GCT “I am” Series Week 1/ I am the Bread of Life

Think more Spiritual

The Significance of “I am”

Question: If you could create a statement about yourself what would it be?

Purpose: Everything is rushed and it’s virtually impossible to have deep meaning and intent behind every word, consider the best books and the best songs for example.

Truth about Jesus: When Jesus spoke, He meant every word he said with intentionality. Unlike anybody past or present in this world, He never intended to mess with people, He never lived to make a profit, He never lived to incite people’s interest or entertain them, He lived and died and rose again to flip the world on its head and reveal ultimate truths.

Jesus’s 7 I am statements,

1. I am the Bread of life

2. I am the Light of the Lord

3. I am the Door

4. I am the Good Shepherd

5. I am the Resurrection

6. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

7. I am the True Vine.

I Am the Bread

John 6:35

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.

Question: Does hearing these words satisfy your hunger and quench your thirst?

Answer: If it makes sense then cool, if not, there’s a reason.

Study: John’s gospel is the only gospel that is written in the correct order of events.

Matthew - Kind of keeps in order but bounces between events

Mark & Luke - Stay fairly consistent but have some events out of order

Outline of John 1–6

John 1, we get a description of Jesus as the Word and how He was at the beginning of Creation. Also in John 1, we hear of the testimony of a different John, John the Baptist who proclaimed Jesus as the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. Followed by that we are introduced the first disciples; Andrew, Peter and Nathanael.

John 2 is the wedding at Cana where Jesus turns water into wine, His first miracle. Another thing mentioned is His own prophecy of His death and resurrection through His interaction with the Jews at the Temple who were making profit there.

John 3 contains the interaction with Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a Ruler of the Jews, A BIG Deal. Nicodemus asked Jesus concerning the signs He performed and if He truly was a man of God. Jesus being Jesus blows His mind by declaring no one can know the Kingdom of Heaven unless He is born again. This idea is far beyond Nicodemus’ understanding as expressed through his silly question of how can someone be born again, must he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?

Reminder, Nicodemus was a pharisee and ruler of the Jews which implies that He was a teacher. He was knowledge and studies “spiritual things” yet could not perceive the Spiritual things Jesus spoke of… The famous line of “for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” appears here in this same interaction.

John includes another time where John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the Christ who was to come to solidify early on this letter that Jesus really is the Messiah that was to come into this world and it’s being most obviously clear through His miracles.

John 4 contains a story of a woman at the well who met Jesus as He asked her for water and another story telling of a man’s son who was healed because of the man’s faith in what Jesus could do.

In John 5, Jesus heals a man on the sabbath and that causes a big stir for the Jews because they believed that nothing should be practiced on the sabbath. Jesus tells them He is doing the will of the Father and that He was the one whom Moses even prophesied of. This made the Jews more upset.

And we finally find ourselves in John 6 where Jesus has to leave Jerusalem and go to the other side of the Sea at Galilee.

John 6 is broken into three different parts. Verses 1-15 cover Jesus feeding the five thousand, in the middle of John 6, verses 17-21, Jesus walks on water and following that event on the next day, the crowd that sought out Jesus because of the signs He did, sought out Jesus again but specifically for more food after receiving their fill just a day before.

Something strange coming out of John 6:26 is what’s said by Jesus to the people,

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.”

Why am I suggesting this as something strange? Look above at John 6:1–2,

“After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.”

They pursued Him first for the signs and miracles he did out of interest for what He could do for them. After receiving something temporary such as food, they went to Him again not out of interest for what He can do but instead for how He can satisfy a specific temporary need.

How often do we run to Jesus only when we specifically need something? We haven’t captured the idea of Christ as the Bread of Life, but this is just a small part of us understanding what that means. Jesus is not some genie in a bottle that we should seek out when we want to satisfy a temporary need. He is so much better…

Now we come to our text,

John 6:27–35 (ESV)

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?

