riverside edit   josh breakthrough church (4): Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church Podcast. Grateful to be here today. I missed last week. I I don't think I recorded a podcast last week, but I wanted to just share my heart with you. I don't necessarily have a teaching, I don't necessarily have a scripture, although that will probably happen and I'll probably teach. But but I I wanted to just share just some stuff on my heart related to Jesus. I grew up in the church. I grew up in the Bible Belt here in Dallas. And one of the things that can happen when you're in church all the time and you hear the gospel message, some of us haven't heard the gospel, although we've been in church. A lot of us, whenever we grow up in church and we've heard about Jesus, we've heard the facts about the gospel is that we can actually skate by church without ever having received The gospel, although we may believe the gospel. Now that's not biblical, that's not biblically accurate what I just said. Culturally, it makes sense, but biblically the word believe means to receive. But I'm using it in the terms of: it is easy to say, yeah, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, so I can get to heaven when I die. That's one thing. But to truly receive the Lord is what true biblical belief means. It means to receive Him in your heart. As the Lord, as the bread of life, as the one who has saved me from my sins. And there's a there's a there's a difference to that. So one of the scriptures that comes to mind when I think about this is John 3.16. If you've grown up in church, you've you know this passage. Even if you haven't grown up in church, this is one of the most popular scripture passages ever. John three sixteen, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. That whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. When we read that, a lot of the times what we hear is: God loved me so much that Jesus died on the cross so that I can prolong my days, so that I can have life after I die. And now that is definitely a part of it, right? eternal life, life after death. That's that's obviously like central. And you know, central, it's it's it's like a primary benefit of the gospel, but I don't I don't know if we really know what it means to believe in him. I don't know if we have a clear biblical picture. I'm saying we. I don't know who's who's even listening to this, but it's easy to forget what true belief means. At the end of the Gospel of John, he says, All of these things are written that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Life in his name. Life is in his name. Life in his name, meaning life now, not just life later, life now. Belief in Jesus produces life now. And life does not come when you simply believe in the facts of the gospel. Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus rose, Jesus ascended, and he's coming back again. I believe that is true, and I can go about my day. We must learn to receive the Lord. We must receive the Lord. And here's the here's the thing. To receive the Lord, we have to move beyond understanding to true mystery and receiving in our spirits, receiving in our hearts a person, not just receiving in our mind facts about a person. It's a fairly simple analogy, but if if I only knew the facts about my wife, do I really know her? No, I don't. I have to receive her as a person. I have to spend time with her. I have to learn her habits, learn how she operates, learn what makes her tick. I have to spend time invested in in in in my relationship with her. It's the same thing with Jesus. But I think we boiled the gospel down to agree with this message, and then you're going to heaven when you die. And we've actually cheapened what Jesus actually offers, which is bread from heaven that leads to eternal life now, not just later. So to receive the Lord, we have to move beyond understanding into the mystery of God's presence, the mystery of the presence of Jesus Himself. In John 6. He goes through this progression of telling them that they're coming back for bread. These people, this large crowd, they're coming back to Jesus because he multiplied the bread. And Jesus is talking with them about, hey, you, you don't actually care about me or receiving me. All you want is more bread because you ate your fill. So don't work for food that perishes, but work for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you because the Father has placed his seal on him. What's Jesus saying? He's saying, like, hey, I have I have something that actually is better than what I gave you yesterday. Yesterday I gave you food that perishes, but today I'm telling you, there's a food I have that endures to eternal life. And they're like, yeah, give us that. What's the work that we must do? He says, believe in me. Believe in me, and you will have bread that lasts forever. And they're like, What? Believe in you? How's this possible? And Jesus moves from there, he moves all the way through this conversation and gets to the point where he says, The bread that I will give. For the life of the world is my flesh. I am the bread of life. So what is he saying? He's saying if you want this eternal life, it goes beyond simply understanding who I am. It goes to the point where you're receiving who I am. Understanding who