I Am The Bread Of Life

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Introduction

I want to start today with one additional announcement. This has to do with the building we were hoping to get into on Main Street. Unfortunately, we found out that the building just went under contract to be sold to another church. We weren’t given the option to buy the building. I can imagine that some of you, like myself and the elders, may be disappointed in hearing this news.

I want to offer to you what the Lord has been speaking to me recently. A few weeks ago, the Lord highlighted Psalm 131 to me. It’s a short Psalm and it’s message is simple…be content. He highlighted this verse to me during Souly and I actually read it out to the men at the conference and then during that same week, those verses appeared in my devotional.

Fast forward to this week and the Lord has done it again. Last Sunday I read out Psalm 130, which has a theme of “waiting” on the Lord. It says twice, the my soul waits for you like the watchmen wait for the morning. This was highlighted to me again this week in my devotional. Funny how God works, isn’t it? And when you put these two things together, here’s what I think the Lord is saying.

I think he is saying be content. Too many of us are never content. We are constantly striving and looking for better things. The grass is seldom greener on the other side. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that when talking about that other building that they believed we would grow tremendously when we went to that other space. I understood their sentiment. But I just want to point out how much we’ve grown already. God has been good to us. When I arrived at this church there were only about 30 people total coming here. We doubled the children’s ministry my first Sunday. There were four kids here that Sunday and our four showed up, we doubled it.

And let me remind you that true growth is not numerical, it’s quality over quantity. We’ve seen people grow up spiritually over the past four years and that’s much more important than whether we can fill a room. We aren’t building a country club for Jesus, He is building his church and he does that on his time not ours. Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.

Secondly, I think he is saying “wait.” Wait on the Lord. When we wait on Him to build the house, it will be much better than us trying to birth an Ishmael in our own strength. I know a lot of churches in big buildings that are sickly. Many of them are churches in name only. They don’t represent Jesus and are most certainly nothing more than a country club. We don’t want that. We want him and if he doesn’t go with us, they we won’t depart from this place.

Now, as far as disappointment goes, Jesus and the disciples knew a lot about that. In fact, if we hunger for anything other than Jesus, we are going to be disappointed. When we fill ourselves with anything other than the bread of life, we will be disappointed. Let’s make sure we are hungry for God.

Speaking of which, we are continuing our series on the “I Am” statements of Jesus found in the gospel of John and today we are going to look at John 6, where Jesus proclaims himself to the Bread of Life. Let’s read together.

John 6:22–36 ESV

On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work 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.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said 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.’ ” 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.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

Now this is a beautiful passage and the story continues on well past verse 36, where we will stop this morning, so I encourage you to read out the rest of this passage, it’s got a lot of good nuggets in it. Here’s what I want to do with this passage today. I want to encourage you. I want you to see that Jesus simply invites us to come, no matter what our motives or expectations are.

When I look at this passage I see this an overarching narrative here. I see three stages in the Christian experience. Three ways that we come to Jesus. We all come to Jesus from different backgrounds and for different reasons. But in today’s passage, I see three ways that we come to him. The first two are good, but the last one is better.

I’m also going to refer to these three ways as stages. In other words, we typically start off in stage 1 when we come to him and our goal should be to progress through stage 2 and arrive at stage 3. The first two stages are meant to be passed through, not destinations. I think you will see this as we go through this. I am convinced though, that most people will go through all three stages in some form or fashion.

You Come For Provision

When we first come to Jesus, most of us come because he meets a need. I know for me, I came to Jesus initially trying to get rid of my sin and shame. He was the provision for me. He took my sin and shame and provided his righteousness. Some of you may feel the same. Or perhaps you came for healing and he gave you that. Perhaps you came because you were down to your last dollar and had no where else to turn. He was there for you.

People have said, “you just use God as a crutch.” And that is true for most people at first. They come to Jesus, they come to God, because he meets a need for them. Look at our passage.

