I Am the Bread of Life

Please have a seat. Welcome those joining us online. We're moving into a brief summer series on these so called I am sayings of the Lord Jesus and the Gospels. And one British theologian said, these I am sayings are like miniature gospels because in just one picture, one image, there's an understanding of who Christ is and the role that he plays in, in our salvation. It's uniquely condensed in just one image.

Jesus in these pictures declares who he is, what he wants to be for us as disciples, and how we should understand him in his role.

Yeah, and today we're going to talk about Jesus, that he is the bread of life as the. The first of these seven I am sayings in the Gospel of Jesus John. And here in the scripture reading, you got the context of this long discourse that he has with Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum. But it's the occasion of this feeding of these people at the shore of the Sea of Galilee after a long winter season with much rain. There was a lot of green grass, it says in the Gospel, and people were just walking like along the shore to meet Jesus, where he was on the other side of the lake with his disciples.

It was Passover time, as we have heard here in the spring. And then we hear that Jesus fed like 5,000 men at the same time with these five barley loaves and two fish. There were also children included women. So maybe 15,000 to 20,000 people fed by Jesus in this spectacular manner. And then we hear that they immediately want to make him king.

They wanted to just take hold of him, exalt him, put him in charge so that he would reign over God's people of Israel. And Jesus withdraws immediately from them. Interesting question here before we go into this long discourse in John chapter 6. Why is Jesus here doing exactly that, what he was tempted with by Satan in the wilderness? Do something spectacular, throw yourself off the temple and angels will carry you down, and you will immediately win the crowd over and be exalted as their king.

That was a temptation by Satan in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. And and now Jesus seems to be doing exactly that. He's doing something very spectacular, feeding like thousands of people with minimal food. And it has the same exact consequence. They won't immediately recognize him as the One, as the one who has power, supernatural power, and they want to exalt him as their King of Israel.

So why is Jesus actually doing this at this point in his ministry? To do the spectacular and receive this kind of response from the people and then withdraws from them so that they would not put him in place as king. But we see, we'll see in this discourse here that this is actually a very important moment in the Gospels where Jesus fulfills what has been foreshadowed in the time of the wilderness of Israel. In the Exodus, when God miraculously fed the people with manna from heaven. And there was this mediator, Moses, in the wilderness with them, hearing from God, communicating God's will to them.

And here we see Jesus as the second Moses, or what is often called the prophet. People wonder, is this Jesus the prophet? That's exactly this second Moses that Moses talked about like, after me there will be another prophet. Listen to this person. This was a unique sign that Jesus does not repeats one more time with the 4000.

But it was in this sense unique that in this spectacular manner he revealed his true identity. It was meant as a sign that to point people out to the fulfillment of Old Testament expectations. Also, just a side note, it's interesting that it says here that Jesus ordered them to gather the leftovers. And I think it already implies he wants to say, guys, from now on we're going back to normal. Don't expect me to feed you every time in a supernatural manner through bread from heaven.

No, now we go back to normal and you eat what you have worked for, just ordinary bread, ordinary stuff. Don't expect this to happen on a regular basis. This is just meant as a sign for you that should point you in the right direction. Today we want to talk about this long, long discourse in John chapter 6 where Jesus then unpacks actually the meaning of this miracle of the bread. So on Today we want to ask ourselves, why is this sign in John 6 also important for us?

And why it's important to understand the meaning of the sign for us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Gospels. We thank you that you speak to us in human way, human language, that we have events here that have taken place in the history of mankind. And we see the fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament.

Or we, we see Jesus exalted. We see Jesus giving proof, evidence that he is the one sent from the Father, the one coming from heaven, Lord. And we ask that you would open our hearts today that will receive the meaning for us to what he means to us, for us. Well, please help us to grasp the truth in this long passage in Jesus name. Amen.

Yeah, it's actually another sign happening right after he fed the 5,000. Remember, the disciples get into the boat. He stays on the other side of the shore. They make it over to Capernaum, their base, and Jesus later comes to them walking on the water. That's actually another sign.

And the people recognize that, hey, the last boat had left without Jesus. And now we find him here in Capernaum, on the other side. How was he able to. To get here before us when he was not in the last boat that was leaving on the other side of the shore? So there was actually another sign that maybe people were wondering, what is happening here?

What's going on? So now people are in a synagogue at Capharnam, a meeting place for people who would probably call themselves religious, people who are interested in the law of Moses. Some Pharisees were surely present in this long discourse here that we read about. So they asked Jesus, rabbi, when did you come here? We haven't seen you departing.