Jesus is is being able to say, He's the Son of Man, He's the Son of God. Okay. Guess who also understands that? Demons. The demons understand who Jesus is better than most of us. They have great theology. Demons have really, really good theology when it comes to the person of Jesus. They just don't want you to know it. And so they'll lie about who he is. Anyways, that I could go on a tangent for hours about that. I don't want to. My point in saying is this. Do we have to go beyond understanding Jesus and we have to go to receive Jesus? And what does that mean? What does Jesus offer us? Does he offer us a bunch of facts about reality or does he offer us himself? He offers us himself. This is why he says, You must eat my body and drink my blood. What's he saying? He's saying, You receive my presence. My presence is revealed in my body and in my blood. When you come to receive my body and my blood, you'll become aware of my presence. Presence and truly feast on food that lasts. So to receive the Lord is moving beyond understanding him, to truly being okay with and resting in the mystery of his presence, that he came to earth and offers his bread, offers his blood as true food and true drink. This is what it means to receive the Lord. And I don't know if we've really learned how to do that. I would think I think we've learned how to. maybe extrapolate some facts from scripture about who Jesus is, but all of those facts about who Jesus is in the scriptures are meant to point us to a person that we encounter and walk with and abide in. and and that person is Jesus, and he's offered us his body and his blood. Now, John 6 is not necessarily talking about communion, although we can learn a lot about communion from John 6. John 6 is talking about how do I receive the Lord's presence? How do I receive the Lord's presence? That's the gospel. That's what it means to believe in him. To believe in him is to receive his presence, to feast on him. It's not just to say, I am I agree and understand with who Jesus is and what he's done. We have to move beyond that. We have to do that. There are there is a level of understanding. We have to move beyond that to the point of truly receiving him. So how do you do that? Okay. This is where prayer comes in. I talk about prayer a lot. and I I just gonna I'm gonna share with you two experiences that I've had that I think speak to. How do I receive the Lord? And I'm not perfect. I'm not the model. I'm sure there are people out there, I know there's people out there who are like sages and have way more experience and and maturity with the Lord. Like we like I need his mercy. I need Jesus. I need his mercy every day. So don't hear me say I'm like I've I'm beyond you or I'm super spiritual. That's that is not why I'm sharing these stories. I'm sharing these because I think the Lord has given them to me as a way of modeling and it kind of an as an example of what it means to to receive the Lord. Okay, so back in December of twenty twenty five, long story short, I ended up going to a Catholic chapel and it's called Adoration. And in Adoration, they've set up the bread of which is the body of Jesus, right? They I'm not going to get into all the theology. Catholics believe that the bread, which is called the host, is the actual body of Jesus, like his actual flesh. I don't believe that. I believe in the spirit it is his flesh. And you can only really receive it as flesh if you are in the spirit, not in the flesh. Holy smokes, I probably just opened a can of worms. But okay, so, anyways, I'm at this Catholic, Catholic chapel in adoration. I'm there for four hours, five hours. Again, Not saying I'm super spiritual, but I felt constrained by the Lord. I felt like the Lord had an encounter for me there. And I was gonna sit in that chair in that chapel, staring at this piece of bread until God showed up, right? So over the course of this time, I go from sitting to kneeling to laying, and then to moving close to the host, which was fixed in this box called the tabernacle at the front of the room. And I would I walked close to it and I I sat down and I I I was transfixed. On this piece of bread. Seriously, it was the craziest thing in the world because I'm looking at a piece of bread, and my theology says that this is important. But my practice and my experience says this is crazy. So I'm trying to meet in the middle. I'm trying to say, Lord, help me and teach me to feast on you. And then as I'm staring at this piece of bread, I remember what the name of the room is. It's called adoration, Eucharistic adoration. And then I just start to adore Jesus. For how precious his body is, that he offered it to me, that he was broken for me. And I just, I I begin to have tears in my eyes as I'm just adoring the Lord. And I'm just feasting on true food and I'm loving him. It's pure love. Like I have nothing else in my heart except for love for Jesus in that moment. Every other distraction, every other care, it faded. It didn't matter. Right there in that moment, it was me and the Lord. The moment I start crying, there's a woman to my right, she starts crying at the same time. And I'm staring at this piece of bread, and all of a sudden I see a face on it. I see a face on it. And I'm like, what is this? And I turn away, I turn back, I'm trying to discern