I Am The Bread of Life
Notes
Transcript
I Am...tell them I Am sent you. Some of you recognize this from either the bible or from the movie “The Ten Commandments”. It is what the Israelites knew God as.
Most of us today would call God, Yahweh. Or because the Hebrew language did not use vowels...it is spelled YHWH. It is to represent the breathing in and breathing out. So we worship God with the very breath we breathe.
And today as we start looking at the very first “I Am” statement that Christ spoke about himself. As we have discussed, John’s Gospel was to emphasize Christ’s Humanity and His Deity. Christ stating these I Am statements is Him explaining His divine nature by putting himself in the same category as God.
In doing some research I discovered that all of Jesus’ I AM statements are found in John’s gospel. They include:
1. I am the bread of Life
2. I am the light of the world
3. I am the door
4. I am the good shepherd
5. I am the resurrection and the life
6. I am the way, the truth, and the life
7. I am the (true) vine
Each one of the I AM ‘s represents a particular relationship of Jesus to the spiritual NEEDS of men and women. Jesus is the Light in the darkness, the Gate to security, and the Shepherd that guides. He is the way, the truth and the life. In every one of these we see that Jesus wants us to receive him, NOT for the gifts he can give us, but for what he can BE to us.
Right after the feeding of the 5 thousand Jesus made the first of the recorded I AM statements.
This was the point where Jesus had reached the apex of his popularity. In fact last week we said, the crowds wanted to take him --- by force if necessary --- and MAKE him their King.
Because of this, Jesus crossed the lake to get away from their demands. But the next day when they figured out where he was, the growing crowd commandeered boats and followed him across the lake.
It was at that point that Jesus told a record-breaking crowd:
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.
John chapter 6 tells us they grumbled, they mumbled, they argued, they whined, and ultimately they left --- in droves.
It is here that I want to give a little caveat...People have been the same throughout history. And as a pastor, it is my job to give you the text as it is shown, but at times it seems that I am attacking the church and the people.
That is never my intention. What I want us to realize and to be very aware of is the state of things today in our society and that it is no different then the time Jesus walked this world.
The text gives us some clues as to the kind of people that left Jesus behind when he preached the “bread of life” sermon.
For one thing, the MATERIALISTIC folks just couldn’t stomach it when Jesus shifted from physical food to spiritual talk.
1. The I wants
Many of the people who followed Jesus at this point were hoping for a political savior. They wanted political solutions, free handouts, and material goodies. Sounds all to familiar to the political divide we have today in our country.
For them Jesus was the latest and greatest gravy train. These people had watched Rome have limited success by instituting a sort of welfare program that they called a Bread for Peace. There were many hungry, jobless, homeless people in Rome. So the government tried to avoid riots by buying them off with goodies. The plan backfired, because the demands of the crowd simply grew and grew.
Well, Jesus knew that he faced a similar problem the day after he fed the masses with barley cakes and salt-dried fish. In fact, when the crowd arrived, look at how he greeted them. He told them...
Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
On a very minor scale, I can see how Jesus felt. Just looking at how some are so scared that their government handouts will be coming to an end. When those handouts were never meant to sustain life, but to allow time for people to get back on their feet. I am not talking SS checks...you worked your whole life...you deserve what you put into it.
Missionaries in third-world countries often talk about “Rice Christians.” These are people who will quickly convert to Christianity in exchange for food or some other physical benefit. The problem with Rice Christians is that when goodies are gone, so are they.
American Christians are not so different. Too many people use church for business contacts or community status. Rice Christians can be found all over the world. These people look to God only for what they can get. They are quick to turn their back on God the first time he fails to deliver.
Jesus told the crowd:
Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”
The I wants turned away from his message. Others would eventually turn away also. They were the LEGALISTS.
2. The We wants
They asked him,
“What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked.
If these people couldn’t get a free lunch, they at least wanted a list of rules they could hang on to. I never cease to be amazed that religion, by its very nature, draws some people who are actually looking for a dominating, charismatic leader to call the shots and take over their lives.
There is a new cult group on every corner these days led by a control freak who turns his followers into some sort of goats...instead of being the shepherd he was called to be.