How did you. And when did you make it over here? And then in John 6, we start our passage today. 6, verse 26, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you. You are seeking me because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.

One commentator, Ruder Bose, a Dutch theologian, he says, this is utterly utter negativity of Jesus here. Just imagine the sacrifice of the people that they had made to just be with Jesus. They had really labored to be with him and to hear his teaching and to get to learn more about Jesus. But it's utter negativity. The response of Jesus to their question, it seems, why did you or when did you come here?

And just let's think for a moment about they had really labored to be with Jesus. No, as we said, they walked from one side of the lake with their maybe families over to the other side of the lake of Sea of Galilee where Jesus was with his disciples. There were no Dixie toilets like today. Maybe there were no mobile snack bars, people offering a cold drink. I don't even know how they managed to do this with the number of people.

For hours being there. People sacrificed the income for one day. They quit working for that day just to be with Jesus. They took their children with them, young, older children. Not easy.

It was really a lot of labor just to be with Jesus. But that's so. And sounds so negative from Jesus. You know what? Do not labor for the food that perishes you.

You come to me now not because of the True thing, the sign. But because you want to be fed in this materialistic sense.

Yeah. The word here, labor actually in Greek means to earn through work or to labor for certain outcome. They labor to see Jesus but he wants them to invest themselves to labor to work for a better outcome, a better result, better reward of their labor.

And I think Jesus utterly negative here because he sees the materialistic perspective of these people. They're excited about him, they want to even make him king. But Jesus to them is only just a means to their own end. They want to fulfill their own desires by putting him in a place of authority.

But they want to turn him into a king that was shaped entirely according to their own ideas. A king who would serve their own dreams of a good life. A Puritan writer once said self love is king in the unregenerate heart. That's the normal person with that has not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. We are sitting on the throne of our lives.

It's this self love that is king. And Jesus for these people is just a means to their own selfish ends. And it's hard not to think of the prosperity gospel in our days that deceives millions of people. People think they are Christians that gather in churches. They're actually only following their own dreams and we're only using Jesus to, to reach, to reach their own desires.

They turn Christ the true king into the. They mold him into their own kind of selfish image. What a deception. The satanic deception. People think this is good news, this is a good life, that this is what it means to be a Christian.

But their main interest is not Jesus and what he really brings to us. It's. It's just their own natural desires. They are still sitting on the throne in their lives. Jesus addresses here short sightedness.

It's just don't labor for this food that perishes. There's this one moment of exhilaration, one moment if you feel full, it's a good feeling, you're excited, it feels satisfactory, but only lasts for a moment and you have to go on for the next meal. Don't labor, don't make this the main focus in your life. This kind of short term satisfaction. Labor for the true food that endures to eternal life.

And that words goes back to the signs. Jesus gave them the sign of the feeding them in this supernatural way so that they would wonder about his true identity. And then they would look back to the Old Testament prophecies in the scripture and figure out that this is the, the prophet, this is the Moses, this is the one who gives them the true mana, the true bread of life, the food that endures, imperishable food, food that will always feed us, not only in this life on earth, but even beyond death.

And then at the end of this, these few verses, he says that. That God the Father has set his seal on Jesus, the one who was sent. And all these signs in the Gospel of John, they want to point to Jesus as the one who has the stamp of God, the approval of God, who is the fulfillment of the prophecies. He's the One. And through him, God acted on our behalf for our salvation.

And the ultimate sign, of course, is his resurrection. Then on Easter Sunday, as the ultimate sign that he had the authority, the stamp of God on his life to. To redeem God's people.

So Jesus talks about work, about labor, labor for this food that is imperishable. Verse 28. Then they said to him, you know, what must we do to be doing the works of God? What kind of labor do you expect us to do? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he had sent.

This is kind of the key verse in the whole discourse here. When we talk about eating the flesh, drinking the blood. It's about believing in him, believing in his true identity, that he was sent from God for a very specific purpose, that he had come down from heaven. And he will mention that later. And people, people clearly understand that Jesus claims to have been sent by God and that he expects that people would believe in him as the one who was sent by God.

So in verse 30, then they say to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat. And I would say this is the attitude of unbelief.

Jesus had just given him a spectacular sign, like proof that he has God's authority on his life, on his ministry. But in the eyes of an unbelieving heart, this is not enough. No sign will ever be enough.

