Date: March 19, 2023

Bible Text: Matthew 18:12-22, John 15:9-17 |

Series:

This is the fourth Sunday in Lent, the season of preparation for the feast of Easter and the Resurrection of the Lord. Lent is traditionally a time of self-reflection and other spiritual disciplines like fasting, prayer, study, generosity, and so on. All of this is to focus our attention on Jesus Christ and our living relationship with him.

We are continuing a sermon series for these six weeks on Jesus' claim to be the Bread of Life. Because he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, we take this claim seriously and believe that he can satisfy all manner of human hunger.

So far we have considered hunger of body (food), mind (wisdom), and spirit (peace). This week we move outside ourselves a bit with hunger for love and relationships. As with the others, this is a universal human need, to love and to be loved. While we throw the word love around a good bit and use it regularly to talk about God, Christ, and hopefully the church, we'll take a little closer look at why it's such a strong longing in us and how Jesus can satisfy us even when others can't.

The texts this week touch on what happens when relationships get in trouble (Matthew 18) and how Jesus intended for his disciples to model their behavior on his (John 15).

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