The Bread of Life

1. Three strikes : John 6.29-36

2. Satisfaction in Jesus and saving faith: John 6:35

3. God’s Sovereign Work: John 6.37-40

Strike 1 is in verse 32.

John 6:32 ESV

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.

Not Moses but God the Father gave the bread.

Strike 2

John 6:33–34 ESV

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.”

john 6.33

You are seeing but you don’t see

You are looking at the bread from heaven but you cannot see it. It is right in front of you. The truth of God is right in front of us when we wake each day and see the sun shine through our windows, hear the birds in the trees, watch our children growing into adults. These are all echoes of God’s glorious creation. We see them daily but do we?

Strike 3

John 6:36 ESV

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

john 6.36

Seeing isn’t believing in the spiritual realm it seems. This swing and miss is equivalent to having to pick yourself up out of the batters box after swinging right through and whiffing completely. You can see the bread of life standing in front of you but do not believe.

Why? Why do they not believe?

John 6:35 ESV

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.

I believe sheds light on this question both for them and us.

Does Jesus really satisfy? I still feel unsatisfied often maybe most the time.

Faith: Satisfaction in Jesus

What does spiritual Hunger and spiritual thirst feel or look like in this physical world?

Spiritual Hunger and thirst are revealed in the places we find our satisfaction, worth, value, joy, comfort, peace.

These desires are God given. Built into the fabric of the world and human beings.

So spiritual hunger and thirst looks like desires. Longings.

We have routes we take to find joy and meaning. They are like unconscious strategies to bypass dependance on our creator alone and find independant meaning, happiness, satisfaction a part from Him. They are our means of trying to maintain, in some measure, the control of our own lives which we are so reluctant to turn over to God and rest in His care.

If we don’t find Christ of supreme value, if he is not our supreme satisfaction, something else will be. As a result, we will be drawn away from the Christian faith.

Our hearts will not rest until they find contentment in something. Our hearts are a desire factory, and if we think that we just fall into delight in God or satisfaction in God without any pursuit of it or conscious maintenance of that flame, we’re kidding ourselves.

Illustrate:

Why is that? Because we do not want to lose what we think we need for our happiness. We desperately cling to that which cannot fulfill our lives even though it means being eventually caught in the trap of our own making.

Illustrate:

A Strange Melancholy After the global economic crisis began in mid 2008, there followed a tragic string of suicides of formerly wealthy and well-connected individuals. The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, hanged himself in his basement. The chief executive of Sheldon Good, a leading U.S. real estate auction firm, shot himself in the head behind the wheel of his red Jaguar. A French money manager who invested the wealth of many of Europe’s royal and leading families, and who had lost $1.4 billion of his clients’ money in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, slit his wrists and died in his Madison Avenue office. A Danish senior executive with HSBC Bank hanged himself in the wardrobe of his £500-a-night suite in Knightsbridge, London. When a Bear Stearns executive learned that he would not be hired by JPMorgan Chase, which had bought his collapsed firm, he took a drug overdose and leapt from the twenty-ninth floor of his office building. A friend said, “This Bear Stearns thing . . . broke his spirit.” Taken from Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller

My friends, it is imperative that we evaluate and recognize the source and nature of our strategies by which we seek to make our lives work, our routes for joy, security, and significance. As to their nature they represent our greedy self-centeredness and self-indulgence by which we seek like mad to find happiness and satisfaction (cf. ).

But what’s the source of our greedy selfishness, our self-centeredness, our self-indulgence? These things have their roots not from our basic needs or our deepest longings, but in a spirit of independence. They stem from our determined commitment to act independently of God in our pursuit of significance, security, and satisfaction. Online Bible.org

Faith: Satisfaction in Jesus

John 6:35 ESV

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.

this verse shows us the nature of saving faith. Notice the parallel between coming to Jesus to be satisfied and believing on Jesus. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger.” That’s the first statement. We come to Jesus to have our hunger stilled.

Now parallel to that, and repeating the meaning, is the next statement: “And whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Coming to Jesus to be satisfied in him and believing on him so as not to thirst are the same.

So saving faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus.

So the implications are if we are not being satisfied in and through Christ we are not really His.

When we die we will perish in Hell. True belief is a all satisfying belief.

In a world hot in pursuit of quenching its thirst with everything but God, Tozer wrote:

What does spiritual Hunger and spiritual thirst feel or look like in a physical world?