Jesus only gave them normal bread. He multiplied the bread, the loaves of barley bread, in a supernatural way, but it was still ordinary bread that he provided for them. So they think of Moses and the manna in the wilderness, bread from heaven. Or in Psalm 78, like bread of the angels, angelic, heavenly bread. Bread that had everything in it to sustain people that didn't eat any other food, that was able to sustain them for 40 years in the wilderness.

So Jesus fell short. He just provided this ordinary bread in the spectacular manner, but still ordinary bread. So they expect him to, to provide heavenly bread like Moses did in the time of the Exodus. Actually the rabbis at this time, they expected the Messiah then or the prophet to really bring this heavenly bread on a permanent basis to the people to provide that heavenly food.

Continues here, this going back and forth between Jesus and the mixed crowd in the synagogue. Verse 32. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. People, you have a deep misunderstanding if you think that Moses was the one with his power to provide this food that you needed.

No, it was the same God was the Father who provided the manna in the wilderness. And it is the same God, it's the Father who now provides his Son the food that nourishes us eternally sustains us.

So also interesting, he says here, the bread of God is he. No, it's not a thing. It's not just bread, the bread of God that is life giving in an eternal sense. It's a person. It's he who comes down from heaven, a person who has been.

Had been in heaven and then comes down to us to give life to the world. Also fascinating. Doesn't say like to give life to the Israelites, to Abraham's children. No, this bread is not manna for the Israelites. It's manna for the entire world.

It gives life to everyone.

Verse 34. They said to him, sir, give us this bread always.

It was probably a mixed crowd and that I think most people had a real desire, genuine desire. Yeah, that's we need this bread and we want to have it always. This true bread, please give it to us. And there are probably some Pharisees also mixed in here with, with say yeah, we need some more proof, Jesus, that you are this prophet. He ascend from God.

But here, the first time like Jesus makes this I am statement, as we said, it's about a person. The bread is a person. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. And whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Here it's a kind of a parallelism. Coming is like believing, thirsting, having thirst, hunger, coming, believing. If you believe, you come to Jesus so that he will provide the bread. I had to think of the beatitudes in Matthew 5. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

It doesn't say, blessed are those who hunger for material stuff, to have more, to have a better life. But blessed are those who are poor, probably those who hunger for God's righteousness, who recognize that they are beggars, bankrupt spiritually.

It's those who feel the burden of their sin, their transgression of God's law. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And Jesus came to offer us to provide exactly that righteousness as we will see and as the discourse goes on. Verse 41. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I'm the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? So unbelief, despite of the sign that he gave the proof, Jesus doesn't respond to his birth narratives. It doesn't help him this way. He just points always to the signs that he is performing.

But this attitude of unbelief, this we know this guy is one of us here. It's a simple carpenter from Nazareth to Galilee. And how can he now say that he came down from heaven?

Verse 43. Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God.

Isaiah. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me could say, believes in me. Comes, comes to faith in me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father.

He basically says, for natural man, it's in our own capacity. It's impossible to come to Jesus. No one can come to Jesus by ordinary means. It always takes God's grace, God's Spirit to bring us. It takes God's will to bring us to Jesus.

So Jesus has seen the Father. He says he does not misrepresent God the Father. When we look at Jesus, we see an exact imprint of God and his nature. And he communicates God's will without corruption to us. God's will also how we can be saved.

So it's through being taught by the Father we actually come to Jesus and come to faith in him.

How can Jesus then be bread and give life? Verse 47. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

It was perishable food for A certain season and they died. It didn't sustain them eternally. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, contrasting earthly bread, or here normal bread, with this new bread so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread, not perishable bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is the first time in this discourse that Jesus moves on from talking about him being the bread to actually talking about his flesh. He gives his flesh for the life of the world.

And I think with this expression of his flesh, flesh is here an expression of his utter humanity that he really, that the word became flesh, as it says in John. The one who was in heaven, who was with the Father, was of the same essence as the Father. He. He took on human form and became one of us. And the word here stresses the utter humanity of Christ.

He gave his humanity, he gave us. He poured out his life as a another human being, as a living sacrifice for us on the cross, as he represents us in his death as a sin offering for God. But the people don't understand probably that was critical about Jesus. Like the Pharisees pressed in on Jesus follows, how can he believe this guy? How is it possible to make sense of this crazy stuff he's saying?

It says verse 52. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Basically, you are still dead. That's your natural condition.