This is the context. Jesus at the beginning of John 6 feeds the 5000. He takes two fishes and five loaves and miraculously feeds 5000 people, not counting women and children. This is a public miracle, witnessed by all of these people. So you can imagine there is a groundswell of revival in the air. Jesus perceives they were getting ready to take him by force and make him their king in verse 15, withdraws to the mountain by himself.

Notice that. We don’t think like Jesus. Jesus obviously doesn’t understand church growth strategies. He just pulled off this great miracle and the crowd is ecstatic. He needs to channel that energy into a building a bigger following. Jesus, you could have had 10,000 people showing up next week if you would have just stuck to the plan. Jesus doesn’t. At the height of his popularity, he withdraws to be alone. He’s not seeking popularity. He’s seeking his father. In fact, by the end of this chapter, even the 12 disciples are saying, man you preach hard words. Jesus asks them, are you going to leave to? Jesus doesn’t even try to talk them into staying. Jesus laughs at church growth strategies. He wants faithful followers, dedicated disciples, not a church full of consumers.

After Jesus feeds the 5000, we get to the story of the disciples crossing the sea and Jesus walking on the water. So that’s the context, we pick up the story on the next day. The crowd is searching for Jesus and they figure out he’s got to be on the other side of the sea. So they go over there looking for him. And here’s the first clue we get as to why the crowd is seeking him. Jesus says in John 6:26 “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

In other words, Jesus says. You are seeking me because I met your needs. In fact, Jesus has met their most basic need. One of our most basic needs is food. These folks didn’t have Bojangles and Chic-Fil-A. It was much harder for them to get food, so when he feeds them, they see an even great importance in it. They recognize him as a provider.

In fact this is one of God’s identities. He is our provider. Jehovah-Jireh, Our God Our Provider. That is who he is. So when we come to Him and we expect him to meet our needs, that is normal. There is nothing wrong with that. We come with expectations.

The Bread of Life Meets Our Needs

Notice in our passage Jesus isn’t rebuking them. He’s stating the facts. You are searching for me because I met your needs. You ate your fill and now you are hungry again. Jesus is pointing out the obvious. When it comes to God meeting your need for food, you will become hungry again. After a few hours, that tummy is gonna start growling again. Unless your one of my children and you are hungry again just as soon as you are done eating.

So Jesus has met a need and they have come to him. This is the most basic way everyone comes to Jesus. We have a need and He meets it. Think about it. Our biggest need is the sin problem. We were sinners. Lost. In need of salvation. Jesus died on a cross to free us from sin and shame. He sets us free. That’s our biggest need and not only does he meet it, he exceeds our need in every way.

But we also come to him in prayer about many of our needs. Lord, I need money to pay the bills this month. Lord, I need food or health or friends or a spouse or a fill-in-the blank. We have lots of needs so we come to him. We present those needs to him.

What are you looking for today? What do you need? Listen, Jesus will meet your needs. Now, he might not meet them the way that you expect. He might not meet them in the manner that you are looking for, but I can assure you I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or his people begging for bread (Psalm 37:25)

So that’s the first stage, let’s move on.

You Come To Serve

Jesus in our passage switches from responding to the people to teaching the people in verse 27. He says do not work for food that perishes. In other words, the food you are working hard to get has to be more than temporal. You need something that will last. You need eternal food because you will get hungry again. He puts it this way, I’m paraphrasing, “work for eternal food, which the Son of Man will give to you.”

He doesn’t tell them to stop working, he tells them to change their goals. I’ve said this before, but I’m certain most of us in this room have the wrong view of success. We are working for the wrong goals. Our goal might be financial prosperity or moral children or bodily health. Those are all good things, but they are not success. Those things are fleeting.

Eternal Bread Is Worth The Work

When you die, it won’t matter what your bodily health was. It won’t matter how much money you had in the bank and it won’t matter if your kids know right and wrong. What will matter is did you labor for eternal food. Did you seek to serve the King or did you rebel against him? Did you come to Him with a heart of service?

Here Jesus is saying, let what you are working for be things of eternal value. Here’s what I think Jesus recognizes. Most of us will work no matter what. We are hard workers. Always trying to do something. He’s saying simply, make sure what you are working for is that which will last. In other words...