Throughout Christian history, the church has often fallen into the sin of LEGALISM. The problem is, it’s easier to make rules than to build relationships.
Jesus wants to live in the heart of every individual believer. He has sent his Spirit, The Holy Spirit, to write His Law on our hearts. He calls every one of us to study His word for ourselves and learn from Him. When we do that, the church enjoys an amazing unity in morals and principles. Here at NEC, we want to teach the scripture and to encourage everyone to seek a personal relationship with the Lord. To pray, to worship and to read for yourself His word...not David Richard’s word.
But some people simply don’t want a deep relationship with God. They’d rather find a strong leader and memorize a set of rules. Jesus had no interest in these kind of followers. Jesus came to build relationships, not rules.
When the crowd demanded a list of works, Jesus gave this surprising answer:
Jesus replied, “This is the work of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.”
As amazing as it sounds, Jesus wants a genuine love relationship with every one of us. That kind of relationship can’t be bought with goodies, and it can’t be built on rules. The I wants wanted the goodies more than they wanted God. The it should be this wayers wanted the LAW but not the GIVER of that law. They rejected Jesus as a replacement for the rule-keeping religion of that day.
And one more group walked out on Jesus that day. They were the SENSATIONALISTS.
3. The I needs
These people asked Jesus this absurd question:
“What sign, then, are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?” they asked. “What are you going to perform?
Think about it. Jesus had just fed over 5,000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. The very next day, they are asking him for a SIGN! Obviously the miracle of feeding the 5,000 gave them enough faith to climb in boats and row all the way across the lake to find Jesus.
But yesterday’s miracle was not enough to last until the next morning.
We have plenty of these kind of churchgoers in America today. I like to call these kind of folks “pep rally believers.” Keep them “wowed” and you’ll keep them around; they get bored and they are gone.
These people crave spiritual excitement. They love spectacular entertainment. They want new experiences all they time. They want the smoke machines. They want the whooping and hollering. They want Jesus to take them from one mountaintop experience to the next with no valleys in between. They want all kinds of rewards but no responsibility.
Churches today are filled with these kind of people. Insatiable appetite for spiritual excitement, but total lack of responsibility toward the Lord Himself.
The sad truth is that many believers are very fickle. That’s why so many people hop from church, to church, to church --- always looking for the newest style, the latest seminar, the most electrifying concert, and the most exciting presentation. Go to Mardel, you will see all kinds of books stating “Forty days of this… fifty day adventure to that… seven habits of successful whatever.”
Now, I’m not saying these things are bad. We need to focus on special emphasis now and then, and some of these programs are helpful. But it’s way too easy for church-going folk to start chasing after the latest fad in the religious world.
Jesus did not come to give us endless spiritual highs. He came to give us a chance to know Him. Look at the message Jesus gave to the all those people that day:
For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. But as I told you, you’ve seen me, and yet you do not believe.
The response of the crowd tells us a lot about the difference between what people truly WANT and what people truly NEED. So often the very thing people need the most is the last thing they are looking for. Look at the sad response of the crowd:
Therefore the Jews started grumbling about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
When you think about it, the people who walked out on Jesus wanted what he could give to them in the same way a customer might demand service for pay. They wanted to do business with Jesus the soup kitchen, Jesus the cult leader, Jesus the miracle-worker. Jesus, the Bread of Life didn’t resonate with them. So they walked away.
CONCLUSION:
It turns out that even some of His closest disciples wanted Jesus only for what they could get out of Him. They had no real interest in a relationship with God.
That led to what I think is one of the most poignant moments in the Bible. Jesus, who was totally God, was also totally human. He felt what any of us would feel. He experienced the pain of rejection … especially the rejection of those he had considered close friends.
The Apostles weren’t there for fish sandwiches, or to start a Jewish revolt against Rome, or to find a new list of rules to keep, or to get in on a Jesus pep rally, or to hold a big miracle crusade. They were there because they believed and knew that Jesus was the Holy One of God --- the Messiah --- the Bread of Life. All they needed was what they already had --- Jesus himself.
Is He all you need? Is he YOUR Bread of Life? If you had been there the day Jesus preached the Bread of Life sermon would you have walked away, or would you today accept His word and believe in Him as the bread you desperately need.