You're spiritually dead. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

Yeah, Jesus changes here the Greek word for eating. It's a more vulgar term here for eating. More like meaning like really biting, chewing, very realistic word. When he says feed those who feed on my flesh, it's really in also present tense. It's an ongoing, irregular, repeated biting chewing of Jesus chewing on this bread that gives us eternal life.

Unless you eat this, chew on it. Unless you really what it means to believe Jesus and live in a relationship with him, you will still remain dead. That drastic language, which that probably even shocked them more than before. You have to chew on my flesh. Don't you have to even now drink my blood?

What kind of pagan like ritual is this? He continues then, for my flesh is true food and my Blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him, as the living Father sent me. And I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

So there's no life in us. We all die. We are spiritually dead. But by believing in the one God sent, believing in his, that he, the God, the God man who came into the flesh to die for us as a human being, to take upon himself our sin by believing in this Jesus, he becomes the bread of life for us eternally. It's faith in his sacrifice on the cross as the God man who was at the same time fully divine, fully God, so that he was sinless and that he was also fully human, so that he could represent us in his death on the cross.

Die for your sins. For my sins. The only way to get back to God. We'll just briefly talk about the Catholic understanding of this John 6 passage. And yeah, there are some Catholic and Orthodox faith has become extremely popular again among young men.

I just talked to Jonathan yesterday by people in my own family, people that have been part of Crossway, that have departed from our understanding to a Orthodox understanding of also a communion or the Lord's Supper. So let's briefly talk about the Catholic Eucharist and the Catholic understanding of Communion, which then flows out of John 6. Actually the Eucharist and the. Is really this the central component, the center of the. The Catholic holiness.

And in their understanding, partaking in the sacraments, so also partaking in communion. The Eucharist is necessary for salvation, necessary to receive eternal life. And these sacraments, they function ex opera operato. They take effect merely by being carried out as the priest performs this ritual in the mess. But they automatically have an effect on the people.

So through the prayer of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit, the underlying substance of bread and wine is changed then in their understanding into the body and the blood of Christ, while the physical appearance remains the same. That's why they would worship this bread of the mess and bow down before the bread and maybe carry it in the procession through their city because the body of Christ has changed substance.

They also think that this Eucharist is spiritual nourishment. Just as physical food sustains the body, communion is believed to. To sustain the soul, to deepen the believer's union with Jesus and even forgive less serious sins. And through the sacrament, the Church offers actually a sacrifice. And the New Testament says that the ultimate sacrifice has already been accomplished through the death of Jesus.

So every week, basically, they sacrifice Jesus again. And their main argument would be probably John 6. Isn't this what Jesus says, if you don't drink my blood and eat my flesh? And the church fathers even point interpret these, this passage, John 6 to say Sim in a similar way. So the church fathers, church councils, church practice, all points that this is the true understanding of what Jesus means in John chapter 6:6.

But here, as good Protestants, we also believe in sola scriptura. The Bible always needs to remain the ultimate standard of our beliefs. Context matters. When Jesus talks about eating flesh, drinking blood, context matters. What is the Context of John 6?

Believing in him, the one who was sent by God, who is from heaven, who took on flesh, believing in him, coming to the one who was sent to God. That's the context here. We cannot import ideas that have developed in church history that contradict Scripture sola scriptura that determines our understanding of John 6. It is faith in Jesus Christ that feeds us and gives us eternal life, not partaking in the Lord's Supper. A German commentator, Werner DeBoer, I think he said it well.

John chapter six does not attest to the Lord's Supper. It's not that John lays out a doctrine of communion here, but every Lord's Supper attests to John 6. I think it's well said. Whenever we celebrate communion, we, yeah, think, yeah, that's exactly what Jesus is there for. He came as the bread of life.

His blood really forgives sins. We, we eat and drink and we proclaim his death.

I want to end with this. Just some application here, maybe a personal question. What do you work for? What do you labor for in life? What's your main focus, your main goal?

What do you expect as an outcome from your life? I once talked to a family member and she talked about faith Christianity and she asked me the question, what's in it for me? Yeah, what? What's in it for me? As if this whole religion thing is a business transaction.

Yeah. If I have to live the life of a Christian with some restrictions, then there must be something in it for me. Complete misunderstanding of where she is before a holy God, the Creator and how to deal with her sin and the coming judgment. What's in it for me?

This question is lacking so much awareness and perspective. It's a man centered perspective. In the end, God is serving you, helping you to reach your goals. It's not about surrendering your plans, your desires, your dreams and plans to God and to his kingdom. And the gospel then becomes a side note in the preaching.