(This is revealing of their blindness. Jesus literally fed everyone to the point of being full with just 5 loaves of bread and two fish! They went after Him at the beginning of John 6 because He performed SIGNS. They heard of those signs and they were finally witnesses to those signs, yet they could not perceive those signs) We continue in reading…

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”

(This comes from Exodus when God provided Manna from heaven when the Israelites were in the Wilderness crying out to God because they were hungry. The Israelites were very disobedient yet, in God’s grace, God still provided)…

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.”

This sort of a side note, and I don’t want to overload you with scripture but I mentioned before the woman at the well in John 4. When Jesus explained to her that He offers water to drink that will never make someone thirsty. Her response to His words are similar to the response from the people here in our text. Her responses is from John 4:15,

“The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.””

Both the people and the Samaritan woman refer to Jesus as Sir, and make a request to give water and bread. This gives a great setup for us to our next verse in the passage

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.

Had you have been sitting in the crowd, what do you think might have been your response?

I am the bread…

This has to be the most profound statement compared to the rest of the I am statements. Now I could be exaggerating in some way as they are all uniquely profound. But this is the very first of the 7 I am statements in the gospel of John. John’s big point in His gospel is to help his readers understand that Jesus is the Christ. For Him to be the Christ, He must have performed signs and demonstrated that He was equal to Father. Indeed, He was all that.‌

When Jesus describes Himself as the bread, this statement is meant to lay out a couple of truths. 1. We are too consumed with what’s in front of us. 2. The manna that came from Heaven for Israel in Exodus, He is that but more, the true fulfilling bread that sustains.

We are too consumed with what’s in front of us:‌

Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. We have responsibilities in this life and as Christians, we bear a responsibility to love people as Christ does and share the good news of Jesus. The ancient philosophy imposed by the Greeks that the material life is bad, and the spiritual life is the ultimate good is not a gospel that Jesus promoted. If it was what He intended for then He wouldn’t have had a physically resurrected body.

I believe to best understand what Jesus is teaching to not focus solely on the material world, we should look at other things He said, specifically

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”

It’s here in

Matthew 6

where Jesus speaks about not being anxious or troubled with anything in this life. As you know, each day brings trouble of its own. If I spend an hour looking at my bank account, I’m prone to be worried about my bank account. If I sat and watched sports all day, my mind would want to think about how good the Mariners are playing right now and where they could be towards the end of the season. None of these are bad, money management is good and necessary. Baseball is fun and meant to be enjoyed. But if the focus of our lives shifts from one thing to the other, what are you living for?

‌Something my wife has been asking me for the last few months is what I want the next 5 years of our lives together to look like. If you’re like me, you’ll feel like that’s a difficult question. In part, it’s not because it’s only considering the next 5 years. Unlike my wife’s question that’s only limited to the next five years, the question of what you’re living for packs a greater punch. Today, tomorrow, next week, next year, 5 years, 10 years, up to the point of your death, how do you want to make it count?

‌This is part of what makes the Christian life unique. We are tasked with living for today, but also living for eternity. Eternity is a long time. Aside from all the things you want to do in the future, the only way we can live for the future is by living in the present with the future in mind.

‌What’s the future?

‌The future is in God’s hands and if the future is in God’s hands, then that should bring comfort.

‌The problems that we face are not just physical or material matters, they are spiritual matters because everything is subject to God who has power over everything. When Jesus presented Himself as the bread of life, part of what He’s saying is that He is present. He came from Heaven above to make Himself accessible and by faith, we can be filled in a way that satisfies all hunger. Turn to Him and seek Him daily.

‌Considering the second truth I mentioned earlier concerning Jesus as the manna from Heaven, in our passage the crowds sought out Jesus for signs to be done.

BIG IDEA: Our lives are limited to what we experience. What we taste, smell, touch, hear, and see (the 5 senses). I don’t want to tell you that this physical body is bad and that you should only pursue the spiritual (this is what Greek philosophy believed). If God only cared about the spiritual then it wouldn’t have made sense for the Son to have existed in a physical body. What I do want to emphasize is that this life is limited, because this life is limited we restrict ourselves by choosing to be constantly distracted with other things that are just as limited as we are.