it, and and the Lord's like, It's my face. And I I was staring at it and I thought, Wow, you know, this is amazing. And I'm just enjoying the moment and but I only noticed that that I could see one eye. I saw some facial hair, like a mustache going down to the chin a little bit. You know, not a full beard, but definitely some facial hair. and I saw two eyes, kind of shadowed, but but one of them I couldn't see. I couldn't see the eye. And I said, Lord, why can I only see one eye? And in my spirit I heard him say, because it's swollen shut. And it was in that moment that I like the broken body of Jesus, what he did for me on the cross became so real for me. And I thought, my word, you really did die for me. You really did give up your body and allow it to be crucified for me. God in the flesh. Died for me. Wow. And I just was like, you know, taken aback and just tears in my eyes, just loving Jesus because of how much he loved me. And I remember leaving that. I left that time and I was like, Jesus is so precious. And I actually have a a note, a note right here. I'm holding it in my hand. I wrote this, I came back to the church and I wrote this down immediately after. These were the initial thoughts. I said, number one, Jesus is coming back very soon. To love and adore Jesus is to feast on Jesus. Jesus is real. His presence is life. The only accurate picture of Jesus is him beaten and bloodied. Jesus is precious. To behold him is life and purpose, the end of all mankind. And at the bottom I wrote December 18th, 2025, Adoration, Reflections. I actually wrote that not too long ago. I because I was like, I want to remember what I wrote on this piece of paper and when. But it was December 18th, 2025. that was one of the first. That was a marking moment for me because it was in the mystery of the sacrament of the bread in which I encountered the living presence of Christ. And it reminded me of Luke 24, when they're on the road to Emmaus, these two disciples, and they're disappointed, and Jesus engages in conversation with them, opens the scriptures, and shows them how the Christ must suffer before he enters into his glory, and then moves on and Is about to pass by and their hearts are burning so hot that they're like, Hey, would you please stay with us? And he stays. And he goes in and he he becomes the host. Like he's being hosted. And then all of a sudden he's the one holding the bread at the table, breaking it and giving thanks for it. Jesus becomes the host. When at first he was the guest, he becomes the host. And what does he do? He gives thanks and he breaks the bread. And as soon as he breaks the bread, they recognized him as Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Messiah, the one that they had hoped would be the Savior of the world. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread and then he vanishes. Why does he vanish the moment the bread is broken? Because he wants everyone to recognize his living presence in the broken body that is the bread that we consume in communion. Jesus longs for you to encounter his presence in the sacrament, which means mystery of the body and the blood. This is powerful. He's given us bread as his flesh. How accessible is bread? I mean, this is the most accessible food you can find. It's the cheapest of the stuff. I mean, just bread is easy to find. Jesus has made himself so accessible in bread and wine. and that moment was like it brought my theology of the Eucharist and of communion to. to my practice. It was like theology and practice meeting in this moment of mystery where I can't understand it. I don't know how to tell you to encounter that. All I know to say is just receive him. Just receive the Lord. Receive his body, receive his blood on your behalf, just by faith. Come to him, lay hold of what he's done for you. Just receive it and believe in it and let his let his blood wash you of sin. Let his blood breathe fresh life into you. Like, like this is life. He's life. When he's when it says in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, it says he gave, not sent. Although it does say send later, but the first is he gave. What does that mean? He gave his son as the gift that will repair us, restore us, and return us back to God. He is the offering. Jesus is the offering of the Father on our behalf. And when we receive him with faith, he washes us clean and fills us with his Holy Spirit. This is such a mystery, guys. I can't give you a formula. Just receive him by faith. Receive that he loves you so much that nothing in your life can hinder him from coming into you and giving you life through his body and his blood. Like, come on, this is such good news. But I had another encounter last week. Again, I'm not saying this because I think you we should be seeking spiritual highs and these emotional highs. I I didn't even necessarily look for it, but I went back to adoration and I didn't necessarily see his face on the host, but I had the same encounter. Where I'm staring at this piece of bread and I'm like, I heard the Lord, as I'm looking at the bread, He says, This is my presence. This is my presence. What's his presence? My flesh. What I did for you on the cross isn't just a fact to understand. It's a reality to receive. I'm just looking at it. He said, This is, this is my presence. And