If the God, the prosperity gospel, is what brings people in and keeps them in the church, then the gospel becomes a side note and sin is barely mentioned anymore. Because what drives attendance, what drives the growth of the church? It's a man centered gospel. In the end, what do you work for?

Is the promise of eternal life motivation for you to follow Jesus? He says, I give you eternal life. Or Parallel In John 4, he talks about this life giving water that is flowing into eternity.

So is this promise of eternal life motivation for you to follow Christ wholeheartedly and to eagerly wait for his coming? I have a photo here of our two dogs here. And it was a challenging time for me. My wife just left for almost two months. We just adopted these dogs and they basically had no trust in me.

Whenever I showed up on the scenery, the little one would just freak out. The guy with the beard, scary. And then sparked like crazy. Barkasetov probably bothering our neighbors a lot. And it took me weeks really to earn the trust of these two dogs.

They would just not bark or run away or hide.

But I really had a big problem to get the dog inside of the house in the evening. And I probably could have done it for hours to just open the door, ask to come in, and then we take a step in and then no getting scared, moving out. This could happen for hours. But what always worked, really, and what still was to trick today, even to leave home, to be able to shut the living room door, to get out of the house, to put a tray with food in the center of the entry room. And they immediately overcame their fear.

They immediately put aside everything else to just get that food. And that was the moment. This, actually this before I left today to make it to church. I think it's a good illustration here that there's eternal life. That should be a great motivator for you, could be a great motivator for us to really be diligent in following Jesus and longing for his coming, for this eternal life that we have in him, to believe in Him.

As we said, it's an ongoing, repetitive activity to remain in close fellowship with him as the bread of life. So what do you labor for? What do you long for? Is eternity even an important category for you in your daily life? Do you think about eternity often?

And do you put things in the right, in the eternal perspective? Suffering, success, pain? Do you put it in the category? Do you See it in the category of the eternal, the life giving bread.

Are you certain that you have eternal life? That's maybe the most important question. Are you certain? Do you have a complete assurance that you have this eternal life that Jesus is talking about? Or are you still without life?

And we have seen in this passage here three times he talks about the will of God. It's all the will of God. It's God who takes the initiative actually to draw people to Christ, that they come to him by faith and God opens their eyes and they see him as he who he really is. It's also God's saving power to save us in Christ through his covenant, through his sacrifice, and to keep us safe eternally.

And the fact that you have faith and that you see the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life testifies about your salvation and your adoption as a child of God, your Father in heaven. Rest in this assurance, Christians.

And if you maybe are still searching, if you reject this Christian message, then maybe just draw close to him while he is near. In this Isaiah passage, while God is near, draw close to him, search for him, maybe pray to him, ask him to reveal himself in your life. Maybe the time will pass and the door will shut. It's not by accident that you are here today in the service here exactly this passage of John 6, that Jesus the bread of life. Don't let this time pass.

Ask God to reveal himself, to let his word convict you of your sin and your need for forgiveness, deliverance from God's judgment. John himself gives us the purpose of his book. In John 20:30, he says, Jesus did so many signs in the presence of his disciples, they couldn't be contained in one book. But he says, but these signs that he presents us here are written so that you may believe. So after the feeding of the 5,000 is meant for you.

That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

I want to ask the worship team to come forward and I'm going to pray with us.

Lord Jesus, we thank you so much for your willingness to leave the place in heaven, to take on human form, to live a lowly life, to walk dusty streets, to feel the rejection of your fellow Israelites, to be completely misunderstood and rejected by most people. Lord, we thank you that this word speaks still to us today and still offers us life, offering us the bread of life, which is you. Lord, I thank you that for those who could trust in this message, who came to faith in you as our Savior. The bread of life. And I lift up all those who are still asking themselves if this is true, all those who may have a longing, a curiosity, those who have maybe written off Christianity altogether.

I ask that you would reveal yourself to them, that you would draw them to your son, Jesus Christ, and to the life that we have in him. Well, please accept this final song as our worship act of thanksgiving to you, Lord. You are worthy of our praises. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Yeah, if you're new here and you want to talk about this, what we talked about today, just. I will be here in the front pews. Just would love to talk to you, maybe pray with you and yeah, just talk about what Jesus means to every one of us. We have refreshments in the cafeteria. Grab something nice to drink, to eat.

Use the garden here outside. It's beautiful. Not too, too hot today. I want to dismiss us with this benediction here. Our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. You are dismissed. Have a good week.