We have routes we take to find joy and meaning. They are like unconscious strategies to bypass dependance on our creator alone and find independant meaning, happiness, satisfaction a part from Him. They are our means of trying to maintain, in some measure, the control of our own lives which we are so reluctant to turn over to God and rest in His care.

But second, because all other routes to joy and meaning represent strategies for living that bypass dependence on the Lord alone.

Why is that? Because we do not want to lose what we think we need for our happiness. We desperately cling to that which cannot fulfill our lives even though it means being eventually caught in the trap of our own making.

My friends, it is imperative that we evaluate and recognize the source and nature of our strategies by which we seek to make our lives work, our routes for joy, security, and significance. As to their nature they represent our greedy self-centeredness and self-indulgence by which we seek like mad to find happiness and satisfaction (cf. ).

But what’s the source of our greedy selfishness, our self-centeredness, our self-indulgence? These things have their roots not from our basic needs or our deepest longings, but in a spirit of independence. They stem from our determined commitment to act independently of God in our pursuit of significance, security, and satisfaction. Online Bible.org

In a world hot in pursuit of quenching its thirst with everything but God, Tozer wrote:

In the midst of this great coldness toward God there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me thy glory.” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.2

This doesn’t mean hunger and thirst in our souls does not rise up every day. It means now we know what it’s for. Now we know where to turn. Now we know what to drink and what to eat. Instead of running to my performance and others approval for my self worth I run to Jesus. I read His word, I meditate on His Holy word. I remind myself of His truths about His children. I allow him to give me my satisfaction, worth, value in Him. Dependant trust, And there is a never-ending supply. This is what we were made for. All other treasures, all other pleasures point to this. Jesus is the all-satisfying end of every longing. DG/JP Sermon

John 6:37–40 ESV

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

john 6.37-

3.1. The father gives his chosen ones to the son.

-this is foundational to undserstanding Why some come and some do not. Some see Jesus but do not see Him. They do not and will not surrender to His Lordship. They will not find Him to be the all satisfying treasure that He is.

-But some will come to the son, Why? Because the father gives them to the son in His sovereign authority.

3.2. Those who come to Jesus are kept under the almighty power of Christ Himself.

-They will not be lost. They will not be cast out. If we are His there is nothing or noone who can change that. This is eternal security.

3.3. Jesus will raise us from the dead on the last day. Death feels so final, but we know from God’s word that that is just not the case. Our bodies will be riased as our souls will already be in the presence of God. So death will not win even over our bodies

3.4. The Will of God in our coming, His giving, our raising, our believing is unshakable.

-Here in the text John mentions 3 x the will of the Father. The soveriegn will of God is the most trustworthy thing in all the world.

What He has promised He will do.

Isaiah 46:8–11 ESV

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

So do you know you are His today? How can you know?

John 6:36 ESV

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

John 6:35 ESV

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.

Have you placed faith in Jesus in this way? You are seeking to fulfill your deepest desires through Him. You are being satisfied through and in HIm. You are treasuriung Him as the all consuming treasure that He is.

If you are finding Him to be your greatest Joy then God must be at home in your heart. If you find your desires wanting and you are trying to find happiness, joy, life in the gifts of God not the giver then you indeed may be outside of Christ having placed your hope in a false God.

Come to Christ today for your ultimate satisfaction.

He is the bread of Life.

When they asked for this bread that gives life, Jesus made the final connection between Him and His heavenly Father:

“And Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger.'” ()

As Jesus continued to teach, He spoke metaphorically, that whoever would partake of Him by eating His flesh and drinking His blood would have eternal life. In other words, those who united themselves with Him and made His life their own could receive the benefit of eternal life. But they didn't understand Him. Many were offended by His words. But then He made it clear: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” ()

Jesus Christ was willing to feed them the words of life and the significance of His life. He wanted to give of Himself, the Word of God in the flesh, to them, but they were not willing to partake of Him due to their lack of faith. But no human could ever promise such a fulfilling and satisfying gift as the spiritual life which Jesus Christ offered, and still offers today.

The Bread of Life

Outline:

1. Three strikes v.29-36

Saving Faith: Satisfaction in Jesus

2. Satisfaction in Jesus and saving faith v.35

What is the source, nature, or strategy by which you are seeking to make your life work?

3. God’s Sovereign Work. v.37-40