John 6 Pt 2 Jesus Feast

Last Week

Ok if you have been with is then you know we have been on a series through the book of John.

Last week Pastor Bethany walked through two of Jesus’ signs and she did a fantastic Job…

Jesus fed the 5,000, and then he walked on water

Manna from Heaven

Before we dive deeply into John 6…Which by the way is a very hard chapter of John…I want to recap for a minute what last week was about and the story of the Exodus.

So John 6 begins with two signs..If you missed last week, Jesus fed the 5,000 people by the sea of Galilee and then he walked on water across the entire lake.

And all of this is all set in the shadow of the passover

What Jesus wants us to remember here is our Bibles…He really wants us to remember the book of Exodus

Whenever we even read about Passover we should immediately think…”The feast that saves the Jews from Slavery”

So what Jesus was doing here was entering into the story of Israel

One of the things that we have to understand about the time in which Jesus lived is that they were not only expecting a Messiah to come and save them, but that they were expecting this messiah to be like Moses.

Moses told them this:

Deuteronomy 18:15 NIV

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.

The Jewish Rabbis specifically taught that the messiah would gather his people in the dessert at the end times and lead them to the promised land

But there was one expectation of the coming messiah that is really specific to this story that when you read it I think you will get what Jesus is doing here

There are books that helpful context but not biblical…They were used by the Rabbis almost as commentary,

It is impotrant to note that while these books did not make it into the Bible, it does not mean we can not use them

as context but are very helpful context to understand what the ancients were thinking

So this is something that you will not find in your bibles but it is an ancient text that new testament people were reading

So lets look at 2 Baruch 29:3, 6-8

3 And it shall come to pass when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah shall then begin to be revealed. 

6 And those who have hungered shall rejoice: moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day. 7 For winds shall go forth from before Me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the day clouds distilling the dew of health. 8 And it shall come to pass at that self-same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time.

2 Baruch 29: 3, 6-8

So the expectation is that when the messiah comes. He will miraculously feed Israel again with Manna.

Now if you don’t know what Manna is or you need a refresher

When God saved his people out of Egypt

They walked through the red sea on dry ground….Hmm…Jesus just walked across the top of the sea of Galilee…Maybe there is some connection here!

And after that, there was one of the most amazing worship songs in the whole bible lead by Moses’s wife…

Everyone praised God…The Egyptians were washed into the sea it was amazing

Until they got hungry!

When they got Hungry, this is what happened

Exodus 16:2–3 NIV

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

So there is a difference between hunger and starvation

And I really think that the Israelites were starving at this point…

They get into the desert and they grumble!

So God provides for the food from heaven

It is supernatural food.

Exodus 16:4–5 NIV

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

I love that God calls this bread from heaven.

They were to collect it each day and then on the day before the sabbath collect twice the amount to last for the sabbath.

This is why Jesus taught us to pray

Matthew 6:11 NIV

Give us today our daily bread.

It is a callback…A reminder that Once they lived on the daily bread of God

The word daily here is an anomaly in the Greek the word is “epiousios” (EPI-OO-SIOS) …It occurs nowhere else

Early church fathers translated this Give us this day our “supernatural” bread

In other words Jesus was teaching us to pray for bread from heaven

Embedded in this prayer that we are supposed to recite over and over again is a reminder of the exodus and the food that God fed his people

So there is much more I can say but just as a recap before we even look at John 6…

In the first half of John 6, Jesus fed 5,000 people…with five barley loaves and two fishes

HMMMM…Strange right?

Then Jesus walks across water….And by the way…Moses is mentioned in chapter 5, 6 and 7 in the book of John and guess what Jesus is about to do? he is about to announce that he is the new and greater moses

Ok…This is all helpful as we approach our text today!

John 6:25–34 NIV

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

Ok Quick note from last week: Everyone saw Jesus disciples get into a boat but Jesus did not. Then everyone is on the other side of the lake the next day and Jesus is there…and before everyone else.

When Jesus walked up to his disciples the text before this says the disciples were going to take Jesus into the boat but then immediately they reached the other side of the lake…

So in the beginning of our text today those who traveled the night before were like…jesus how on earth did you get here so fast?

But Jesus has something else to talk about

Jesus wants to talk about food that does not spoil…He said work for that kind of food

And I think that the people around Jesus were probably just as perplexed as you and I would be today…

They are like…”What must we do to do the works God requires?”

And the response of jesus is this

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

I love this so much because this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding that happens in life around salvation

I have had this conversation 10,000 times.

There is a default way of thinking…I have to do in order to please…I need to perform to earn…I mean it makes sense

If you are a lawyer…You better bill hours if your going to bring home the bacon…At your job, whatever that is…You better do the right thing to move up the ladder…

I even have this fleshly voice that is wrong in the back of my head…It is so wrong but it has been there for years no matter how much I know it is a complete lie…That voice comes up every now and again…”You are only one bad sermon away fro everyone leaving”

You better work hard!

Every area of life demands our performance

So it is no wonder that this mentality filters right into our life with God

That we have to work to please him

We have to do the works that God requires

But Jesus response to this is such a paradox

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

The work that God demands is not work at all, it is trust

Trusting and believing isn’t “work” in the traditional sense

We are all running around trying to perform for God and his response is just believe in me

This is so freeing. So many times I have met with people and they just want to please God and do what he requires…And that is a great mentality to have but Jesus is like…Just believe in me!