it just clicked in me. And I remember that encounter I had back in December. And I first I repented. I said, Lord, I'm sorry if I've ever preached anything else other than your presence, Jesus. Other than you, Jesus. I'm sorry if I've ever preached anything other than you. And then secondly, I heard the Lord say later, later in the day, actually. He said, This is why I sent you to preach this, to preach me, my wounds, my presence. And I just was like so taken by it again. And I'm I'm working through it. I'm seeking to steward that revelation and receive it. But here's my point. What's my point? I'm gonna say this well, Holy Spirit help Who is the Lord? He is Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was crucified and is risen to new life. This that is the Lord. The one who appeared to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 in the burning bush is the Lord Jesus. How do I know? I'm just giving you context. Or not I'm I'm helping you see that this whole thing is about Jesus and not just Jesus, but about his crucifixion. When it says In in in Exodus chapter three, this is just a cool little nugget. It says Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush. Angel of the Lord. Okay. So what does Moses do? He turns aside. He notices that there's a burning bush, but it's not being consumed. So he's curious and he turns aside. And when he turns aside, then the Lord speaks to him. Without even knowing what's happening, Moses is responding to the presence of the Lord out of curiosity. And God notices that and then speaks and says, Moses, Moses. And Moses says, Who are you? He says, I am the God of Abraham. Wait, I thought it was the angel of the Lord appearing to him. But now he's saying, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Take off your sandals, for where you're standing is holy ground. So the angel of the Lord. is also the God of Abraham. Who is this? This is Jesus. Jesus is the angel of the Lord. This whole story is about Jesus. He's the one that appeared to Moses in the burning bush. He's the one that said, I will go and I will deliver my people. And he sends Moses to go do it. And what is that a picture of? It's a picture of Jesus entering the suffering and the slavery of humankind to redeem and deliver and bring us into a broad and good place, a land flowing with milk and Why did Jesus die? He died on that cross to deliver you from the waterless pit, that you might stand in a broad and good place and consume honey and milk for eternity. That is his presence. It's him. Jesus saved you to bring you where? To himself. He didn't save you. To set you on a journey of influence and being used by God. Although, are you going to be used by God? Yes, praise God. I hope you're used. But where does he take you? He takes you from the waterless pit, from slavery and from persecution and from darkness and despair. And he delivers you and brings you to himself. To himself. Where do they go? They go from, Moses goes from the burning bush. He goes to Mount Sinai that's on fire with his presence. Moses is leading them back to the place he encountered them, the fire of God, the angel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Lord Himself. This is where they're headed, not to any other place except for the presence of Almighty God on the earth. This is where God is leading them. And I believe this is why Jesus died. He died on a cross to bring you to his presence, to himself, that we would be a people who learn to abide in his presence. How do we abide in his presence? By feasting on his flesh and drinking his blood. Daily and consuming him daily, which is what it means to believe in him. So there's an application. Here's the application. Receive the Lord today. well, but what about this thing that I did? he has a provision for that. His flesh. what about this sin that I committed and there's no way he'll ever forgive me? Look at all these things that I've done. Receive the Lord. His grace is enough. There's a stripe for that on his body, on his flesh. There's a stripe for that. Receive the Lord. I can't, I couldn't possibly receive the Lord. Swallow your pride. Receive the Lord. Humble yourself. Receive His sacrifice for you and find life eternal today. It's a powerful, amazing message. This is the Lord Jesus. He loves you. He has an amazing plan for you. Yes, he wants to use you, but first you have to consume him. Receive the Lord today. Receive the Lord tomorrow. Receive the Lord the next day, receive the Lord the next day, and He is your daily bread. Maybe next time I'll talk about, all right, how do you receive the Lord? You gotta move beyond understanding to the mystery. the mystery of the sacrament, the mystery of his presence. but I'll give you a little teaser. maybe next week I'll talk about this. I need to take a note so I don't forget, but you receive the Lord in the place of prayer. And the place of prayer which is not just a discipline, but it's the it's it's the space we go to truly allow the Lord to strip us of every other desire, every other love. So that all that's left over is love for Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, okay, cool. hope you're encouraged. Share this with somebody. Come visit us at church on Saturday night. Would love to see you. God bless you guys. Have a great week.