Matthew 6:19–21 ESV

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus says that we should work for eternal food. And naturally the people have a question. “What must we do?” in verse 28. Ok, what do we do Lord? What does it look like to work for eternal food?

John 6:29 “Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Oh wow. The work of God is believing in Jesus. This is not what I expected. Where’s the list Jesus? Now the people start to question him. Who do you think you are, what sign do you do? Which I think this is a funny question considering they witnessed the sign. The sign was the feeding of 5000. They have already forgotten that and are looking for him to do his next trick.

They say, Moses fed us manna in the wilderness. In other words, Moses fed us for years, you fed us for a day. How are you greater than Moses? And Jesus corrects them. It wasn’t Moses. It was my Father. And he is offering you bread right now that gives life to the world. He’s offering bread that doesn’t rot after a day. He’s offering bread that you don’t have to work for. He’s offering bread that’s eternal.

And they answer with one of the best lines ever in verse 34. Sir, give us this bread always. This leads us to our next point in how we come to Jesus.

You Come Hungry

When you come to Jesus, there must be a hunger inside of you. Now let me be clear, I don’t think this is a hunger for more provision. Jesus has already addressed that in this passage. This isn’t about a hunger to serve either. He’s already told them that our work is to believe in Him, that’s hardly manual labor.

No, I believe when we come with the best motives, we come hungry for Him. Just Him. Not for his provision, not for his atta-boy, not for his promises, but simply for Him. When we have that hunger, that’s when we will get satisfied. He says “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Those are both in future tense, in other words, you have to hunger for Him and once you do, you will be satisfied. You won’t long for something else. You won’t thirst for something that won’t satisfy? Why? because you will be filled with Jesus. You will be satisfied in Him. Not in what he does for you, not in just the sweet by and by, but right here, right now, when he is your bread, you will be satisfied.

Eternal Bread Satisfies The Hungry

Our most basic need is actually not food. It’s Him. It’s Him. He is our most basic need. He’s everything. If we have Him, we don’t need anything else. Now the problem with what I’m saying is, most church folk don’t see Jesus as the reward. We see heaven, we see healing, we see salvation, we see all the other promises as the goal, but we don’t see Him as the goal.

And what happens is, he meets those needs. He is our provider. And we become complacent. Our desires have waned. We don’t really desire him anymore because we got what we needed.

Religious complacency is encountered almost everywhere among Christians these days, and its presence is a sign and a prophecy. For every Christian will become at last what his desires have made him. We are all the sum total of our hungers.

A. W. Tozer

Tozer gets it! What are you hungering for? You want to see another sign? You want another miracle? You want the holy goosebumps? What are you searching for? If it’s anything, even good things, if it’s anything other than Him, you are searching for the wrong things!

Our greatest desires form us into the person we are. In other words, whatever is the greatest desire in your life right now, that desire is forming you into something or someone that you may not want to be. So what does all of this mean? It means we need to tune our hearts to a different song. Our heart’s desire must be for Him.

Four Ways We Hunger For Bread

Prayer

Fasting

Time in His Presence

If there is a man anywhere who is hungering for God and is not filled, then the Word of God is broken. We are as full as we want to be.

A. W. Tozer

Communion

Finally, number 4. I believe this includes communion. Jesus in this chapter, if you read verses 53-58 is most assuredly talking about communion. He says that we must feed on his flesh and drink his blood if we want eternal life. After saying this, many of his disciples heard this and they said it’s a hard saying and they began to leave him. They were disappointed. Many of us can relate to that disappointment. Maybe you are disappointed with the news of the building. Maybe you are disappointed with this sermon. Maybe you are disappointed with life. I don’t know.

The answer though is to come to Jesus. Hunger for Him. Feast on Him. Today, I’m going to invite you to the table. He promises that it’s the Spirit who gives life. So as we come, lay your disappointments at the feet of Jesus and ask for Him to feed you with his words and spirit that brings life.