So now we get into all the pre work that we just did to get into this text

The people around Jesus literally say What sign are you going to give us so that we may believe you

Then they reference Jesus feeding the 5,000 by asking him this question

John 6:30–31 NIV

So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

What we have to understand is that Jesus audience absolutely understood what was going on

They had expectations

They knew a messiah was coming

They knew he would be one like Moses

They expected that this messiah would again rain down bread from heaven…

So Jesus corrects them a bit

John 6:32–34 NIV

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

He reminds them: Moses had no power…It was the father in heaven that Gave this manna

And this bread gives life to the world

So they correctly say to Jesus

Sir we always want this bread…Please give us this bread

And Jesus responds with what is the first of seven“I am” Statements in the gospel of John

John 6:35–40 NIV

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Here Jesus re-orients all of their understanding

I am the bread of life! I am what you live on

Jesus didn’t come to fill our stomachs he is here to fill our soul

See we are all eternal beings..we are souls and our souls were designed to feast on God and not temporary things

There is a reason why you hear the testimony over and over and over again

I was living apart from God

I was having sex outside of marriage

I was going after money and fancy things

I was going after what the world says is valuable and

at the end of the day I was so empty!

The reality is that you were designed to feast on Jesus

Stop going to all these other things to satisfy you…

These things are just temporary relief to your emptiness and in reality the things you go after just dig a bigger hole in your life…

Jesus is offering, “I will fill your empty soul”

This is what it means that he is the bread of life!

let’s keep going

John 6:41–52 NIV

At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

John is very strategic with this

The people were grumbling!

Just as Jesus is entering into the exodus story…The people are entering it too…

They are grumbling! Just like the people of israel in the wilderness!

Jesus is telling us something really key to understand in salvation here

He says: no one can come to me unless the father, who sent me draws them

Here is a really key point…We have to understand that our salvation is God’s doing…Jesus died on the cross for us….While our work is to believe in Jesus…It is God the father who wakes us up to the reality that we need Jesus

We call this prevenient grace This is God’s stirring in our hearts to search for him

It is God enabling us to see him

God’s role in salvation is beckoning us to Jesus, he creates the desire for the kind of bread we need

This is the divine grace that precedes human decision,

It is God acting on individuals before they are aware of God to draw them toward salvation

This is what Jesus says that he does…No one can come to him unless the father enables it…

If you are here investigating faith because you are just wondering…There must be more out there!

Guess what! This is God working on your life! It is the father drawing you in.

It’s like the most amazing invitation in the world for God the father to invite you into his presence!

So Jesus speaking metaphorically says I am the bread of life and then he says this bread is my flesh

and they can not understand this

John 6:53–70 NIV

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!”

Now if you have a Catholic background, John 6 is often taken very literally.

During the Eucharist, the priest blesses the elements, and Catholics believe the elements transubstantiate — meaning the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ while still retaining the appearance of bread and wine.

For protestants when we read John 6 we see the metaphorical.

Jesus says I am the bread of life…But he is not actual bread he is a human

John 1, says Jesus is the lamb of God, John 6 says this is passover and at the end of John 6 Jesus says to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Clearly Jesus is metaphorically the ultimate passover lamb

So we do not take it literally that the literal presence of Jesus is in the element

but what we should take seriously is not necessary that the elements transubstantiate but that every time we take communion

every time we take the bread and the cup that we should transubstantiate, we should transform

That we should become more and more like Jesus

we should embody the life of Jesus more and more!

But upon hearing this difficult teaching

Many of Jesus followers

John 6:66 NIV

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Obviously they misunderstood

Jesus was not advocating for cannibalism and this is what they didn’t understand about what Jesus was saying

But what I love about this verse is what peter declares

John 6:67–69 NIV

“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Peter is making a bold statement

You are the son of the living God

You have the words of eternal life

In other words, Peter brings up a question

Where else can we get eternal life? Where else do find life that is truly life?

Peter here is the picture of a person who is doing the work of believing

And in that time it is okay especially when times get tough to say

okay Jesus, I may not fully understand what You mean, but I know who You are.

Conclusion

Feast on Jesus

What are you feeding your soul with?

Because everybody is hungry for something.

Some people are feeding on success.

Some are feeding on relationships.

Some are feeding on pleasure.

Some are feeding on politics, money, attention, achievement, entertainment.

And Jesus stands in the middle of all of it and says:

“I am the bread of life.”

His life is not bread that temporarily fills.

But his life is supernatural bread from heaven.

Bread that gives eternal life.

The Israelites ate manna in the wilderness and still died.

But Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on me will live forever.”

And this is why Peter’s words matter so much.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?”

That is the question every human being eventually has to answer.

Where else are we going to go?

Because eventually money is not enough.

Success is not enough.

Pleasure is not enough.

Religion by itself is not enough.

Even our own strength is not enough.

Only Jesus has the words of eternal life.

And maybe that is where some of you are today.

Maybe you do not understand everything about Jesus yet.

Neither did Peter.

Maybe there are parts of faith that still confuse you.

Maybe there are teachings of Jesus you still wrestle with.

But faith begins when you can say:

“Jesus, I do not fully understand everything…

but I know who You are.”

You are the Holy One of God.

You are the bread of life.

You are the only one who can satisfy the hunger in my soul.

So I want to invite you to the table today.

And we are going to do it a bit differentley because I want to give you

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