It's as simple as that. Well, let's continue on here because this is fascinating. This is now their response to him. Verse 30, they said, "Therefore unto him, what sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? What dust thou work?" Whoa, wait a second. You just saw him feed you and 5,000 4,999 others plus women and children. and you just saw him get to the other side of Capernaum to Capernaum and you're just sitting here now asking what side are you going to show me. So Jesus takes it a step further and he or actually they continue on they they actually it's so funny Jesus set this up but you can see he knew what they were going to say. Watch this. Says verse 31, "Our fathers did eat mana." By the word, that word mana in the original uh Hebrew, it means what is it? Because they didn't know what it is. And so they just ran with it. What's that chocolate bar? Whatchamacallit chocolate bar? Well, there you go. They did it with mana. What is it? Our fathers did eat mana in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now, notice the word he there. It's capitalized, but they're not talking about God the Father. Verse 32, because Jesus, then Jesus said unto them, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven." Now remember, Jesus has been talking about doing the will of the father to have full satisfaction because that's what the whole point was. They went over there saying, "We're satisfied with this bread and this fish and we didn't have to do anything. We just got to listen to you speak." And he's saying, "Well, it's the father who gave you true mana." And they were pointing to Moses as giving them the mana. It was Jesus, father, the heavenly father. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus is the one who is doing it. Which by the way, he just mimicked his father. If his father can feed a generation of Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years, which he provided mana, well then he, you know, Jesus can hand out a few loaves and a few fish and feed 5,000. So Jesus is like, I'm just doing what my father did. But he's saying I am the bread of life. Look at this. What he says says, "For the bread of God is he." Look at that. He says, "For the bread of God is he." Jesus or God sent him the son of God. Jesus. For the bread of God is he or Jesus which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Remember Jesus is the one is who says uh let there be light. And there was light because he's the spoken word. Hallelujah. And verse 34, then said they unto him, Lord, evermore, give us this bread. Now they're demanding, we want this bread. See, they knew their forefathers had it. And he is like, okay, you just did these miracles. We were satisfied. We want to be satisfied for the rest of our lives. So give us this bread now. But don't hold out anymore. Verse 35. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth have faith on me shall never thirst.

This is the bread of life, Jesus Christ. And he said, I am the bread. I'm the one that will satisfy you. I will satisfy you spiritually. I will satisfy you physically. You are satisfied through me, Jesus Christ, the son of God. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So here at this very moment after he's fed 5,000 plus and after he stopped the storm, walked on water. He walked on water. His disciples saw these miracles and then they think, "Okay, well he's going to be the prophet. Let's make him a king." And and he takes off and hides from them. All of a sudden they're like, "How did you get here?" there and they start talking about the bread because see Jesus knew in their heart they wanted more of the satisfaction of being filled. They weren't hungry anymore. They weren't starving. They were satisfied. It was probably I have to imagine based on how that went and the questions that they had. My thought process says that bread and that fish had been the best tasting bread and fish they had ever had. It was the best and they were fulfilled. And Jesus is saying, "I am the bread." You know, next time you do Holy Communion and you remember him on the cross, you you have that broken bread in your hand, you're looking at you see the bruising, the the discoloration because when bread bakes in the oven or crackers bake in the oven, parts of it brown, some of it stays lighter. That's representing the bruising of what Christ did for us on the cross. Well, when you look at that broken bread, remember Jesus is the bread of life. And the moment you had confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that is the moment your spirit became alive already on the other side. You may not be there physically yet, and eventually all of us will get there. We're all going to be on the other side. But until then, we remember what he did on the cross. We remember the blood he shed for us. He is the bread of life. His blood redeemed us. You know, as he was on that cross, bleeding from his head because he had a crown of thorns. Bleeding from his back because he had been whipped 39 times. Bleeding from his hands from the nails. Bleeding from his feet from the nails. And all that blood coming down off of him, saturated into the wood of the cross, hit the ground. And when the soldier stabbed him in the side and blood and water flowed, that blood hit the earth and it shook the ground. Shook it so hard. And yet Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. I am the one who's buying you. I bought you. I paid that price for you. And I take I want you to take that bread and that blood and I the symbol of it. He says you take that I am life to you. Oh that is who our Christ is. This is who we believe in. Jesus the son of the living God. He's our Lord and Savior. He pardoned us. He redeemed us. And when we partake of that broken bread and drink of that wine that represents the blood, it comes into our flesh and it tells our flesh, you do not have to be sick because you're not part of the dying world. This world will die, but heaven and earth. So, as Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word will not. And because you're partaking of the word of God, the flesh, Jesus, represented by the bread and represented by the blood, as you partake, you're telling your spirit, you're telling your flesh, hey, you want to know who I believe is my Lord and Savior Jesus. And you know what? He's my provider. He's my healer. He's my deliverer. He pardoned me. And because of that, I stand for Christ. and you're telling the entire world. And what happens is when you enter into a place where you see people struggling, they cannot figure out how you have so much joy or how much you have strength because they can't figure out why are you satisfied? Why are you not dead like we are? Why are you not suffering like we are? Because the peace of God that surpasses all understanding is in me. Because greater is he that is in me than he that is in this world. And he that is the spirit, too. He's greater than this. And I humble myself before the Lord. And I pray and I ask that you do the same. And that you acknowledge who your redeemer is because he did that for you and me. Hallelujah. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the reminder how you came into this world and how you became that bread. You were born in Bethlehem and that you were born to a Virgin Mary and that you went to the cross obediently. You shed your you broke that body. You shed your blood and you rose from the grave because death can't hold you. And the same spirit that is in you is in us. Thank you, Father God. Thank you for your anointing. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for reminding us of that. In the holy, mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, God bless each and every one of you. Have a wonderful, merry Christmas, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.